Archive for: May, 2007
May 31st, 2007
Google CEO tows Google line at D5
Google CEO Eric Schmidt may have had closing honors at the D5 All Things Digital Conference in San Diego, but he didn’t seize the moment to break new Google ground.
By all accounts of Schmidt’s remarks, he offered up his standard conference circuit pitch.
1) On allegations of “massive copyright infringement” aka Viacom $1 billion dolllar lawsuit.
Schmidt: “We follow the law.”
Translation: Our army of 100+ in-house lawyers fortified by global top tier counsel worldwide will prevail in a courtroom battle proving the Google DMCA interpretation is the right one.
BUT, Vicaom is not the only one suing Google for massive copyright infringement.
Perhaps Walt Mossberg only questioned Schmidt about Viacaom’s lawsuit, but the real story is that the YouTube lawsuits keep coming, as I have been exttensively reporting and analyzing.
SEE: Google at Risk: YouTube class action lawsuit changes DMCA copyright game
What about the Schmidt assertion that Viacom “should have waited” for the Google “tools that are in development.”
Perhaps he was referring to the who knows when YouTube “Claim Your Content” supposed panacea.
I refute that Schmidt story in Google CEO upholds YouTube copyright infringing business model.
2) Google Phone, or not? Of course not, is the Schmidt line. No surprise; I got the scoop straight from the NYC Googleplex in April, when I asked a Google Engineer leading mobile apps efforts.
SEE: Google Engineering: The REAL story
Why such an interest in mobile then? Schmidt presented the case he has made before on the circuit: Widespread cellphone adoption throughout the world, coupled with personalised advertising targeting capabilities, combine for an untapped, lucrative market opportunity.
3) Google is no monoploy predator, aka Microsoft. After all, competition is but a mouse click away. I preempted that Schmidt line, and more, yesterday.
May 31st, 2007
Google: YAY! Checkout goes mobile
The Google Engineering team does not seem to have synched its news cycle.
At the same time that Google Engineering gives us Developer Day with show-stopper Google Gears, Google Checkout engineers give us “Look, Ma-no wires,” to proclaim Google Checkout is now available by mobile phone, sometimes.
Google Checkout on the handheld? Where is it on the desktop?
Below is a “Universal Search” for books at Google. While there are plenty of household names AdWords customers hawking their books for sale, NONE is sporting the cute little Checkout icon.
What about Universal Search?
The top ”most relevant” destination on the Web for “books,” is Google Books, according to Google.
Google has also declared its Google Books to be the winner in the Google keyword “auction” for books!
May 31st, 2007
AP to copyright infringers: Pay up, for news online
Has the Web’s copyright infringement tide turned? A (very) “old media” company is taking the digital copyright protection lead, big time.
When I met with Jim Brock, CEO of stealth-mode start-up Attributor, in New York City earlier this month, he shared with me his vision for mapping, tracking and assisting in appropriately monetizing the proprietary content of publishers across the Web.
SEE: Web content DNA Map: Copyright control, monetization online
Brock also was itching to share with me his “big news” about Attributor’s first big client, and it indeed is big, as Brock was able to share with me today.
Attributor announces that it has been retained by the Associated Press to provide Web-wide monitoring and analysis of the online use of AP content with the aim of identifying unauthorized use.
Attributor technology will be used to fingerprint AP copy and to identify and document its display wherever it appears across the Internet.
Brock told me today “Attributor aims to bring transparency and accountability to the online content economy.”
In gaining the confidence of AP, not only has Attributor landed its first paid client, it is collaborating with “one of the largest producers and distributors of online content.”
What is in it for AP?
The leading news orgnization is intensifying its efforts to protect its copyrights on the Web and hopes to uncover new sources of revenue. In subscribing to Attributor’s service, the AP will track how its stories are distributed across thousands of Web sites. Plans include eventual expansion for monitoring of the use of photos and videos on the Internet, as well.
Brock told me, “In addition to helping publishers of all kinds protect the value of content assets for authorized licensees, we will also help them capture additional editorial and advertising value.”
The AP is putting it more bluntly. Srinandan Kasi, the news cooperative’s general counsel:
What we are trying to say is that if someone wants to use our news, they have to pay for it.
Why is Kasi attracted by the Attributor solution?
Attributor so far has indexed more than 13 billion Web pages, providing the AP with a potentially powerful tool for better understanding how its content is being consumed online and, ultimately, detect copyright violations.
Rather than trying to scan all the material that AP produces each day, Attributor initially will focus on a few hundred stories likely to attract a lot of readers. Web sites that are updated frequently will be tracked more intensively. The AP can log in to Attributor’s service to track usage and flag potential copyright violations.
AP will compensate Attributor depending upon usage levels.
“It’s the start of a movement,” Brock enthused. A real “Claim Your Content” movement!
ALSO: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Google at Risk: YouTube class action lawsuit changes DMCA copyright game
Google’s risky advertiisng business
May 31st, 2007
Google acquisition game: GreenBorder the next Dodgeball?
Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly was my immediate reaction to the public reaction to Google’s “acquisition” of GreenBorder Technologies desktop security play.
While the blogosphere generally caught wind of the deal a few days ago, it was actually a done deal weeks ago. When I learned of it a while back, I viewed it as part and parcel of Google’s ongoing weekly engineering investments, aka a business as usual build versus buy play, as I presented in Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly Tuesday.
I have written extensively on Google’s diverse acqusition strategies, including the Google hire by buying modus operandi, as I reported and analyzed almost one year ago in Google Jobs: How does Google really recruit talent?
Google CEO Eric Schmidt on”How many acquisitions do you do?”:
It’s one or two a week it seems. Most acquisitions: They are very small. 1-2-3 people and you never, never hear about them.
Why would you want to be acquired by Google?
The venture guys have so much money, you don’t need to get acquired by us for capital. The reasons that they–start-ups–would choose be to be acquired are not what you might think. There is so much capital. And many of these businesses require no capital.
The reason to be acquired is that Google gives them–Web entrepreneurs–a platform that they might otherwise not be able to get. As markets consolidate these little companies often cannot get enough ‘mindshare,’ even though their technology is really good. Any one of these people are a reasonable–acquisition–candidate.
YES, Google “acquires” people, more often than not, in buying out small tech plays.
I noted that such an engineering staffing strategy seemed to be behind Google’s 2005 “acquisition” of Dodgeball, a two-person start-up based on a grad school project. The Dodgeball people, of course, have since left Google, as I had been predicting.
SEE: Google dumped by Dodgeball founders
What about GreenBorder? Rather than the popular conjecture that the virtulization play would result in a pure Google security play, aka watch out Symantec, McAfee…I have postulated that Google may actually 1) Do nothing with the company, as was the case with Dodgeball or) Use the technology for testing purposes to beef up its own existing efforts.
As I underscored earlier today in Google: Tough love for Microsoft, Google does not view such current virtualization efforts as security panaceas.
At the end of the GreenBorder day, the latest purported Google driven game changer may very well end up being but the latest incarnaton of the Google Dodgeball effect.
Why is Google attracted to GreenBorder?
We believe the expertise of GreenBorder’s small talented team of engineers will greatly benefit our users, advertisers and publishers.
Apparently, GreenBorder’s “small talented team of engineers” did not consult with Dodgeball’s even smaller team on the not quite fairy tale ending their Google rendezvous engendered.
May 31st, 2007
Google: Tough love for Microsoft
“Because the Web is Google’s platform, we are interested in improving it as much as we can,” so intones Bret Taylor, the evangelist for Google’s strategic developer initiatives.
Google “owns” the Web experience, but to”improve” it, Google must go through the Microsoft-owned desktop, as I analyze in Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop.
Does it gall CEO Schmidt to have to “Microsoft-enable” Google products? OR, does he get personal satisfaction in “using” Microsoft to achieve his Microsoft domination end-game.
SEE Google trumps Microsoft IE7 in search war?
Schmidt makes sure Google misses no opportunity to point out the supremacy of the Google cloud, over the Microsoft desktop. Given that the typical Google user uses Microsoft to reach Google, however, Schmidt must “improve” the Microsoft experience, for the good of Google.
Take desktop security, for instance. I have been breaking Google news on that front and have the real deal on Google’s latest initiatives.
SEE Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea and Google: Practice safe browsing! and Google blasts Web bots: PC big culprit in drive by downloads.
As I underscore, it is telling that Google paints the PC as the weakest link in Web security. Google to the desktop rescue, however.
But, why?
As the number one search engine is quick to proudly note, Google is often used by people as the “gateway to the Internet.” Google therefore has a $150 billion market cap vested interest in:
1) A “harmless” Internet gateway,
2) An infection free billions of Web pages that it provides the gateway to,
3) Deflecting security risk responsibility to the (Microsoft) PC.
If Microsoft will not clean up its own house, Google will do it for them!
But can the mighty Google really make “safe browsing” a given AND clean up the desktop, once and for all?
In Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea I dissect what is really behind Google’s recent absorption of the desktop security play.
Contrary to popular perception, Google does not envisage GreenBorder’s virtualization solution as a magic bullet, the core missing piece of technology in the malware battle. Google actually warns against counting on such an implementation to provide an impentetrable desktop barrier.
Google underscores that it is naive to assume such turnkey security power and emphasizes:
Virtualization is NO security panacea, treat virtual machines as services that can be compromised.
Google is not to be deterred, of course. Stay tuned for Google’s next move!
SEE: Google acquisition game: GreenBorder the next Dodgeball?
ALSO: Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
May 31st, 2007
Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Is Google Gears the missing “kick-ass” Google Apps link that will enable Google to kick Microsoft Office’s “ass”?
Is there really such a thing as a magic bullet? After all, Google must first get Google Apps right, in the Google cloud!
Google Apps has been around for a whopping nine months, several product cycles in the Googley scheme of things. Google Apps Premier version debuted in February.
As is the typical Googleplex fashion, a “game changing,” but only quarter-baked, Google add-on initiative is “unveiled” to the world, regardless that the base product is not meeting its stand alone expectations.
Today may be the start of a new Google Apps game though.
Google Apps Premiere launched as a “for-fee” product, but no fees were charged. Upon launch, April 30 was set as the drop-dead date for actually processing the $50 stated annual fee on Google Apps Premier users’ credit cards. Google then extended the “free trial,” through TODAY!
As it stands now, Google still indicates as of tomorrow, credit cards beware.
Knowing Google, however, there may just be another Googley twist looming in the cloud. Stay tuned!
ALSO: Google: Tough love for Microsoft
In the Meantime:
Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)!
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop
How Microsoft battles Google in Search warfare
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke?
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?
Google declares Google Office victory
Is Google Office really an enigma?
Google Apps goes Enterprise Professional: $5000 please
May 31st, 2007
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google Gears is not a defacto anything. Will it be though?
Once again, a strategic Google move with an end-game to bolster Google’s own fortunes is being lauded as a game changing Google gift.
How benevolent really is Google though?
The number one Internet company with ambitions to outseat the number one software company could have very well demonstrated that Google Gears is not all about Google applications by NOT using a Google product as its signature implementation: Google Reader!
Contrary to popular perception, Google engineers have NOT enabled what “Internet surfers for years have yearned for,” Web applications that work offline.
What has Google done to kick-off its day-long promotion of software developers that create products that drive more revenues to Google?
Google Gears, a browser plug-in that will let people run Web applications when they’re connected to the Internet or not. The company released the source code for the Google Gears software.
Really? And what are the tens of millions of civilan computer users to do with it? Nothing!
The initial code is aimed at JavaScript developers who write Ajax-style Web applications.
Not to fear though, Google is on the real-world ball, so says Google:
Google expects to have a consumer-ready release of Google Gears, which will be under 1 megabyte in size, “within months.”
Time will tell, or not.
SEE: Google: Tough love for Microsoft and Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
ALSO: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop
Does Google play fair in Open Source?
Microsoft gains over Google in Holy Land
May 30th, 2007
Google's love hate relationship with the desktop
Google CEO Eric Schmidt takes every opportunity to rally “Who needs the PC or a laptop for storage!” in his never ending quest to gather all the world’s information “safely” in the Google worldwide cloud. That is the Google mission.
Nevertheless, he spearheads Google efforts to extend Google to the Desktop, Google Web applications in particular.
Google has shifted into high Desktop gear with the introduction of “Google Gears”:
An open source technology for creating offline web applications. This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.
Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable.
Has Google turned ecumenical then? Hardly. Schmidt underscores the end-game:
With Google Gears we’re tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications and enabling a better user experience in the cloud.
What is Google Gears?
- A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
- A database, to store and access data from within the browser
- A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background
The Google beta disclaimer: “Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.”
As Google itself would therefore acknowledge, it is not yet time to call the Microsoft Office vs. Google Apps fight.
Things are starting to heat up, though, from all directions!
Read my exclusive interview of Gravity Zoo in Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)! discussing the implications of its OpenOffice.org porting project, designed to bring OpenOffice to the Internet.
UPDATE: Google: Tough love for Microsoft and
Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time and
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
May 30th, 2007
Forget Google, YouTube must pay!
In Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft earlier today, I signaled to John Battelle that he ought not hold his breath for Google to step up to the money plate in support of “journalism,” despite the fact that Google makes oodles of dollars off of gratis news.
Move over news industry, the film industry wants it fair shake as well, from YouTube.
At the D Conference underway in San Diego, filmaker George Lucas called upon YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen to stand up for the film community, according to Rafat Ali.
After Lucas spoke to Chad and Steve about “all the illegal movie content on YouTube,” he asked them to:
Donate money to film schools like USC in the spirit of giving back to the community that built them.
Of note, paidContent’s Ali characterizes the exchange as “surreal.”
What is even more “surreal” is that a Web content company that is inspired by “paid content,” would find a discussion about the need in some way to be “paid” for the commercial, for profit exploitiation of content, out of the ordinary.
May 30th, 2007
Google Developer Day? Next year Chicago
Google Developer Day is but hours away, and Google Engineering love is already in full promotional swing.
Google touts the event as a worldwide engineering fest, but the world’s software engineers are not all in agreement.
SEE: Does Google play fair in Open Source? and Microsoft gains over Google in Holy Land
While Google proudly notes the need to move the Mountain View meet-up to San Jose, due to overflow demand, Google Engineering nevertheless perseveres in its never ending quest to feed Google’s insatiable demand for the “best and the brightest” software developers (rocket engineering experience preferred, but not required) the world has to offer, from the Big Apple, to Down Under, and now, to the Windy City.
I have been chronicling the Google 2007 engineering staffing quest:
Microsoft beware: Google to grab Seattle engineers
Google challenges NYC software engineers
Google goes Down Under: G’day Google!
Google’s Adam Bosworth to NYC technologists: Speed rules
Google is currently in an Illinois frame of mind, Chicago. Google solicits:
Despite the fact that we have dozens of offices worldwide, whenever I tell people that I work for Google in Chicago, most of them respond “Google has an office in Chicago?” Then I proceed to tell them that yes, we have a sizeable sales office in downtown Chicago (which is now in its sixth year!), and yes, we have a few engineers camped out in one corner (near the cafe and the foosball table, of course).
Well, now we’re decking out the office with binary clocks and caffeinated soap because Google is hiring engineers here.
Why now?
Our Chicago engineers are currently working on Open Source and developer tools, and we’re ramping up other interesting data-centric projects. So if you’re an innovative engineer who likes to launch early and often, build world-class software, and be a part of a small upstart team, then we want you.
Of particular note is that Google believes Chicago is as obscure to the American workforce as Sydney, Australia is!
In pitching a Google Engineering open house in Mountain View for the Australian operations, the Google host said:
When I mention I’m an engineer in our Sydney office, I’m often greeted with looks of surprise: it seems many people aren’t aware of our Australian presence.
Perhaps Google needs to be more open then. Google just shut off access to its NYC engineering recruitment efforts, dubbed NYC Speaker Series, as I report in Google CEO Schmidt on ‘Personal Democracy’: Up For Sale.
If Google truly is concerned that no one knows about Google Australia or Google Chicago, it wouldn’t be so shy (secretive) .
ALSO: Google has a (big) people problem and
Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
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