Monthly Archives: August 2006

Google Stock Value? Ask the insider traders?

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Bloomberg reports something very interesting a few days ago:

  Nevertheless, it is remarkable that not a single Google insider has bought a single share of the company in the 18 months since the IPO lock-ups expired, according to data compiled by Bloomberg …

At first glance this seemed more conspicuous than it really is.   Although I think Google is overvalued, insiders like Brin or Page who have tens of millions of shares generally should NOT buy shares regardless of how bullish they are on the company.   This is simple diversification of one’s worth.  For these guys their worth was almost entirely tied up in Google stock and they were right to diversify.  Thus this is simply good fiscal management, not a statement about what they think the prospects are for Google in the long term.

JonBenet trumps almost all other TV news – why?

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Today’s TV News:

JonBenet story
JonBenet story
Middle East, Iraq, War story
JonBenet story
JonBenet story
(few/no stories about African War torn countries or third world disease killing another 10,000+ today)
Curiousity is a very significant and important aspect of being a higher mammal, and I’m wondering how much it affects our prioritization of other aspects of our lives.    The JonBenet story involved an interesting and provocative and disturbing mystery elements, so is that why it so captivates the collective interest?   What are the factors that affect our focus/attention on one thing rather than another?

Fun with Google Adwords

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The Adwords routines are fun to play with to see the funniest combinations you can find as auto-generated Google Ads for various Queries. This comes from a Google search for “Terrible People”

Terrible People
Products and information about
Terrible People. Aff.
eBay.com

Update:  Hey, there is an old book with “Terrible People” in the title.   Maybe Adwords deserves more credit for being clever and accurate?

Does Web 2.0 success flow from the seven deadly sins?

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Yahoo reports a neat quote by Reid Hoffman who founded LinkedIn.com the business networking site and has invested in many other 2.0 companies. He was asked for investment criteria and replied: “Which of the seven deadly sins does it appeal to?”

Let’s review the seven deadly sins to see if internet success stems from addressing them.
Thanks to deadlysins.com for this summary of the seven deadly sins:
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

OK, we’ve got a problem. I suppose you could argue that Google and Yahoo are not “2.0” companies, but clearly the big online money is not coming from the sins as much as from *search* which may be indirectly related to the sins as in people searching for sins, but I think the seven sins criteria falls short in favor of simple curiosity, socializing, and habituation (~aka branding) criteria which drive the top sites like Myspace, Google, and Yahoo and can be expected to drive future 2.0 successes.

Head on – apply directly to your gullibility and wax your forehead.

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Another homeopathic remedy rears it’s silly head with the product I’ve seen advertised so much on TV without any description of what it’s supposed to do.   Apparently that’s because it does .. nothing.

Wikipedia:
HeadOn is a homeopathic topical headache relief product produced by Miralus Healthcare.[1] Although intended uses are not listed on the website or in the commercial spot, the purported purpose of the product is to assuage head pains after being applied directly to the forehead.[1] Chemical analysis has shown that the product consists of almost entirely wax.

Yahoo! too much 2.0 can be a … confusing…. thing.

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Awhile back I failed to make my point about Yahoo doing “too good” a job at 2.0 for their own good, but now I see they are back at it again.    Yahoo Photos looks like some really good stuff, and if I remember correctly they have a huge library of pix and a user base  that is something like 10x greater than Flickr.    But I’m already confused.   Yahoo owns Flickr, which is a great application.   Are they expecting Flickr users – and more importantly developers of picture applications – to switch to Yahoo Photos?  Why? Are they rebranding here?   Sure I could spend a little time trying to answer these questions but this is not high on the list.  I know Flickr and love it and I’ll use it until further notice.

My earlier point was that offering people too many choices, or unclear choices, gets in the way of people *accessing* those quality innovations.   One of Google’s virtues has been to offer simple, targeted  solutions.   MSNs vice has been to offer cumbersome, bloated and confusing applications which change names every 6 months.

Yahoo, please follow the Google “instructions for use should be obvious and intuitive” plan.

Google v. Kinderstart ing over again in September

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The Google vs Kinderstart Lawsuit was dismissed though judge Fogel suggested that if Kinderstart can show  a case of “manual intervention” by Google the outcome might be different and it’s now clear they’ll refile in September, probably as a class action.   If the judge means they only need to show that Google’s done manual intervention *in any case* then this is going to get interesting, because everybody in SEO knows that Matt’s spam team routinely zaps sites that violate guidelines from the index.   I doubt this was Kinderstart’s problem though – rather a severe algorithmic downranking that many sites have suffered over the past few years.     However the Google lawyers may have failed to understand the nuances of the algorithm vs violations and how humans interface with this at Google (I think no single person knows everything over there).  Thus if the judge felt Google claimed “no manual intervention whatsoever” then I think he might get pissed to know how often violating sites get killed off.

If this is any indication of the thinking that could guide the decisions I have no idea what’s going to happen here.