Category Archives: Google

Google to buy Youtube for 1.6 billion

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It’s now almost official that Google will buy Youtube for a whopping 1.6 billion. They’ll announce it after the close today.    Here’s the NYT take on things. I’d have listened to Mark Cuban because it seems to me he’s in a very unique position to analyze the prospects here, but they didn’t and soon Google will have a huge video footprint. Google Video has about 1/4 the traffic of Youtube. Combined I think they’ll dwarf the competition – at least initially, though this market, which should really be called “American’s stupidist and most mundane home videos” is still in it’s infancy.

It’s not clear to me that people will continue to spend hours and hours surfing and watching for the few gems in an ocean of crappy short clips but Google seems to think so, and it’s also true that there is an enormous amount of advertising money now spent on network TV that may flow to this venue. Google’s recent talk about NOT producing their own content and moving into offline advertising venues may relate to this decision – they want to become a key source to soak up as much of the dumb money now spent on extravagant, low ROI offline campaigns.

Google about to kill traditional advertising agencies. Good riddance!

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Over at Battelle’s House ‘o Search info he’s summarized Google Zeitgeist conference, where Google’s big news appears to be “We will NOT do content” and “We WILL do offline media advertising”.

I don’t agree with John that this means the YouTube purchase is a good idea. In fact I think Google will see the light of the dimly flickering videos and realize that monetizing this type of content won’t be worth the trouble of publishing it. But I wouldn’t bet much on my prediction they’ll pass on the deal since the cost of publishing video is dropping very fast, and Google probably has a great idea of the bottom point in terms of these costs, they may see something I can’t. Also, so much is currently wasted on traditional TV campaigns that there is a lot of “dumb money” floating around. If even a fraction of this flows to YouTube it might make that company worth it to Google.

As those of us making a living online know well the money comes from optimal monetization of content rather than the creation of the content. Google, as usual and brilliantly, is working to keep themselves in the driver’s seat as the premier way to monetize content online and moving to offline optimization.

They have the technology to optimize ROI on offline spends that (hopefully and probably) will blow many agencies out of the water. Traditional media campaigns and traditional ad agencies are a garbage dump of bad decisions and no research fueled by the ignorance of math-illiterate clients. Google has the power to change that and I’m glad they are looking in that direction.

When too much is not enough and a little is just right. Google > Yahoo

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Today a very sharp friend said that even though he uses Yahoo mail and some of their default screen navigation, he always uses Google to search. Why? Because Google is not cluttered and makes it very easy to leave Google to visit external sites. Yahoo, especially Yahoo News, he felt, tries to keep the user at Yahoo too aggressively.

A similar point about the ease of navigating to external sites was recently made by Mike Arrington when talking about Web 2.0, noting that it’s important to let folks feel they can easily leave the site for other web locations if you want return visits and credibility.

Relevancy, conspicuously, was not the concern of my friend. He just didn’t like the Yahoo search user experience. I agree and realize that for me it’s the fact that with Google I can get and visually scan *a lot more results* much faster than with normal Yahoo search. Like my friend it’s not the relevancy as much as the navigation that keeps me at Google despite the fact I own Yahoo (well, actually I own about one two-millionth of Yahoo). I don’t trust either engine to give me great results, but I know that I’ll usually find what I need somewhere in the first few pages of sites. Google makes it easier to preview a lot of sites fast.

I have stronger negative feelings about most of the travel sites. Online Travel 1.0 is a nightmarish blend of booking screens, pitches for Hawaii and cruise packages, and tourism sites all trying to convince you they are the only destination both offline and online.

It’s particulary frustrating when sites expect me to learn their navigation and nomenclature just to use their damn site, especially if I’m trying to preview dozens of websites for a trip! Most of the worst offenders are overproduced by expensive print media firms using the pretense they know about “online marketing”. In fact most big firms have about as much web savvy as an inebriated, obnoxious, and arrogant tourist and appear to be designing the sites for …..themselves.

Like most users I’d prefer a Craigslist format so I can easily jump to the information I need rather than wading through popups, pictures, video, and other nonsense when I’m trying to plan a trip. With some exceptions the mantra “just the facts please” would serve online travel promotion better than the foolish extravagances that confuse users and also search engines which struggle to find meaning in garrish flash and pages filled with 100k high resolution photos.

What will Travel sites look like as Web 2.0 shakes out? I’m optimistic that they’ll be much, much better, and hoping to figure out how before it’s obvious to everybody.

Google Gadgetry and Yahoo Hackery. Welcome to the new WorldWideWebery

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It’s great to see Adam Sah’s Google Gadgetry project move ahead with today’s announcement that Gadgets can be created to work on any website.    Adam was at both Mashup Camp 1 and Mashup Camp 2 and it was neat to see how a little project had become a big project over a period of only 4 months.    It’s likely now to become a gigantic project as Yahoo, Google, and MSN vie to maximize their online presence on, within, and interacting with other websites.

This announcement suggests to me even more strongly that the browser and desktop are going to move in the direction of becoming a place populated by many different gadgets – basically mini applications – and users will organize their offline and online experience using them.

This bodes significant changes in our typical website model as people slice and dice their sites and gadgets in the coming web 2.0 world where information flows freely and according to the needs, demands, the stupid and the smart whims of the users.

Yahoo Hack Day – you should have been there! I should have been there!

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Yahoo’s Hack Day was so successful I have yet to read anything but positive reports – in fact most are downright glowing with enthusiasm for this mashup fest down at the Yahoo mother ship in Sunnyvale. I wish I could trade my lackluster experience at this year’s Google Party for a back-in-time ticket to Yahoo’s Hack Day.

Gordon over at GetLucky.net, a Yahoo employee, provides what seems to me several key insights about Hack day, but more imporantly about why Yahoo, not Google, is the company to watch.

Of course, until Yahoo Panama gets their *ASS IN GEAR* with a high quality contextual advertising paradigm, Wall street will continue to think that they suck ….

Gordon on Hack Day:
… the stuff that we do better than our competitors may have a chance to shine in the spotlight, in front of the audience that matters most. Much of the mindshare that Google has captured through applications like the GMaps API, etc. has been held because of the nature of convenience. Once a coder builds an application on top of a specific interface, switching to another API requires some real motivation…

emphasis belongs to me, the insights belong to Gordon though I’ve written about this stuff several times as well. Yahoo could wind up “owning” 2.0., which is a cool type of ownership where the big guy facilitates millions of long tail, little guy developments and transactions and publishing enterprises. The big guy shares *most* of the revenue with the little guys but the volume creates huge wealth for the big companies and modest wealth for the smaller ones. Users are rewarded with better content, rich interactive experiences, noninvasive advertising, and encyclopedic information. When 2.0 is done right everybody plays, everybody wins.

AOL lawsuit over data release and, more importantly, storage of search database of intentions

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Over at TechCrunch there’s a discussion about the lawsuit against AOL for releasing search data and also challenging their right to store the search histories of AOL users. I’m surprised this took so long because Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc have been storing all of our searches for some time and probably are using that data to adjust the search experience including refinement to advertising and organic results.

It frustrates me (or I should really say it pisses the heck out of me) that 1) Search engines think they should have rights to my search info with no obligation to tell me what they do with my info and 2) there is a lack of concern in the online community about this. John Battelle has been one of the few voices pointing out that this issue is big and getting much bigger, that these privacy issues need a lot more clarification, and that search companies are sneakily dodging many key issues with search and privacy.

Contrary to many comments I read from other onliners, the Government viewing my data is low on my list of privacy concerns because I doubt they’ll choose to or be able to effectively process the information in sinister ways. However it bothers me a LOT that my search “fingerprint” is getting used without my consent, understanding, or permission in an effort by Google, Yahoo, et al to sell me things and adjust my search and internet experiences.

If they want to do that they need to let me know the process they use to do it. If they think sharing that process violates their need for commercial secrecy then…do NOT use my stuff. I never gave you permission, and you should not assume you have my permission. In fact few people even know that Google and Yahoo and MSN store every single one of their searches – Google, Yahoo, MSN cannot reasonably claim they have implied permission for the search storage identified to individual computer level when very few people are even aware they are doing it!

Relevancy + Targeting = $123,490,000,000

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Although this article suggests “infinite” reasons for Google’s success, I’d say there are only two that have made Google worth about 123 billion dollar bills.
The article supports that there have only been two truly notable reasons: A superb PPC model of advertising combined with the most relevant= best search engine to date.

Both the engine and the ad model were largely built by the time of huge expansion.   The story is nicely chronicles in John Battelle’s “The Search”, which also notes how Google’s ad model came about somewhat serindipitously, and basically as a copy of the Goto.com model developed by Bill Gross.  This serendipitous refinement of good ideas  lies at the heart of many great innovations and challenges the idea that greatness comes from stable, consistent, well organized forces of change.

Sure Google has the best technologists, leadership, and corporate culture, but it was the PPC model that was necessary for the success and that is largely ignored in most external analyses (Google knows this all too well).

Good points that without relevancy you’ll lose the audience and the PPC revenues. *Together* these two factors lie at the heart of Google’s success and both are unstable territory, so all are in for more fun in the search sun.

The Ghost in the Machine … is a Human Being!

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Last week or so Matt was asking what new gadgets we’d see in the future. Some suggested Star Trek style devices, but I think they (and Star Trek) are wrong to suggest that we’ll continue with our current model of humans using separate function, hand-held devices. Rather we’ll soon see human integration with devices in ways analogous to the evolution from spectacle to contact lens to corneal implant. When that corneal implant can go online you can sign me up for one whether I need it or not.
Although many people cringe at the idea that we’d implant chips in ourselves and connect them to our brains they are ignoring the logical progression of biology and technology. The recent invention of a bionic arm controlled by nerve feedback is only the beginning.

Seems to me that we want to *completely* erase the physical distinction between gadgets – especially phones and computers – and ourselves. In fact I think most sci -fi treatments really miss this as an inevitability of our technologically innovative future lifestyle.

I’m Hoping to see more human/gadget interfaces so we can directly access computerized info with our non-computerized brains. This would really enhance creativity, and I’d even suggest we’ll see a lot of spin off benefits.

For example if world leaders can instantly access extensive, encyclopedic treatment of history, languages, and other topics their ability to make wise decisions will be elevated.

Well, maybe that’s too optimistic.