Comments on: More On Google, Yahoo, Media, Technology

By: Sally

Sally — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:48:44 +0000

I have my active e-mail on yahoo, but use google as well. I like them both.

By: Dragan Sretenovic

Dragan Sretenovic — Sat, 25 Dec 2004 03:39:29 +0000

I think it will be a great book :)

Here is an example you may find helpful:
a size of HTML page with 100 emails at:
* Gmail (Google): 1.16 KB
* Yahoo Mail : 130 KB
* Hotmail (MSN): 70 KB

So, Google is using more than 100 times less
bandwidth and server IO/CPU to achieve the same
thing like Yahoo mail, thanks to heavy usage
of DHTML (JavaScript) to assemble the page
inside the browser, not at the server.

On top of this, advertising (graphical) on Yahoo
is more aggressive and less relevant
than targeted text of adds at Google.

That said, I still prefer Yahoo mail, that I
find easier to use, maybe since I am using it for years.

By: Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 06:47:24 +0000

This is great stuff, John. I hope it’s going into the book! I love Google’s approach because they have, as much as possible, taken the man out of the loop. They write an algorithm, then field test it, tweak it, test it, tweak it. I don’t know why this appeals to me more than Yahoo’s approach. Maybe I like what Google is doing because it’s clear they’re having a hell of a lot of fun. It seems like Google’s main goal is to blow their own minds with what they can do, technology-wise, and the excellence of their services are an expected symptom of this kind of behavior. Yahoo, on the other hand, is focused 100% on making money, and trying to come up with the best search and service system to do that. No doubt that can work, but it’s much more boring. Not to say Yahoo! doesn’t have some brilliant scientists and marketing wizards, because they do. But Google is having all the fun.

By: Dragan Sretenovic

Dragan Sretenovic — Sun, 12 Dec 2004 04:18:24 +0000

Google is making a great public image
by striving "to do one thing really, really well."
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

Another difference is Google's *empowering* of it clients,
advertisers (AdWords) and web publishers (AdSense).
In both cases it is a *hope* and *trust* that is so valuable.

So, while Yahoo is a very good conservative bossiness,
Google has a chance to does make a real difference...
More risk, more potential.

By: Bill Gross

Bill Gross — Sun, 12 Dec 2004 02:21:18 +0000

John, I have one different thought on Yahoo / Google and Media company or technology company. It's just my opinion, but here goes. Yahoo wants to be your one-stop-shop to find anything on the planet, and also wants to host it. Google wants to be your one-stop-shop to find anything on the planet, but wants to link you to it. I think that's the main difference that makes Yahoo "feel" more like a media company, because they actually license and in some cases own content, where Google might "host" content, like gmail, but they don't own it or license it, it's user created. Let me know if you think that is a more accuracte distinction between the two companies philosophies.

Bill

By: Scott Rafer

Scott Rafer — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:44:15 +0000

There is one other major difference between what we all perceive as media companies and tech companies. Yahoo and Microsoft/MSN are very experienced at running heterogeneous online businesses. Google will certainly be able to build that management expertise, but it won’t be instant or painless. Successful media companies all create as many revenue streams as they can think of per type/piece of content without [overly] diluting its value. That sort of capability is not easy to achieve.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 03:30:39 +0000

Possibly. Sorry if I sounded over critical, I found your recent ramblings interesting and insightful.

Regarding Keyhole, I would suspect that eventually the subscription will be removed. This would happen when they have an innovative way to insert advertising into the software. Google is not in the specific business of preferential paid listings, but if there were two pizza restaurants by my house, and one was marked blue because they hadn't paid for advertising, and one was marked yellow because they had, i'd suspect the one interested in promoting their business might have better pizza. Google can even use their PageRank and context technology to let you know which pizza joint is more popular on the web.

I don't know how they are going to turn a profit from Picasa.

There were ramblings, and I believe mentions in the Gmail FAQ, that certain aspects of Gmail will not be free when Gmail leaves beta (I believe POP access was of mention). We know that people pay for cable and still tolerate advertisements, but would they tolerate it with Google? I think that would be decidedly evil. So possibly maybe, there could be an alternative subscription aspect to Google. I think this would be wonderful, but then again, a good portion of Google's beta services run without any immediate intent to turn a profit, so it's obviously not of immediate concern to them.

By: John Battelle

John Battelle — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 03:12:10 +0000

Yes, Picasa is free, but my point in pinging it is…for how long? At least there’s a good premium service to be built there, a la Flickr…

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 03:04:19 +0000

Nitpick. Picasa is free. Aside from that, Google lowered the cost of Keyhole from 70 dollars to 30 dollars a year. This probably covers bandwidth and rackspace and I doubt they are turning a profit. This is hardly subscription.