Category: Uncategorized

Whoa!!! Larry Page To Take Over As Google CEO

This just in…via WSJ: Google Inc. said co-founder Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as chief executive, a surprise change atop the Internet giant. Mr. Page will take charge of day-to-day operations as CEO starting April 4. Mr. Schmidt will become executive chairman of the company, focusing externally on…

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This just in…via WSJ:

Google Inc. said co-founder Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as chief executive, a surprise change atop the Internet giant.

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Does Google Favor Its Own Services?

Seems so. I've written about this a lot, so much that I won't bother to link to all the stuff I've posted. It was the basis of a chapter in the book, where I pointed out that (at the time) Google claimed algorithmic innocence, and Yahoo, on the other hand,…

Seems so. I’ve written about this a lot, so much that I won’t bother to link to all the stuff I’ve posted. It was the basis of a chapter in the book, where I pointed out that (at the time) Google claimed algorithmic innocence, and Yahoo, on the other hand, was cheerful in its presumption that Yahoo services were the best answer to certain high value searches (like “mail”).

Now comes this study, from Harvard professors no less, which pretty much states the obvious. Check this graph:

search favorites 1.png

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Make My Baby – Is The Baby Facebook? Updated: No, It’s Myspace…

Over the weekend, as I pondered an eMarketer report estimating Facebook's advertising revenue at $1.86 billion (seems low), I wondered to myself: When will Facebook start to drive the kind of widespread graymarket activity which proved Google's immense worth? Or will it ever? Allow me to explain. Back in…

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Over the weekend, as I pondered an eMarketer report estimating Facebook’s advertising revenue at $1.86 billion (seems low), I wondered to myself: When will Facebook start to drive the kind of widespread graymarket activity which proved Google’s immense worth? Or will it ever?

Allow me to explain. Back in the days when Google and its rival Overture were on the rise (this would be pre-IPO for Google, so around 2002-3), an army of small time arbitragers were gathering, leveraging Adwords (and in 2003, Adsense) to make money in any number of ways. But the basics were pretty easy to grok: Say you could purchase a click on Adwords for the term “cute kitty” for fifty cents. And say further that when someone clicked on your Adword, they’d show up at a third-party site, and 10 percent of the time, they’d follow instructions to fill out a mortgage application. And say that further, you could sell that filled-out application to a lender for $15.

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The Signal Weekly: 1.14.2011

Most of you know by now that I do a short summary of the day's news over on the FM Blog. This year I'm going to try to do a Friday summary of the week's Signals here on Searchblog. Here's the first of the year: Monday Signal: The CES-less…

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Most of you know by now that I do a short summary of the day’s news over on the FM Blog. This year I’m going to try to do a Friday summary of the week’s Signals here on Searchblog. Here’s the first of the year:

Monday Signal: The CES-less Hangover

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No, In Fact, We Haven’t Seen This Movie Before

Thanks to monster private financings from Groupon and Facebook, as well as the promise of major IPOs from Demand, LinkedIn, Zynga and others, the predictable "watch out, here we go again" buzz is rising up in the press. This article from Ad Age, subtitled "With Billion-Dollar Dot-com Valuations Back…

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Thanks to monster private financings from Groupon and Facebook, as well as the promise of major IPOs from Demand, LinkedIn, Zynga and others, the predictable “watch out, here we go again” buzz is rising up in the press. This article from Ad Age, subtitled “With Billion-Dollar Dot-com Valuations Back in a Big Way, It’s Time for Alarm Bells to Start Ringing,” is typical of the bunch. With a “we’ve seen this movie before” tone, it points out that most of the successful companies of today had models that were tried ten years ago, and in the main they failed.

But I’d like to point out a couple pretty obvious differences between the dot com busts of a decade ago, and the companies that are now earning billion dollar valuations. To wit:

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Yahoo IPO vs. Facebook IPO

From Paid Content, a tale of two very different eras: Yahoo In 1996 Age: 1 year Annual sales: $1.3 million Net loss: $0.6 million Total raised in IPO: $33.8 million Market value at close: $848 million Employees: 49 Facebook In 2012 Age: 8 years Annual sales: $1.2 billion-plus Net income:…

From Paid Content, a tale of two very different eras:

Yahoo In 1996

Age: 1 year

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What Everyone Seems to Miss In Facebook’s Private or Public Debate…

…is the core reason it makes sense for Facebook to be public: Accountability to its customers. The rest of this debate is simply financial folks arguing amongst themselves. Facebook is the greatest repository of data about people's intentions, relationships, and utterances that ever has been created. Period. And a…

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…is the core reason it makes sense for Facebook to be public: Accountability to its customers. The rest of this debate is simply financial folks arguing amongst themselves.

Facebook is the greatest repository of data about people’s intentions, relationships, and utterances that ever has been created. Period. And a company that owns that much private data should be accountable to the public. The public should be able to review its practices, its financials, and question its intentions in a manner backed by our collective and legally codified will. That’s the point of a public company – accountability, transparency, and thorough reporting.

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Predictions 2011

In the eighth version of my annual predictions, I'll try to stay focused and clear, the better to score myself a year from now. And while I used the past two weeks of relatively fallow holiday time as a sort of marination period, the truth is I pretty much…

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InnostraD-tm-3-tm-tm-tm.jpg the eighth version of my annual predictions, I’ll try to stay focused and clear, the better to score myself a year from now. And while I used the past two weeks of relatively fallow holiday time as a sort of marination period, the truth is I pretty much just sat down and banged these predictions out in one go, just as I have the past seven years. It works for me, and I hope you agree, or at least find them worth your time. So here we go:

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Maybe I Was Right…

In my prediction #7 from last year: Traditional search results will deteriorate to the point that folks begin to question search's validity as a service. I gave myself a "fail" on this when I graded myself last week. But Anli makes a case in "THREE'S A TREND: THE DECLINE OF…

In my prediction #7 from last year: Traditional search results will deteriorate to the point that folks begin to question search’s validity as a service.

I gave myself a “fail” on this when I graded myself last week. But Anli makes a case in “THREE’S A TREND: THE DECLINE OF GOOGLE SEARCH QUALITY”.

As for 2011 predictions, I’m working on that right now, and hope to have them out later today.

8 Comments on Maybe I Was Right…

What … or Where… Are The Great Android Apps?

Because I want to know. Google, really, really, really. It's time to pivot your business and make this happen. More later. Just posting this as a thought after a long talk with my 14 year old son, who wants to write apps. And funny, so do I….

Because I want to know. Google, really, really, really. It’s time to pivot your business and make this happen.

More later. Just posting this as a thought after a long talk with my 14 year old son, who wants to write apps. And funny, so do I.

38 Comments on What … or Where… Are The Great Android Apps?