Author: John Battelle

The Google IPO, again

The favorite topic of many a wag in the Valley, the Google IPO has once again been revived, this time by Barrons, and Eric Savitz, no less, The Standard's old EE. Eric is conservative in his reporting of the numbers (I've heard estimates of a hell of a lot more…

The favorite topic of many a wag in the Valley, the Google IPO has once again been revived, this time by Barrons, and Eric Savitz, no less, The Standard’s old EE. Eric is conservative in his reporting of the numbers (I’ve heard estimates of a hell of a lot more profit than $100 million this year, and more revenues than $700 million), but in any case it’s a lot. Speculation about the triggering of section 12(g) of the 1934 SEC Act (more than 500 shareholders = public filing requirements similar to an IPO) has been rife for nearly a year, given the number of Google employees – I recall the same issues being raised at Wired and The Standard (not that we had to worry in the end!). So, as Eric concludes, we finally have a time horizon for The IPO That Will Cure Cancer, Save The World, and Tie Your Shoes For You, Spring 2004.

2 Comments on The Google IPO, again

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date on the latest from BattelleMedia.com

Google Use Tips

Speaking of Tara, here's a good summary of the best tips in her book Google Hacks. Worth anyone reading who uses Google quite a bit. 20 Great Google Secrets….

Speaking of Tara, here’s a good summary of the best tips in her book Google Hacks. Worth anyone reading who uses Google quite a bit. 20 Great Google Secrets.

1 Comment on Google Use Tips

Deep (Invisible) Web Resources

Saw this thanks to a recent Research Buzz (Thanks Tara)…this is one man's obsession – the Rest of the Web, that huge resource of information that is not digital or not formatted to be crawled….it's called the Deep Web Research Subject Tracer

Saw this thanks to a recent Research Buzz (Thanks Tara)…this is one man’s obsession – the Rest of the Web, that huge resource of information that is not digital or not formatted to be crawled….it’s called the <a title="Deep Web Research Subject Tracer

1 Comment on Deep (Invisible) Web Resources

Microsoft and Overture (Yahoo): Wed till 05

Many thought (including me) that MSFT would boot Overture as soon as they could once Yahoo bought the company, but not many thought it would take another two years to happen. This is clearly a marriage of convenience, but it points to two realities: one, it creates a timeline: Microsoft…

Many thought (including me) that MSFT would boot Overture as soon as they could once Yahoo bought the company, but not many thought it would take another two years to happen.
This is clearly a marriage of convenience, but it points to two realities: one, it creates a timeline: Microsoft now has two years to get its own Adwords/Overture type product ready for market (probably to coincide with the introduction of their algorithmic search ), and two, any predictions that Microsoft might buy Google are now looking increasingly unrealistic.

Leave a comment on Microsoft and Overture (Yahoo): Wed till 05

Again, The Death of Tivo

The NYT's piece today on TiVo once again questions the company's prospects, and lays the blame for its possible demise on cable obivating the company's hardware business by incorporating TiVo-like features into set top boxes. But as usual the piece ignores the implications of what happens to consumer choice and…

The NYT’s piece today on TiVo once again questions the company’s prospects, and lays the blame for its possible demise on cable obivating the company’s hardware business by incorporating TiVo-like features into set top boxes. But as usual the piece ignores the implications of what happens to consumer choice and the future of ideas (in the Lessig sense) if we allow cable companies to control what features are available on PVRs. Not only do we lose the freedom to tinker, we also push intelligence, such that it is, into the cable companies’ systems, and away from the edges. Sigh. Time for Apple to step in?

2 Comments on Again, The Death of Tivo

Transparency v. Trust

While on the plane, I finished reading an as yet published story by Cory Doctorow, who was kind enough to send it my way. Cory is one of the great projectors/predictors of tech/culture collision, and in this tale, titled "Human Readable," Cory use the inherent clash between engineers – who…

While on the plane, I finished reading an as yet published story by Cory Doctorow, who was kind enough to send it my way. Cory is one of the great projectors/predictors of tech/culture collision, and in this tale, titled “Human Readable,” Cory use the inherent clash between engineers – who implicitly trust that all human problems can be solved by elegant code – and humanists – who believe that trusting in code alone is a recipe for abuse, and possibly worse. This tension is certainly playing out in the world of search – with most of the paranoia around Google and other search engines driven – in essence – by seemingly cold, soulless and maddeningly opaque code. Worthy of note: Cory’s first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, takes Page Rank to the next level and beyond. A great read.

Leave a comment on Transparency v. Trust

First Entry

Finally we've got this thing up and running. I'm in New York, seeing old friends, interviewing folks for the book. In some cases they are one and the same. I suppose this first post should outline the goals of this blog, but to be honest, that feels far too forced….

Finally we’ve got this thing up and running. I’m in New York, seeing old friends, interviewing folks for the book. In some cases they are one and the same.
I suppose this first post should outline the goals of this blog, but to be honest, that feels far too forced. Suffice that here I’ll post this and that which I find noteworthy or interesting, in particular as it relates to search, the subject of my first book, and secondarily as it relates to the warp and weft of traditional media as it intersects with technology.

6 Comments on First Entry