John Battelle's Search Blog Media/Tech Business Models

Google Google, Wait A Minute. This Is About Us, Isn’t It? Google (And Everyone Else) Is Just a Means to Our Ends…

One last thought before I hit the hay after a long, satisfying evening with the people who gave me the chance to start FM in their garage, the Shores. And that is this: Google killed its earnings earlier this evening thanks in part to is algorithmic approach to display advertising (not that profit was easily broken out, I’m sure it contributed in the way most mature brand businesses do, which, as a mature business, must be looking way better than it did a few years ago. Congrats, Google, on both your work in display, which I am not sure can scale to ten billion without some changes, and in Google+, which I sense, with the right ad products, just might.)

I wrote a book about Google and its world, how it all happened, five or so years ago. And I am super happy that the company I chose to focus on is still prospering, just as I and pleased that Wired still defines the tech publishing zeitgeist, and that the Industry Standard, alive in a few countries that are not really in the US, is still seen as the paragon of reporting on the story so many, including current and past partners of FM, have reported on since.

1 Comment

Google+: If, And, Then….Implications for Twitter and Tumblr

It's hard to not voice at least one note into the Morman Tabernacle of commentary coming out of Google's first two weeks as a focused player in the social media space. I haven't read all the commentary, but one observation that seems undervoiced is this: If Google+ really works, Google…

It’s hard to not voice at least one note into the Morman Tabernacle of commentary coming out of Google’s first two weeks as a focused player in the social media space.

I haven’t read all the commentary, but one observation that seems undervoiced is this: If Google+ really works, Google will be creating a massive amount of new “conversational media” inventory, the very kind of marketing territory currently under development over at Tumblr and Twitter. Sure, the same could be said of Facebook, but I think that story has been well told. Google+ is a threat to Facebook, but for other reasons. The threat to Tumbrl and Twitter feels more existential in nature. (Ian remarks on how Google+ feels like content here, for example).

Let’s look at a typical flow for Tumblr, for example. Most of the action on Tumblr is in the creator’s “dashboard.” Mine looks like this:

5 Comments

Time For A New Software Economy

Way back in the day, before all this Interweb stuff made news, we had a computer hardware and software industry that was both exciting and predictable. I was a cub reporter in those days, covering an upstart company (Apple) as it did battle with two dug-in monopolists: IBM in hardware, and Microsoft in software. IBM was clearly on its way down (losing share to legions of hardware upstarts in Asia and the US), but Microsoft was an obvious – and seemingly unbeatable – winner.

Underdog Apple had a cult following (I was part of it), and its products were clearly better, but it didn’t seem to matter. Quality wasn’t winning, and as a young journalist that fact irritated me. But that’s only an orthogonal part of the story I want to tell today.

Back in the late 1980s, Steve Jobs wasn’t running Apple, but his DNA was very clearly still in the company (for those who don’t obsessively follow Apple, Jobs and Woz founded the company, then Steve’s board brought in John Sculley to run it in 1983. Sculley then fired Jobs from any operational role. Jobs returned to Apple’s helm in 1997.) Apple in the 80s and 90s was secretive, paranoid, full of extraordinary talent, and convinced it was being unfairly treated by Microsoft.

5 Comments

The Internet Roars At Cannes Lions

This past week I attended the Cannes Lions, one of the advertising industry's most prestigious and well attended events. The premise of the event is to celebrate excellence in advertising, marketing and communications, but given it attracts more than 10,000 folks in a business which celebrates Don Draper as…

This past week I attended the Cannes Lions, one of the advertising industry’s most prestigious and well attended events.

The premise of the event is to celebrate excellence in advertising, marketing and communications, but given it attracts more than 10,000 folks in a business which celebrates Don Draper as an icon, I think it’s fair to say that the Lions are as much about drinking and networking as they are about awards. According to hotel staff, the attendees of the Lions drink three times more than those wimps from Hollywood who come for the Film Festival earlier in the summer. (And, for whatever reason, the drink of choice is Rose. If I never see another pink glass of wine, I’ll be the better for it…)

This was my first Lions, though I’ve been asked to come for the past two. I thought I was being invited because of my role in the marketing world, but after four days in Cannes, I’ve come to realize that it might have just as much to do with my role in the Internet world. Because if there was one clear and consistent theme to this year’s Cannes Lions, it was this: the baton has been passed, and the show this year was pretty much driven by major digital brands.

4 Comments

Google’s Neal Mohan: A $200 Billion Opportunity

Several years ago, Google's top executives clearly realized they needed to create growth engines beyond search. As they looked for new opportunities, two stood out: first, the shift from the PC web to mobile, and second, the rise of "intelligent display" – advertising that works at the brand level, and…

Several years ago, Google’s top executives clearly realized they needed to create growth engines beyond search. As they looked for new opportunities, two stood out: first, the shift from the PC web to mobile, and second, the rise of “intelligent display” – advertising that works at the brand level, and not just lead-generation and demand fulfillment, which is where search has always ruled.

The moves the company subsequently made have both paid off. First, Google acquired Android and then AdMob. And second, it acquired Doubleclick, and began in earnest to build out (and buy) a display network that moved AdSense from a secondary remnant network to a first-order premium display platform. The two are clearly connected.

At the IAB conference earlier this year, then Google CEO (now Executive Chairman) Eric Schmidt declared that the Internet display market would reach $200 billion. Yep, that’s two hundred billion dollars. Eric didn’t give a ton of details about how that number might be achieved, but he did mention the core obstacles to reaching it: making digital as efficient and as easy to buy as television. Right now, it’s not.

1 Comment

The Colorful Bill Nguyen: The Market Will Come

In preparation for our short onstage discussion at CM Summit next week, I recently hopped on the phone with Color founder and CEO Bill Nguyen. Color, ostensibly a social-photo app, is backed by big money and saddled with huge expectations. It launched with great fanfare in March. I wrote glowingly of its potential here. I got a fair amount of sh*t for being too rosy in my estimation of the service’s potential. By April, Color had been written off as a failed effort by much of the blogosphere, and folks moved on to the next shiny object.

None of this seems to bother Nguyen, who’s been around the block a few times more than your average startup bear. He sees a wave rising in the distance, and he’s building Color to ride it. Whether or not others see the wave is not particularly interesting to him. As far as he’s concerned, it’s coming. Folks will get on board when the time is right.

So what is the wave? It’s a pivot in the fundamental organizing principle of how social networks work. He wants to move social past the friend network. Nguyen is certain that Facebook, for all its power, is stuck in a limited model – a poorly instrumented friend graph that you set up once, then run forever. I’ve called this the “instrumentation problem” of Facebook – it simply does not allow the nuance of true social interaction.

3 Comments

The Swan Song of Mich Matthews, Outgoing Chief of Marketing at Microsoft

After a 22-year career helming communications and later all of central marketing for Microsoft – she counts her budgets with a "b", folks – Mich Matthews, who I admit I've grown fond of, is leaving Microsoft later this summer. For years I've asked Mich to sit down with me and…

After a 22-year career helming communications and later all of central marketing for Microsoft – she counts her budgets with a “b”, folks – Mich Matthews, who I admit I’ve grown fond of, is leaving Microsoft later this summer.

For years I’ve asked Mich to sit down with me and endure one of my trademark grillings, and for years she’s demurred, in the main because she believes that the CMO should not be a front person. “You’re an onstage guy,” she told me when we last spoke. “I’m the person pulling the ropes backstage.”

Well, maybe because she’s leaving, and maybe because she’s exploring what comes next (she honestly doesn’t know, but has an inkling), Mich has finally agreed to speak her mind on stage, and if our prep conversation earlier this week was any indication, it’s going to be one hell of a swan song.

1 Comment

Category: Media/Tech Business Models

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Google+: If, And, Then….Implications for Twitter and Tumblr

The Internet Roars At Cannes Lions

The Swan Song of Mich Matthews, Outgoing Chief of Marketing at Microsoft

Share this:

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: