John Battelle's Search Blog Thoughts on the intersection of tech, business, and society.

Google Buys Nest

Today comes the news that Google is buying Nest, a move that, upon reflection, should have been obvious (the price tag of more than $3 billion, not so obvious!). If the company is truly executing its mission of helping us organize the world’s information and make it available, it makes sense to have a major play in the Internet of Things, in particular, those things that consumers view as extremely valuable. Nest, a company that has rethought the previously unsexy world of home control devices, is a perfect platform for launching computing devices that feed on valuable data, and tie seamlessly to Google’s other platforms, like Android, Nexus, Search/Knowledge, and more.

My first thought upon hearing this news was of Apple – if ever there was an Apple-like company, it’s Nest. Founded by an ex-Apple employee, Nest devices do for thermostats and smoke alarms what the Mac did for PCs – made them relevant and far more valuable. And Nest was in essence a design driven company – just like Apple. But it’s a sign of how sprawling Google’s ambitions are when compared to Apple, which I can’t imagine ever getting into home control systems, much less autonomous cars or robotics.

Google is proving itself willing to make huge bets in markets it believes will become drivers of tomorrow’s data ecosystem. Draped in that light, Nest seems an inevitable move. So what might be next? To answer that question, start with those things we view as super-valuable, but are not yet widely lit with computable information. Clothing? Cars? Healthcare? Food?! Well…why not?

12 Comments

else 1.13: “Keep the instrument in its place”

This week, we look at more applications machine learning, new wearables from CES, and some visions for the coming year. As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View — MIT Technology Review
Interesting details into the development of the neural network that’s helping to identify distorted street numbers picked up by Street View images.

The Four Phases of CES: I, Consumer, Am Electronic

CES is a huge event, one that almost everybody in our industry has been to at least once, if not multiple times. I’ve been going for the better part of 25 years, so I’ve seen a lot of change. And after my first day here, the biggest takeaway I’m getting is a sense of deja vu.

Back in the early days, CES was mostly about exciting new televisions, clock radios, and stereo components. Call that the first incarnation of CES – literally, electronics for consumers. Stuff you plugged in, stuff that “electrified” your life with sound and video.

But starting in the mid to late 1908s, a brash new industry was starting to take over the “buzz” on the show floor – personal computers. PCs were becoming a “consumer electronic” and for the next decade or so, PCs were the “it” industry at CES. The PC era of CES was its second incarnation, and it brought our industry onto the show floor in a big way.

5 Comments

else 1.6: “Ghosts in the machine”

Back from the holiday break, we look at data’s influence on culture; glass, both as a material for transmitting bits, and as a wearable interface; and the (im)permanence of data.

As always, if you want to keep up with what we’re reading/thinking about on a weekly basis, the best way is to subscribe to the “else” feed, either as an email newsletter or through RSS. And tweet us links!

1 Comment

Predictions 2014: A Difficult Year To See

This post marks the 10th edition of my annual predictions – it’s quite possibly the only thing I’ve consistently done for a decade in my life (besides this site, of course, which is going into its 12th year).

But gazing into 2014 has been the hardest of the bunch – and not because the industry is getting so complicated. I’ve been mulling these predictions for months, yet one overwhelming storm cloud has been obscuring my otherwise consistent forecasting abilities. The subject of this cloud has nothing – directly – to do with digital media, marketing, technology or platform ecosystems – the places where I focus much of my writing. But while the topic is orthogonal at best, it’s weighing heavily on me.

So what’s making it harder than usual to predict what might happen over the coming year? In a phrase, it’s global warming. I know, that’s not remotely the topic of this site, nor is it in any way a subject I can claim even a modicum of expertise. But as I bend to the work of a new year in our industry, I can’t help but wonder if our efforts to create a better world through technology are made rather small when compared to the environmental alarm bells going off around the globe.

24 Comments

Looking Back: How Did My 2013 Predictions Fare?

It’s that time of year: The annual ritual of looking back and looking forward is in full voice. Long time readers know I always make predictions around the turn of the year, and I expect my 2014 prognostications will come sometime this weekend. Meanwhile, it’s time to take a look at what I wrote a year ago, and judge how well I did.

You may recall I took a different approach in 2013, and wrote predictions mainly for things I *hoped* would come true, rather than things I expected would. I’ve been doing these predictions for nine years now, and I guess I was looking for a fresh angle. All in all, things came out OK, but you be the judge. Here are my predictions, and my short summary on how they fared.

2 Comments

Google’s Year End Zeitgeist: Once Again, Insights Lacking

Zeitgeist13 — Great photo, but not one we searched for….

It’s become something of a ritual – every year Google publishes its year-end summary of what the world wants, and every year I complain about how shallow it is, given what Google *really* knows about what the world is up to.

At least this year Google did a good job of turning its data into a pretty media experience. There are endless scrolling visual charts, there’s a emotional, highly produced video, and there’s a ton of lists to explore once you drill down. But there’s also a Google+ integration that frankly, was utterly confusing. Called #my2013 Gallery (sorry, there’s no link for it), it showed photos from a bunch of people I didn’t know, then invited me to add my own. Not sure what that was about. The “Search Trends Globe” shows top search terms by location, but you can’t click through to see results. Odd.

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: