A Glimpse of the Google Collaborative Plumbing
June 19, 2009
On June 18, 2009, the ever efficient US Patent & Trademark Office published US2009/0157608, “Online Content Collaboration Model”, a patent document filed by the Google in December 2007. With Wave in demo mode, I found this document quite interesting. Your mileage may vary because you may see patent documents as flukes, hot air, or legal eagle acrobatics. I am not in concert with that type of thinking, but if you are, navigate to one of the Twitter search engines. That content will be more comfortable.
The inventors were two Googlers, William Strathearn and Michael McNally, neither identified as part of the Australian team responsible for Wave. I like to build little family trees of Googlers who work on certain projects. Mr. Strathearn seems to have worked on the Knol team, which works on collaboration and knowledge sharing. Mr. McNally, another member of the Knol team, and he has written a Knol about himself which is at this time (June 19, 2009) online as a unit of knowledge.
The two Googlers wrote:
A collaborative editing model for online content is described. A set of suggested edits to a version of the online content is received from multiple users. Each suggested edit in the set relates to the same version. The set of suggested edits is provided to an authorized editor, who is visually notified of differences between the version of the content and the suggested edits and conflicts existing between two or more suggested edits. Input is received from the editor resolving conflicts and accepting or rejecting suggested edits in the set. The first version of the content is modified accordingly to generate a second version of the content. Suggested edits from the set that were not accepted nor rejected and are not in conflict with the second version are carried over and can remain pending with respect to the second version.
What’s happening is that the basic editorial system for Knol and other Google products gets visual cues, enhanced work flow, and some versioning moxie.
Figure 2 from US2009/0157608
Is this a big deal? Well, I think that some of the big content management players will be interested in Google’s methodical enhancement of its primitive CMS tools. I also think that those thinking of Wave as a method for organizing communications related to a project might find these systems and methods suggestive as well.
Bing, Ballmer, Bets, and Blodget
June 19, 2009
I have been quite forthright about my enjoyment of Henry Blodget’s analyses. An MBA (once high flying) wanted to introduce me to him, but the meeting got postponed, then there was a financial meltdown, and the rest you know. Mr. Blodget’s “Steve Ballmer Is Making a Bad $10 Billion Bet” is one of those Web log write ups that the Murdoch crowd and the financially challenged New York Times’s staff should tape to their cubicle panel. The beat around the barn approach to Microsoft’s search challenge does no one any good. The excitement about early usage of Bing.com is equally unnerving because until there are several months of data, dipping in a clickstream provides snapshots not feature length movies.
Mr. Blodget runs down some of the history of Microsoft’s spending in the search sector. The historical estimates are hefty but the going forward numbers are big, even for a giant like Microsoft. Mr. Blodget wrote:
Steve has already been investing about 5%-10% of Microsoft’s operating income on the Internet for the past decade, and he has nothing to show for it.
Mr. Blodget inserts a chart with weird green bars instead of the bright red ones that the numbers warrant. Green or red, big bucks. Zero payoff. He continued:
In fact, maybe it would be more realistic (but not actually very realistic at all) to assume that Bing might make a lot less than $8 billion a year–say, $1-$2 billion a year, if it was very successful. Or that, more realistically, once Google saw that Bing was actually making some headway, it might decide to spend some or all of its own $8 billion of free cash flow a year to protect its franchise, given that Bing seemed intent on destroying it. And that, because Google already had 65% market share of the search market versus Bing’s 10% and had weathered all of Bing’s previous attacks, it might very well succeed in defending itself.
Several comments flapped through this addled goose brain of mine:
- Microsoft does not have one search problem. Microsoft has multiple search problems; for example, the desktop search, the enterprise search baked into the 100 million SharePoint installations, the SQL Server search, and the Fast Search & Transfer search system. Each of these costs time and resources. So, Mr. Blodget’s numbers probably understate the cash outflows. The police issue in Norway has a price tag, if not in money, in terms of credibility of the $1.2 billion paid for something that certainly seems dicey.
- Microsoft is constrained by its own technology. There’s lots of rah rah about Microsoft’s data centers and how sophisticated these are. The reality is that the Google has a cost advantage in this chunk of the business. My research suggests that when the Google spends $1.00, Microsoft has to spend as much as $4.00 or more to get similar performance. Another big cash outflow in my opinion.
- Google is in the leapfrog business. I have mentioned Programmable Search Engines, dataspaces, and other interesting Google technology. Even Yahoo with its problems has begun to respond to the Google leapfrog, but so far Microsoft has been focused on the incremental changes, and while helpful, these incremental changes will end up costing more money down the line because the plumbing at Microsoft won’t scale to handle the next challenge Google causes in the online ocean.
Exciting times for Microsoft shareholders because the shares will open in about an hour at $23.50. IBM which has been through the same terrain as Microsoft opens at $106.33. What’s that say?
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
YouTube.com Economics
June 19, 2009
Google won’t say. So in an absence of data, pundits, mavens, and azure chip consultants guess-timate. Boy, didn’t that worked well for Long Term Capital Management and the MBAs who traded in NINJA paper.
Two views on the question, “What’s YouTube.com cost the Google?”
What I find interesting is that both views reference a study by Ramp Rate, a San Francisco based strategic research company.In “Guessing Game: How Much Money Is YoutTube Losing?” Google loses money. The 3News.co.nz story said:
Technology consultants at RampRate project YouTube’s operating losses this year at US$174.2 million – far below the US$470.6 million estimated by Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena in an April research report that became a hot topic on Wall Street and the internet.
The Business Week write up about the Ramp Rate analysis carried the headline “Maybe Google Isn’t Losing Big Bucks on YouTube after All”.
My view is that analyses by banks and financial analysts are less interesting since the financial meltdown. If the lads and lassies were mostly correct, the present business environment would be different. Just my opinion.
Google isn’t too forthcoming about the cost of YouTube.com. What I recall is that Microsoft was going to tackle this sector. Microsoft pulled out. Yahoo continues to dabble. Start ups abound. Video is expensive and it takes deep pockets to play the game.
Beyond that, sheer speculation.
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
Beef or Baloney: Ballmer on Search
June 19, 2009
Paddling around the polluted pond the addled goose calls home, I was thinking about TGDaily’s “Steve Ballmer Admits Microsoft’s Biggest Mistake”. Mr. Ballmer allegedly said at a talk to the once mighty business barons of Chicago:
“I would probably say I would start sooner on search,” Ballmer stated to the crowd. Ballmer stressed that the company knew of search the research and effort had been put in, they weren’t sure of the market and that they had no business model. It just wasn’t there. The company lacked in an application for their findings. In an optimistic tone however, and speaking of the new “decision engine” Bing, he stated “we’ve got our mojo back now” and it’s “the little engine that could.”
Okay, mojo is back. The Google has been zipping along for 11 years. Microsoft bought a search vendor for $1.2 billion and the police problem with that company in Norway won’t go away. Powerset, which Microsoft bought for $100 million, uses technology that is in part based on older innovations from Xerox PARC.
I am on the fence with regards to Microsoft and search. My hunch is that Mr. Ballmer speaks the truth as he perceives it. Context is everything in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
European Union and the Google Bing Fear
June 19, 2009
The European Union has taken a dim view of some American business practices. I don’t think the global financial crisis can be blamed on Wild West MBAs, the SEC’s oversight expertise, or the American interest in Hummer-type vehicles. Let me suggest that some in Europe find these quirks less than charming.
Google is now on the radar of some of the European Union government folks, and that blip is persistent. A Web log post by a staffer at Computer World made this headline possible: “Google Tight Lipped about Co-Founder’s EC Meeting.” The Web log post (which may or may not be spot on) said:
Google was tight-lipped about co-founder Larry Page’s Wednesday meeting with Viviane Reding, European commissioner for the information society, but was very forthcoming about the rest of his visit to the European Union’s capital city. The European Commission declined to comment on the meeting beyond describing it as “informal”. Unlike most meet-and-greet visits to commissioners by well known people from the business world, the Commission’s satellite news service Europe by Satellite was instructed not to film Reding with Page, at Google’s request.
What is interesting to ponder is whether the somewhat sensational reports of Google’s fear of Bing. I wonder if Google is trying to use subjective information to alter the harder data about its dominant position in the Web search market? Most of the third party services suggest that Google has a 60 to 70 percent share of the Web search market. Fear of Bing is not the way to assuage the nuts and bolts thinks at the European Union’s regulatory entities in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
Three Months, Eight Outside Consultants, and Microsoft Staff= One Web Site
June 19, 2009
Here’s the sentence that made me quack happily:
In only three months we were able to understand the existing Web site content, create a new information taxonomy and Web site design, develop the components, move content, conduct performance tests, and roll out the site to production. Building on the SharePoint platform allowed us to meet or exceed all of the project goals in a short amount of time. The product group is already realizing the benefits of the improved content publishing model and the Web site is growing and improving every day.
Who built what?
Microsoft’s SharePoint team created its own SharePoint Web site. If you find this expensive and a bit much for your constrained budget, you will want to read the case history “How We Did It: SharePoint.Microsoft.com” on the Microsoft SharePoint Team Web log.
The case is a lengthy write up with a number of workarounds and their solutions. One example:
Another interesting requirement was to display content for targeted audiences at the bottom of the home page. When users click tabs at the left side of the home page, relevant content is displayed without refreshing the page. Additionally, content authors needed to be able to update the content inside a Web browser without requiring Web site coding skills. To implement this requirement, Advaiya created a custom content type and page layout to store information that corresponds to the audience content requirements, and to provide an interface for authoring. Based on the custom page layout, we created publishing pages that correspond to each audience tab on the home page. Content is stored in a page layout so authors can easily write and update it, track versions, and take advantage of the Web content management approval functionality that SharePoint provides. Content authors can create and edit the audience content with out-of-the box SharePoint publishing functionality. Only authenticated users have permission to create, edit, and delete content in these pages, and publishing approval workflows ensure that only approved content appears on the home page.
Keep in mind that Microsoft’s engineers did not do this work. I find that quite interesting. I recall the “dog food” references I have heard at Microsoft conferences. Perhaps the notion does not apply to SharePoint because the system is too complex, too resource intensive, and too interdependent for Microsoft employees to tackle. Enter Advaiya. You will need Silverlight and some other plug ins to view this company’s Web site.
The vendor is described by Microsoft in this way:
The Microsoft® Office SharePoint® product group teamed with Advaiya, Inc. to rebuild the SharePoint Web site using the SharePoint Server 2007 platform. Microsoft chose Advaiya, a consulting company in Kirkland, WA, to work with the SharePoint product group because Advaiya has a long history of working closely with many Microsoft teams to develop strategies to roll out new technologies, content, and solutions.
Good work for Advaiya. Maybe not such good work for a small shop struggling with SharePoint. When the vendor needs help implementing a Web site, I think outfits like SquareSpace.com have a real business opportunity. Also, nary a word about search. I wonder how many people it would take to hook Fast ESP into this site. The SharePoint build, according to the write up, involved eight people from Advaiya. No report of the number of Microsoft engineers pressed into service. Quack!
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
Brin and the Guardian
June 19, 2009
The Guardian, a London newspaper, has squeezed into its shrinking news hole some link bait. Jemima Kiss’s “Secrets of a Nimble Giant” carries the subtitle “Technology companies usually get slower as they get bigger – so why is Google as fast as ever?” Quite a positive spin on a company that many in the news biz love to tweak.
Ms. Kiss wrote:
With that $131bn market value, Google is in an unusually powerful financial and strategic position to give its engineers this kind of latitude. The downturn has barely dented Google’s research and development budget, which was reduced to $641m (£392m) for the first quarter of this year from $673m in 2008. Around 36% of its staff work in R&D in total, and the entire 2008 R&D budget was a staggering $2.79bn.
I liked the focus on engineering and money. She continued:
What could established media companies learn from Google’s approach to innovation? Given the perfect storm of economic meltdown and once-in-a-generation collapse of their business model, innovation may well have slipped off the priority list for old media. Perhaps it is time to rephrase the challenge, says Brin. “Any conversation I have about innovation starts with the ultimate goal – in this case what the reader is trying to accomplish, and what would make that better. Somebody reading up on the news wants to be kept up to date, and quickly.” News sites offer some useful content, but there’s a lot of duplication. “I don’t have a solution for you – I’m just saying that I think posing the problem correctly is perhaps more important than defining the solution. People want to have good, engaging, high-quality information about things going on right now in the world.”
For me the most interesting aspect of the story was its gentle approach. Perhaps the Guardian will take yet another step and tap into Google’s money making potential?
Stephen Arnold, June 19, 2009
Bing Bing Bing – Clicks Mount – Maybe
June 18, 2009
PC World, despite its dwindling ad count and shrinking editorial hole, remains eager to whip up reader interest. “Bing Makes Gains, But Is Google Actually Suffering?” started with a good rhetorical question which begged for an answer. The Google haters would shout internally, “Yes, yes. Suffer you Googlers.” The Google lovers would smile and think, “Not a chance, dudes and dudettes.”
Now Bing Kumo, Microsoft’s most recent effort to whittle down Google’s 65 to 75 percent share of the Web search market, is not yet a month old. New services get service spikes, and the GOOG boosts the PageRank of new sites, so asserted one nameless rumor monger in 2005. Who knows? “New” is catnip in toothpaste and in search, now that search is consumerized.
JR Raphael wrote:
Microsoft is gaining new ground with its freshly rebranded Bing search engine, some recently released data suggests. Bing, the research finds, grew 0.8 percent during its second week online, adding onto a 2.2 percent jump it saw during its debut week. One question that has yet to be answered, though, is how that growth is affecting other search engines — namely Google. The answer, in short, is that Bing may not be harming Google at all; in fact, it may actually be helping.
Wow. Microsoft helping Google. That’s almost as good a story as Bing.com taking share from the hapless Yahoo, a company torn between becoming an open source champion and a commercial buzz saw.
I quite liked the wrap up to the article. Mr. Raphael said:
Hopefully, that serves as some consolation to poor Sergey Brin, who’s apparently been inconsolably “rattled” — “gripped by fear,” you might even say — since Bing’s birth. Then again, it might just be a case of “DATA OBSESSION OVERTAKING PC WORLD REPORTER.” I’ll check with the Post’s headline writers and let you know.
I want to capture my thoughts before I hunt for bugs on the surface of the stagnant pond the addled goose calls home:
- Cuil.com, Powerset.com, Hakia.com, WolframAlpha.com, etc. Each with spikes when new. So, roll out may translate to a usage spike. Then the traffic falls back into its predictable pattern. I think this type of information is useful to those who think that spikes persist in the big, bad world of online traffic patterns.
- I quite like the idea of a dazed and confused Sergey Brin. I don’t think it is true, but I live in rural Kentucky, not the Big Apple where the capital letter info originated. I have a hunch Mr. Brin is able to look at usage data and make objective assessments, not histrionics required unless it is over something like a bed on the corporate jet.
- Usage data from third parties is usually in the plus or minus 20 percent range. Again, I think this is useful information because small gains are often wide of what’s happening.
Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 18, 2009
Google Search Tips
June 18, 2009
Short honk: Want to know how to search the Google. The company pulled together some tips. You can explore them on the search tips page.
Stephen Arnold, June 18, 2009
TV Business Will Follow Newspapers Says Analyst
June 18, 2009
Henry Blodget has written another ulcer maker. His “Sorry, There’s No Way To Save The TV Business” provided a nice complement to my write up about CNN’s coming cost crisis. If there were any doubt, just think about how traditional media performed over the weekend when Iranians expressed their discontent with election results.
Mr. Blodget asserted:
As with print-based media, Internet-based distribution generates only a tiny fraction of the revenue and profit that today’s incumbent cable, broadcast, and satellite distribution models do. As Internet-based distribution gains steam, therefore, most TV industry incumbents will no longer be able to support their existing cost structures.
He then provided a run down of the changes that are taking place. Good list and worth tucking away for future reference.
The one observation I would make is the Google. The Google Channel, the Vatican Channel, and the specter of a business that media giants of old could not have imagined.
Stephen Arnold, June 18, 2009
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