Google: Snort of a Two Humped Camel
October 17, 2010
Years ago, I wrote a for fee column about one of those nightmares of high school math. Each y axis represents a different scale or a combined chart. The curves often illustrate interesting points about data. The x axis was a common base like the horizon viewed from a hiker plodding through the digital sand. The resulting curve had a fancy name, but the graphic representation looked like the humps on a two humped camel. I can almost hear that snort.
That camel is back.
There are other ways to represent data that show a lot of people generating lots of clicks and money and a few people generating an even larger amount of money. I like the camel metaphor because it is easy to visualize and camels can go a long way when their characteristics are understood.
I thought about a half dozen two humped camels trotting across the search desert when I read “Google Sees a Browser in Every TV.” The idea is that TV delivers eyeballs and advertisers will pay to reach these eyeballs. The key is the notion of “every”. Represent the revenue from “every” using just about any measurement one wants and you end up with revenue that just keeps on growing. “Every” says to me most TV viewers. Plot the clicks, mouse hovers, or whatever other data point one collects. Slice and dice the data. Match the interesting centroids to advertisers’ messages, and you get a big computational job. Plot the data and you may see a curve that suggests the outfit with the infrastructure is going to be in the catbird’s seat. No one else can duplicate the eyeballs, the investment in plumbing to do the matching, and so on. This two humped camel is likely to leave competitors with only one part of the camel. That part is not as nifty as the parts that yield the big revenue curves.
Here’s a passage from the write up I found interesting:
Asked about whether GoogleTV would be embraced by non-techies, those who might not be comfortable with a keyboard in the living room, Chandra [Google wizard] said, “Almost everyone is familiar with a keyboard by now, and uses it to watch videos on a computer. We’re just moving the keyboard to a different room and setting, one more conducive to watching TV.”When asked why WebTV and all of the previous attempts to bring the Web and TV together failed and why GoogleTV will be a success, Chandra says that, more than anything else, timing is key. “We are at a tipping point,” he said. Web video has finally matured and there is enough compelling content available on YouTube and other platforms that will drive usage.
Plot the timeline. Google wants lots of eyeballs and lots of clicks. One hump. Google wants the advertisers willing to pay to access the eyeballs chopped into demographically and pychographically tasty nuggets. That’s another hump. When you put the two humps together, Google may get the camel. The competitors get the camel exhaust.
Snort.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2010
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