Google and the Real Estate Squish
January 18, 2010
When I was putting the finishing touches on Google: The Digital Gutenberg, I did some testing of the “old” Google Base. That service, before it underwent a major overhaul, included job listings and real estate listing. You may have stumbled upon real estate information when you were searching Google Local. I found that for certain areas, the system would provide pictures of houses for sale and in some cases backlinks to more detailed listings. If you navigate to Google Local and run the query “condominium Baltimore Maryland” you could (at 9 24 am, January 17, 2009, see this result set:
I have written extensively about various Google technologies that make this type of service possible. These include the programmable search engine invention and the work of the dataspace team, among others.
I read in “Google to Scoop Up Real Estate Sites” that some talk about Google purchasing real estate services. My research indicates that acquisitions are an easy way for Google to acquire expertise. The potential of Google’s providing a meta service to organize and make coherent the patchwork of services related to real property has been on the Google radar for years. My recollection is that Google patent documents from the early 2000s reference these types of applications.
When thinking about real estate, it may be helpful to keep in mind the range of services that a real estate transaction requires. My hunch is that real estate is one exemplary application of Google’s approach to online services.
To sum up, if the publishing and telco sector thought that Google was disruptive, wait until the real estate food chain figures out what’s about to happen. Once again: when you see overt instances of a Google application, it is too late. This is the gap problem that befuddles a number of companies affected by the Google’s expanding technical domain. Visualize a hard copy publication containing houses for sale and rent. Visualize a Google real estate service on a mobile device. Yikes, bad news for the directory crowd do you think?
Stephen E Arnold, January 18, 2010
Ah, gentle reader, no one paid me to put this shameless plug for my Google monographs in this blog. I will report this to the US Department of Housing & Urban Development.
Personalized Playlists
January 15, 2010
I read “PerfectStream: The Future for Personalized Video Playlists, Advertising?” and thought that it was a good idea. I think that the sentence that snagged me was:
Munich-based PerfectStream is taking the business-to-business route and hopes to license its technology out to media and tech companies that already have professionally-produced or user-generated content. It came out of stealth this week and has raised funding solely from Brandenburg.
I recall reading about personalized playlists somewhere else. Maybe a Google patent application. Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2010
Sad to say a freebie. Possible patent research ahead. I will report my non-compensation to the ever vigilant USPTO.
Quote to Note: Apple Exec Turned Googler Comment
January 10, 2010
“Live from Las Vegas: Google VP of Engineering Andy Rubin” provides one view of the Google Android play. The statement is attributed to Andy Grover, founder of Danger, a mobile computing company. Here is the quote:
No one’s breathing down your neck, he says. No one’s trying to upsell you.
Consumers may perceive the Nexus One’s marketing one way. Telco executives don’t feel Google’s breath. Google is standing on the doorstep drooling. Google’s customer support unit may feel more heat than those valiant workers anticipated.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2010
A freebie. Due to the references to heavy breathing I will report my unpaidness to the director of the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
Gune: Mobile Metasearch
January 6, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to Gune, a mobile metasearch system. The reader’s link pointed me to “Gune, a New Mobile Search Engine.” The write up said:
The new Gune solution comes as a meta-search system, meaning that it looks over other websites and provides users with a single page of results, optimized for access from mobile phones and smartphones. At the same time, the solution consults other search engines to deliver the results, and the popular Google and Bing are on the list.
The developer of the service is Handcase, a developer of mobile software based in Brazil (where I used to live). You can reach the Gune service at this page. When I get more details, I will report them. Maybe I will have to make a trip to Brazil to research this company in person. In the meantime, a news release is here.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 6, 2010
A freebie. I will report this to the Brazilian embassy in Washington, DC. I can hear the music of Carlinhos Brown now.
Toktumi Forced to Learn How to Surf
December 27, 2009
Short honk: Gigaom provides a “surf or die” example in “When Google Attacks: Toktumi’s Tale”. The write up summarizes what a mobile phone gizmo maker did to stay in business when Googzilla strolled into its market. Interesting example of scrambling on a digital surf board. Key sentence for me?
Sisson managed some of this by using Google’s own services to help expand his business. Reasoning that potential Google Voice customers would search for the term on Google, he bought a Toktumi ad against Google Voice searches. He said the whole experience actually helped Toktumi because it educated consumers and businesses about the benefits of a hosted PBX. It doesn’t hurt that Toktumi lets users bring in their existing telephone numbers, rather than assigning them one.
Better than drowning.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 27, 2009
No one paid me to write this. I think I have to tell the poobahs at TRICARE Management, who do care._
Cha Cha Dances Cheek to Cheek with Investors
December 25, 2009
Short honk: TechCrunch reported in “ChaCha Raises Another $7 Million” that Cha Cha raised more money. The story reported that the mobile search company has raised lots of money. The company said:
ChaCha is like having a smart friend you can call or text for answers on your cell phone anytime for free! ChaCha works with virtually every provider and allows people with any mobile phone device – from basic flip phones to advanced smart phones – to ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message in just a few minutes.
The idea is that a human can answer a question more effectively than a search system. Delivering human powered search results to a mobile device is the unique selling proposition for the Indiana company. Big bet. Maybe a big payoff?
Stephen E. Arnold, December 25, 2009
A freebie. I drove around Indianapolis today (December 23, 2009). No one paid me to do this. I would have paid to leave the state. Too flat. I will report this to the Carmel (Indiana) Police Department.
VSAT Is Back
December 22, 2009
The Houston Chronicle reported a story that is mostly a news release pick up. I noticed this because it mentions the VSAT broadband technology. If this does not rev your engine, you can get some basic information of the very small aperture terminal technology by reading the Wikipedia entry for “Very Small Aperture Terminal”. You may find the Crystal Communications write up “About VSAT” helpful as well. VSAT is one of those technologies that made certain government agencies drool years ago. An outfit called Equatorial Communications was / is / shall be the cat’s pajamas.
“KVH’s Mini-VSAT Broadband Service Officially Approved by US Government” includes several comments I found interesting:
- “The system enables the highest data rate, widest global coverage, and lowest service cost of any maritime satellite communications service.”
- [The VSAT technology] “brings the economic and operational benefits of VSAT service to large new markets of commercial and leisure vessels.”
- “Our network spreads the signal over a wider bandwidth, thereby reducing interference issues, supporting multiple simultaneous users, allowing us to offer an antenna 75% lighter and 85% smaller by volume, and reducing costs as we use the same transponder for inbound and outbound signals.”
This may be important to certain organizations in the online information business. I won’t connect the dots, but there are some quite interesting Google inventions in the wireless sector.
Stephen E. Anrold, December 22, 2009
A freebie. No one paid me to write about the information in the Houston Chronicle’s recycled news section. The agency monitoring blog posts with regard to the recycling is the Environmental Protection Agency. I herewith report another free post.
Google Sends Signals to Telco Poobahs
December 21, 2009
I enjoyed “Verizon Snuffs Google for Microsoft Search.” The Register summarizes Google’s dalliance with Verizon. Then Verizon hugged Microsoft and slipped Bing.com into its mobile browser. Apparently some Verizon customers were annoyed. For me, the most important part of the write up was:
Verizon has unilaterally updated user Storm 2 BlackBerries and other smartphones so that their browser search boxes can only be used with Microsoft Bing. The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m.
When I read this, I thought about Microsoft’s other attempts to buy traffic for the Bing.com search system. Like AT&T, Verizon is off balance. Google is no longer the clumsy Web search outfit. Google is a key player in the telephony market worldwide.
In my opinion, AT&T and Verizon have a bit of a problem on their hands. Google does not have to hurry. Furthermore, Google continues to nibble away at different chunks of the communications market. My research suggests that Verizon, like Microsoft, will have to find a better way to compete with Google. Depriving customers of choice and buying traffic are great tactics. Too bad Google is playing a different game with different rules.
Three blind spots for Verizon exist in my opinion:
- Verizon has to accept the reality that Google has better plumbing. That technology edge is going to put Verizon in some weird yoga positions.
- Verizon perceives itself as a giant company. It is giant. It is focused on the US market. Google, on the other hand, has a global vision. Thus, Verizon has a perception problem.
- Google has engineered solutions to some long standing telco bottlenecks. Right now, telcos do not understand Google’s many initiatives. This failure to see the different small communications actions like messaging in Google Calendar as part of a larger fabric. The Google engineers have outflanked and jumped over Verizon.
Telcos face start choices. Ignore Google. Cozy up to Google. Fight Google. None will work. Verizon will make decisions that I perceive as questionable because Google has nipped at Verizon. Like an angry bull in a bullfight in Madrid, the bull does not make good decisions. In the end, the bull becomes a quarter pounder with cheese. Through these cartwheels, Google is messing with the minds of telco executives. Most recent distraction: Nexus. I can hear it now, “Google can’t make handsets and sell them.” Maybe, maybe not. Distraction.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 19, 2009
Disclosure time: Freebie. I hasten to report this fact to the Bankruptcy Courts. Some telcos may end up in those fine institutions.
Nine Ways Misses One Big Google Phone Point
December 14, 2009
I love Fortune Magazine. Dapper journalists opine about the mysteries of business as their own business model crumbles beneath them. Anyway, I do look at the occasional Fortune write up just to see what the real wizards of modern US business are thinking. I want to make sure I don’t think that way so my instrumental use of the Fortune ideas is bit different.
The article “Nine Ways of Looking at a Google Phone” did not disappoint me. The core idea is that there are nine ways of looking at the Google phone. (Sorry, Ms. Sperling). I could not resist this self referential comment. You will have to read the article to get the nine reasons. I can mention a couple of them.
For example, Google has “been watching with dismay” as folks have fiddled with Android. Yep, that’s a surprise that people fiddle with stuff that is available as open source. And, Google could – gasp – subsidize or give away the phone. Yep, another earth shaker.
Read through the other seven.
Now here’s what’s missing. The Google phone makes clear exactly how Google handles partners and former partners. The big point is that the Google phone will make some Google partners wonder if Google will repeat its Google phone trick. The Google Apple “relationship” is a wonderful aporia.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 14, 2009
I wish to report to the Employment Standards Administration that I was not paid to write this article. I think that if Google gets frisky there will be quite a bit of unemployment resulting from its disruption of certain business sectors. Could telecommunications be one such sector?
Androids Everywhere in Google Telco Invasion
December 14, 2009
Yep, I recall my partner from a consulting firm in a tony part of Seattle making the rounds of telecommunications companies in 2006. The presentation was “Google Telephone & Telegraph”. The presentation included some whimsy; for example, an antenna and transceiver that could be put in a pizza deliver vehicle to the serious; for example, the use of a non-intuitive method of finding a low latency path through a cellular network. The presentation also took a look at a half dozen of the Google patent documents that disclosed everything from support of double byte queries for mobile search to Sergey Brin’s voice search invention to the use of semi autonomous agents to queue content * before * a user needed that content.
A view of the wizard’s lair at Tintagel.
I have to tell you that the response to these confidential, technically charged, and blue-chip consultant type briefings was—ah, how shall I say it—dismissive, maybe indifferent.
I thought of these six or seven big dollar escapades when I read PCWorld’s “More Than 50 Android Phones to Ship in 2010”. It is not just the handsets or the Android operating system. Nope, it is the fact that there is a Google telephony consortium guzzling Googzilla’s own Kool-Aid and chanting compression algorithms in Mountain View’s Tintagel.
Now three years later, guess which big, unassailable, monopolistic industry has a Google sized problem on its plate for the New Year? Yep, those same telco executives.
Do you know which industry sector is next? Folks are waking up, but it may be a little late. More on the future of Google appears in my Google trilogy. Spend $1,000 and find out if you should be applying for work as a Wal*Mart greeter. On the other hand, pretend Google is a search and ad company. Life is more comfortable in the cloud of unknowing. Just ask your telco connections via one of Google’s communication methods. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, December 13, 2009
I wish to disclose that I was not paid to write this “I told you so” article. Now to whom must I disclose this? I know. The Federal Communications outfit. Yes, that’s the one. This is a freebie shamelessly promoting my three Google monographs. Almost 1,000 pages of Google information from its patent documents and other open source information objects.
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