Google’s Radio Ad Failure
February 15, 2009
If you are interested in Google’s failures, you will want to take a quick look at “BIA/Kelsey Commentary: Fratrik on Google’s Departure from Radio.” The is a “free” consultant write up, so keep that in mind where you read the article here. The write up provides a mini analysis of how Google fumbled the ball and withdrew like Jackie Smith, former Dallas Cowboys’ received, famous for dropping a pass that would have won the big one. Google is a digital Jackie Smith when it comes to radio advertising. The most interesting comment in the write up was:
“Radio operators were never comfortable getting in bed with Google,” he said. “Among other things, the Google model asked for information that broadcasters thought was confidential. It also required the purchase of equipment. I heard the pitch when it was first launched, and I couldn’t see how this would be successful.” Why didn’t Google’s entry into the radio advertising market work out? “The initial read three years ago was somewhat positive – they were going to use their core strengths in Internet scalability and transactional efficiencies to attract buyers and sell inventory that local stations were unable to sell. But, even with their model and their reach to many more potential advertisers, they could not sell enough to make it a profitable business line.”
The notion of “comfort” is important. When Googzilla is not comfortable with its potential customers’ comfort with Googzilla, Googzilla says, “Adios.” Kelsey Group write up points out that some broadcasters are embracing digital ad technologies. That’s encouraging to some but not me.
Here’s why.
Traditional broadcasting companies are in the same boat as dead tree publishers. The demographics and the costs of their business model are like a current rushing down the Green River. If you go with the flow, you get carried along. If you try to paddle against the current, you fail, walk, or dock. Googzilla did not just exist; Googzilla wrote off an entire business sector as unable to “get it.” Trouble looms for traditional broadcasters I fear. The Sirius XM financial challenge is a harbinger. Kelsey Group’s article omitted this nuance which surprised me.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google Calendar: Alleged Data Vulnerability
February 14, 2009
Daily Yomiuri Online (a pal of the Associated Press so I won’t be quoting the story) published Google Calendar Suffers Data Leak here. Details are sparse. The incident involved items of personal information. If true, the GOOG continues to struggle with the details of its sprawling online systems. When I see more information from non AP sources, I will offer more links and some commentary. In the meantime, who is looking at your Google Calendar’s personal details. I pulled my Web site calendar and stopped using online calendars more than three years ago. One of my clients in the intelligence community shared some interesting information with me. Looks to me as if those data were pregnant with meaning. The goslings are okay? What about your clutch of calendar items?
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Mysteries of Online 5: Information Flows that Deconstruct
February 14, 2009
I have some edits to stuff into the Outlook section of my new study Google: The Digital Gutenberg, but I saw another write up about the buzz over a Wall Street Journal editor’s comment that “Google devalues everything.” (Man, those categorical affirmatives are really troubling to this old, addled goose. Everything. Right.) The story in TechDirt has a nifty sub head, “From The No Wonder No One Uses It Department”. You can read the story here. I agree with the whining about the demise of traditional media’s hegemony. For me the most interesting comment in this article was:
The value of the web and Google is that it lets people look at many sources and compare and contrast them qualitatively. Putting up a paywall is what devalues the content. It makes it harder to access and makes it a lot less useful. People today want to share the news and spread the news and discuss the news with others. As a publisher, your biggest distributors should be your community. And what does the WSJ want to do? Stop the community from promoting them. I can’t think of anything that devalues their content more.
TechDirt and the addled goose are standing feather to feather.
I do, however, want to pull out my musty notes from a monograph I have not yet started to write. As you may have noticed, the title of my essay is “mysteries of online,” and this is the fifth installment. I am recycling ideas from my 30 plus years in the digital information game. If you are not sure about the nature of my observations, you will want to read the disclaimer on my About page. Offended readers can spare me the jibes about the addled nature of my views in this free publication.
The future of traditional media. The ground opened and the car crashed. The foundation of the road was gone, eroded by unseen forces. Source: http://gamedame.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/car_sinkhole.jpg
What’s under the surface of the dead tree executive’s comments and also driving in part the TechDirt observations are some characteristics about electronic information. More people have immersed themselves in easy and painless online access. As a result, the flow of “real time” has become the digital amphetamine that whips up excitement and in some cases makes or breaks business models. I want to summarize several of the factors that are now mostly overlooked.
Information Has Force
The idea is that in the post Gutenberg era, digital information can carry quite a wallop. Some people and institutions can channel that force. Others get flattened. My father, for example, cannot figure out what a newstream is on my ArnoldIT.com Overflight service. He simply tunes out the flow because his mental framework is not set up to understand that the flow is the value. One can surf on the flow; one can drown in the flow.
Will these kids read dead tree newspapers, magazines, and textbooks as I did in the 1950s?
Google Fumbles Government Ball
February 14, 2009
MarketWatch ran a story called “Google’s Sales to Uncle Sam in Apparent Decline” here. For me the most interesting information in the write up is the analysis of Office of Management & Budget data that show Google’s government sales declining, not from a lofty peak but from a pile of pennies and nickels. For example, the OMB data reveal that Google’s government sales wizards–if the data are accurate–racked up these revenue figures:
- 2006-$413,9060
- 2008-$81,046
- 2009-$4,030 (since September 2008 to the present).
I am not sure about these figures. Google, true to form, won’t talk to me, and the company’s financial reports are only slightly more helpful than the masterpieces of misdirection generated by Amazon’s financial knights.
Let me offer several observations, which set forth my opinion about these data:
- The GOOG has a number of resellers who sell to the US Federal government. Now MarketWatch is a pretty sharp outfit, backed by the brain trust that delivers CBS into my living room. Perhaps these New York and San Francisco specialists should navigate to the GSA Web site, run a query for Google, and check out the names of the resellers who are the authorized vendors to the US government. One of these outfits ships Google Search Appliances into Federal agencies with monotonous regularity. These authorized resellers collect the dough and then pay Google its share. The US government in general and the OMB in particular does not track these types of sales as Google deals. Trust me. These are Google deals, and the appetite for Google Search Appliances is growing.
- The GOOG has partners who deliver services to various Federal agencies. Same deal as the Google Search Appliance resellers. The partners handle the customer service, do the work, and in some cases collect money. The GOOG bills for certain services; the partners bill for others. The relationship between Google and partners is murky, but the partners servicing the Federal government are an elite crew and the GOOG seems to be well pleased with the sales these outfits are generating.
- Various big integrators in DC Google-ize certain projects. Here’s how this works. The integrators are a type of Google partner. The integrator gets a contract. (No, I won’t name these outfits because I do work for one of the most respected and successful in the Federal space. OMB tallies what the integrator bills, and does not break out the payments the integrators make to the GOOG.
How far off base is the MarketWatch article? Well, here in the goose pond, the goslings and I would characterize the write up as being in the next county. MarketWatch has some big name writers with reputations hewn of dead tree tradition. Too bad the way the Federal government works does not match up with the financial acumen of the researchers, analysts, and writers laboring in the MarketWatch vineyard.
The GOOG in the Federal sector is a disrupter and a big player. Check it out yourself. Navigate to some Federal Web sites and see what search engine is used. Then get a tour of an agency like the Post Office or maybe one of intel outfits. Count the Google Search Appliances. Once you have some first hand data and look into the reseller methods, then give me a call so I can tell you my estimate of Google’s Federal government footprint. In the meantime, when you see a figure like $4,030 attached to Google revenues over a six month period, it ain’t even close.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Google Panoramio
February 13, 2009
I included a description of Panoramio in my Google briefings for some clients in 2008. No one in those sessions had ever heard of the service. You can check it out by navigating to www.panoramio.com. The company bought the company which had integrated photography with Google Earth. The GOOG plopped most of the Panoramio functionality into the Googleplex (my term for Google’s infrastructure). The Panoramio blog announcement is here. Panoramio has been discovered by news hounds in the datasphere. Search Engine Roundtable learned that Panoramio users can post questionable content via the service. The main story is here. The images may offend some, and we addled geese quickly pecked elsewhere. The goslings snorted and checked out Panoramio more thoroughly. Several of the more geeky goslings noted that stalkers and others of questionable repute might find this service “interesting”. If more info flaps across our field of vision, we will pass the links along.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
Overflight Updated
February 13, 2009
Just a quick note to tell you that the ArnoldIT.com Google Web log newstream service, Overflight, has been updated. We have added the Google Web log about social media and tossed in a handful of other Google blogs. You can access the splash page for the free service here. If you are interested in what’s new from Google as set forth in “official” Google Web logs, you can use this pick list to review content from Google’s own grouping of topic areas:
- Google wide news and announcements at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/google-wide.html
- Google product information at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/products.html
- Google ad programs, including video at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/ads.html
- Google developer information which often contains important information applicable to the other topic areas. This is a must read at our goose pond at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/developer.html
- Google regional information, which is semi-useful. Hot items like the reorganization in Israel may or may not be announced first in these Web logs at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/region.html.
Combine these sources with general Google yip yap and the new ArnoldIT.com Google patent search service at http://arnoldit.perfectsearchcorp.com/, and you can get a useful triangulation of what Googzilla seems to be doing. These services are offered without charge. I want Cyrus (a Googler who does not read Google’s own technical papers and patent documents), assorted breath mint obsessed pundits, multi-tasking mavens, trophy-generation, azure chip consultants, carpetbaggers, and ingenuous parvenus to have a shot at Google information from open sources. Quack.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
Google Blood Hound: The Movie
February 13, 2009
Privacy mavens will want to read Gizmodo’s “My Tracks for Android Logs Your Day via GPS, Uploads to Google Maps” here. I don’t want to spoil your fun or your paranoia. For me the most interesting comment in the write up by John Mahoney was:
Along with the mapping, the app displays statistics in real time like elevation, distance traveled, speed, etc. My Tracks can also use Google Docs’ little-known but very cool ability to receive the output of web forms in a spreadsheet, so you can track your routes and see your average speed over time.
And, yes, Mr. Mahoney includes a link to a video to make the potential of the My Tracks application quite clear to good guys, to bad guys, and all the guys in between. To crank your fear knob, read this article.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
Arnold Interviewed in Content Matters
February 12, 2009
A feathering preening item. Barry Graubart, who works for the hot Alacra and edits the Content Matters Web log, interviewed Stephen E. Arnold, on February 11, 2009. The full text of the interview appears here. I read what I said and found it coherent, a radical change from most of my previous interview work for KDKA in Pittsburgh and a gig with a Charlotte 50,000 watt station. For me, the most interesting comment in the column was Mr. Graubert’s unexpected editorial opinion. Mr. Graubart graciously described me as the “author of the influential Beyond Search blog.” A happy quack for Barry Graubert.
Stephen Arnold, February 12, 2009
Google: A Utility Company
February 12, 2009
There are several news stories bopping around the datasphere this morning (February 12, 2009). The gist of these stories is that the GOOG bought an abandoned paper mill in lovely rural Finland. The speculation about the intent of this acquisition is interesting. Here’s a synopsis of items I found interesting. If you want the kicker to this post, skip the dot points and jump to the final paragraph. Now the news and analysis that feeds naive minds:
- Reuters here reported here that the former Stora plant will be a data center.
- PaidContent.org and the Washington Post reported here that the Stora Enso facility consumed 1,000 gigawatt hours of power
- Global Markets reported here that part of the site will be transferred to the city of Hamina for other industrial uses.
The missing item is that Google’s patent document 20080209234 Water Based Data Center contains interesting language that includes systems and methods which can be applied to traditional power generation facilities. I wish I knew how to translate into Finnish Google Power & Light. Google Translate yields this phrase: “google teho ja kevyiden yritys”. I prefer GPL myself. I pronounce the acronym as “goo-pull”.
You can poke around other Google documents here. The “site:” instruction may be helpful too.
Stephen Arnold, February 12, 2009
IBM: Covering Its Bases
February 12, 2009
The love affair between IBM and Microsoft cooled years ago. After the divorce, Microsoft took the bank account and the personal computer industry. IBM entered counseling and emerged a consulting firm with some fascination for its former vocation as world’s leading computer and software company.
Jump to the present day. IBM has batted its eyes at Googzilla. IBM and Google have teamed to stimulate the flow of programmers from universities. You can refresh your memory here. In 2008, I received a copy of a letter to an intermediary that said, in part, we understand Googzilla quite well. The outfit interested in this answer was not the addled goose. The interested party was a certain government agency. That outfit was not confident IBM understood Googzilla fully. I wrote about this in a Web log story last year. You can find the article here.
IBM issued a news release here that has been picked up by various information services. The headline makes clear that IBM is not going steady with the GOOG: “IBM to Deliver Software via Cloud Computing With Amazon Web Services”. You can read the full article here. In a nutshell, IBM wants to
make available new Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) at no charge for development and test purposes, enabling software developers to quickly build pre-production applications based on IBM software within Amazon EC2. The new portfolio will over time extend to include Service Management capabilities from IBM Tivoli software for Amazon EC2 to help clients better control and automate their dynamic infrastructures in the cloud.
The idea is a good one. But the significance of this deal is that IBM is making clear to the GOOG that a certain someone is no longer numero uno. IBM is playing the field. Amazon has outpaced Google in some cloud services and by spending a fraction of the billions Google has invested. What’s IBM know that I don’t?
Stephen Arnold, February 12, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
