Facebook Skype: Should Google Be Worried?
July 14, 2011
Nah, Google has legs. Actually it has the world’s premier online advertising platform. Google needs content and traffic. Anything that has traffic is going to light up Google’s radar. But worry? Not so much.
ITWire reports that “Ovum says Facebook+Skype is Google’s nightmare.” Really? Ovum is pretty quick on the trigger with a big prediction.
The azure chip firm insists that the Facebook deal with Skype must have Google worried. The article quotes Ovum’s Eden Zoller:
The Facebook/ Skype tie up brings together two of the most popular communications service providers online and the video chat feature should prove a hit with Facebook’s 750 million users. . . .A deepening Facebook, Microsoft and Skype alliance is on the cards and is a powerful prospect and one that will keep Google awake at night.
We think Ovum may be too quick to downgrade the GOOG. Its Google+ is generating buzz, especially since the company is hyping it by limiting initial invitations. As writer Alex Zaharov-Reutt notes, though, Google must be careful that such tantalization does not turn to food for resentment.
In our opinion, both Google and Facebook are perpetually vulnerable. In the fast paced world of online business, anything can happen at any time. We think the social revolution is ripe for change. Those MBA-ish exogenous forces are able to creep up and bite giants like Facebook and Google. The Skype function is a consumer service. Google will respond. We think there are larger forces at work that may make these high fliers come down a bit closer to earth.
Legal eagles come to mind.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Are Webinars the Backbone of Concept Searching Marketing?
July 5, 2011
On the surface, Concept Searching looks like some of the other analytics company that asserts steady growth. What is interesting is that when some value adding software co9mpanies market, webinars or online lectures and demos are a component of a broader marketing program, Concept Search seems to rely heavily on webinars. We find this interesting.
We looked into one search company which was using Twitter to make the text processing service a hot trend. From our vantage point, it seems that Concept Searching is using social media in a more modest way.
Though it sounds like Spiderman should be involved, a webinar is simply an online seminar or workshop. The great thing about a webinar is that it is usually interactive and allows all participates to give, receive and discuss the topics at hand. Additionally, geographical boundaries are not an issue and these presentations are very low in cost.
When perusing Concept Searching’s Web site, you will find an entire events page dedicated to their upcoming exhibitions and a list and description of their current webinars. Some titles include: “Designing Information Architecture for SharePoint: Making Sense in a World of SharePoint Architecture” and “De-mystifying Content Types: Four Key Content Types of Leverage.” You simply register and voilà, you join in on all the fun. They also have a page dedicated to previously recorded webinars that you can access at your leisure.
I moderate webinars for a couple of outfits, and these are often expensive programs. There is time, often lots of time, required to prepare the text, create the graphics and demos, and then build an audience. I participate in webinars when I am paid to do so. However, I do not participate in webinars. The reason is that I am receiving inputs, experiencing interruptions even when the door is closed, and working to respond to ad hoc requests from clients.
I do think that webinars are somewhat more useful than attending certain conferences. Over the last couple of years, conferences are more like fraternity and sorority parties. But that perception may be a function of my age and distaste for rock and roll, mixed media events with lots of 20 somethings opining about social media and organic search. Yikes, digital bonsai.
This leads me to the question, “Who has time to participate in webinars?” If these are buyers of high end solutions, great. However, if I were the boss of a company where webinars consumed staff time, I would be asking some questions about the efficacy of the method.
I find reading a Web page and using an online demo or downloading code useful. Webinars may be too zippy for an old goose like me. One thing for sure: lots of companies are using webinars to hold down the cost of on site sales calls and getting individuals “interested” in a product or service to cough up an email address.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of the New Landscape of Enterprise Search
The GOOG MSFT User Experience
June 23, 2011
One of the goslings asked me to take a quick look at US7966638, “ Interactive Media Display across Devices.” Here’s the abstract:
A computer-implemented method includes identifying a computer-based portable program module, automatically altering code in the portable program module to permit display of the module on a television-based display so that the displayed module has a substantially similar appearance on the television-based display as on a computer display, and providing the altered code for execution on a processor connected to a television-based display.
The question today at lunch is, “How likely is it that Google will be on the same Windows 8 interface bicycle?”
My view: Google has struggled to make use of its plethora of interesting inventions. Assume this invention moves to the “one interface” across any of a user’s devices or veers in another direction. Will Google be forced to buy a company that has been able to connect the dots? The example of which I am thinking is the Sage TV buy. The issue may be internal communication about available technology regardless of the team originating the system and method.
Stephen E Arnold, June 23, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Google and Sage TV: What Went Awry with In House Tech?
June 22, 2011
I am not into television and videos like some of the goslings here in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. We took a field trip to the big city when the Google TV became available. I was baffled. I like reruns of Lawrence Welk and some sports programs. The rest of the programming does not resonate. I still like printed books.
I read “Google Revives TV Buzz with SageTV Buy.” I understand that Google had to reverse the poor showing of its original factory. The idea of buying a company in business since 1999 had not occurred to me. Google has a bundle of patent applications and technical papers about rich media. I worked on a monograph about Google’s rich media efforts, but I shifted gears in order to write “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.” I am glad I did. Google’s product for the masses did not excite the goslings, and, according to the article, not too many other people either. I noted this passage:
Google announced that it had transformed television last year, but TV somehow remained stubbornly un-transformed. People are still perfectly happy to use YouTube, and even watch it on their TVs, but didn’t flock to unify the entire experience under Google’s guiding hand. Additionally, the paucity of devices hasn’t embedded Google TV into the consumer electronics world.
What strikes the Math Club crowd as cool does not connect with a large segment of television content consumers.
The question, I want to capture is, “With Google’s significant investment in rich media, why has the company been unable to gain traction?”
I have a notion that Google does have high value technology for rich media. However, the company’s management set up makes buying a company easier than figuring out which in house technology to productize. Apple, on the other hand, seems to be able to generate gallons of lemonade no matter how sour the music, motion picture, and TV industry seem to be.
With Google pushing Sage TV to center stage, how long will advertisers feel okay with Sage TV’s ability to skip commercials? Google lives by ad revenues. Happy advertisers are, therefore, important.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Facebook Face Play No Big Surprise
June 14, 2011
You might be living under a rock if you haven’t heard about Facebook’s newest addition to its social network–facial recognition software. That’s right – the beloved social network is building a database of their user’s faces and telling us it’s all to make our lives easier. As discussed in “Facebook Quietly Switches on Facial Recognition Tech by Default” the controversial feature allows users “to automatically provide tags for the photos uploaded” by recognizing facial features of your friends from previously uploaded photos. Yet again, Facebook finds themselves under fire their laissez-faire attitude towards privacy.
This latest Facebook technology is being vilified. It has been called “creepy,” “disheartening,” and even “terrifying.” These are words that would usually be reserved for the likes of Charles Manson or Darth Vader, not an online social network. The biggest backlash seems to come from the fact that the didn’t “alert its international stalkerbase that its facial recognition software had been switched on by default within the social network.” This opt-out, instead of opt-in, attitude is what is upsetting the masses. Graham Cluely, a UK-based security expert says that “[y]et again, it feels like Facebook is eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth.”
To be fair, Facebook released a notice on The Facebook Blog in December 2010that the company was unleashing its “tag suggestions” to United States users and when you hear them describe the technology it seems to be anything, but Manson-esque. In fact, it invokes thoughts of Happy Days. They say that since people upload 100 million tagged photos everyday, that they simply are helping “you and your friends relive everything from that life-altering skydiving trip to a birthday dinner where the laughter never stopped.” They go as far as to say that photo tags are an “essential tool for sharing important moments” and facial recognition just makes that easier.
Google has also been working on facial recognition technology in the form of a smartphone app known as Google Googles and celebrity recognition. However, now Google is claiming to have halted the project because, as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said “[p]eople could use this stuff in a very, very bad way as well as in a good way.” See “Facebooks’s Again in Spotlight on Privacy”.
So who’s right? Facebook by moving forward or Google by holding up its facial recognition technology?
It seems to me that Google is just delaying the inevitable. Let’s face it. As a Facebook user my right to my privacy may be compromised the second I sign up in exchange for what Facebook offers.
Technology, like the facial recognition software, is changing the social media landscape, and I suppose I should not be surprised when the company implements its newest creation even when it puts my privacy at risk.
Is it creepy?
Probably and users should be given an opportunity to opt-in, not out. Is it deplorable. No. It’s our option to join and Facebook is taking full advantage of it.
Jennifer Wensink, June 14, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and SharePoint
June 13, 2011
More on Google and Digital Music
June 8, 2011
I don’t get rich media. I find it fascinating that Google is working hard to develop street cred in rich media, which includes audio, video, and immersive representations like its newest map features.
“Google Was Ready To Pay $100 Million To Record Labels” contained an interesting statement:
Google is one of the most powerful and successful companies currently in existence. They have delved into nearly every facet of the internet and have been successful. Yet they have never attempted to enter the digital music world, or have they?
According to sources Google was prepared to pay $100 million to record labels to start its music service last December. This large number shows that any startup music web sites could not afford the initial fee it would take to get into the digital music market. According to Billboard, “talks broke down because some labels demanded that Google do more to eliminate pirated music sites from its search results. Google couldn’t agree to compromise its crown jewel, search, so instead it launched with an imperfect service.”
For now Google may have to settle with the current stranglehold they have on the world and allow Apple to continue to be top dog in digital music market. It is after all the search engine that makes Google such a successful company and any tinkering with that formula could spell trouble for Google.
We revisited this article after we saw Apple’s stock take a hit when Apple announced its cloud music service. Maybe lots of people don’t get the online music angle. Google is not alone.
Here’s a thought. Google generates most of its revenue from search. What if there is no “next big thing” for Google? What if the Apple cloud play flops?
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Apple versus Google: Whose $100 Million Worked Harder?
June 3, 2011
I just finished reading “Google’s CEO Steps into Spotlight.” There was one item that jumped off the page in my opinion; to wit:
For the media, “it’s much more interesting — what is the latest crazy thing that Google did,” Page said. “It tends to be like three people in the company, keep that in mind. We are not betting the farm on a lot of those things. That’s not what we are doing.” Still, Page said, now-crucial products like Android and Chrome started off as technological long-shots, and there were few hostile questions from the roughly 250 shareholders who attended the annual meeting. “We don’t want to choke innovation. We want to make sure we have a lot of things going on at the company that are maybe speculative,” Page said, quickly adding, “we spend the vast majority of our resources on our core businesses, which are search and advertising. … That’s our core focus.”
The number of articles about the shareholders’ meeting and the comments of Google founder and CEO cover most of the angles. There is little that I can add other than point out the use of the word “crazy” in the phrase “the latest crazy thing that Google did.” Oh, I want to mention that my reading skills are not so hot. I thought I detected an interesting logic stream in the comment about “technoloigcal long shots”, “choke innovation”, and “our core businesses, which are search and advertising.” I interpreted these phrases as suggessting that Google does need crazy things.
The more pragmatic “thing” today is the news that Apple’s $100 million was different from Google’s alleged $100 million to music companies. Here was Google talking about the core of search and advertising, and at roughly the same time, Apple seemed to cement its grip on music in the cloud. Here’s a comment from “Major Labels, Music Publishers Lining up behind Apple’s iCloud” from the Los Angeles Times with the part I noted in bold face:
Apple, whose iTunes music store is the dominant purveyor of music downloads with between 75% and 85% of the market, has been carefully monitoring moves by rival Amazon.com as well as newcomers to the digital music space, including Google and, in Europe, Spotify.
Google has not been able to marginalize Apple. The notion of having apps in the cloud is a good one. What Apple has achieved is getting money directly from people via its walled garden approach. I don’t think of Apple doing “crazy” stuff. I don’t think of Apple taking long shots in today’s unsettled financial climate. I don’t think of Apple mired in legal hassles worldwide. I don’t think of Apple accusing countries of trying to access user data. In fact, I see Google as a company working hard to explain that online advertising and search are the foundation of Google.
I do not disagree. Google is an extension of AltaVista.com and other precursor search systems. Google is an evolution of Yahoo’s Overture (GoTo.com) ad business. The challenge for Google is to find a way to cope with the world beyond AltaVista.com search and beyond the online ad models from the traditional world of online.
Android is a start. It is arguably more successful than Apple’s mobile platform. Chrome is a start. It is arguably more successful than other cloud netbook operating systems if there are any.
Shareholders want Apple style revenues and profits. Shareholdeers want excitement too. But shareholders want performance. Me too plays, non magnetic $100 million deals, and long shots that become winners do not seem to be operating at the level of efficiency that an Indianapolis 500’s race car engine requires. Google is in the race. Can it make up lost time and, if it does, can it retain the lead in hot new markets where advertising may be only part of the revenue model and search is vastly different from the AltaVista.com method from the mid 1990s.
Apple’s $100 million may have worked harder. Google’s may not have worked yet. What is interesting is that Google’s future may be increasingly shaped by Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, not “crazy” stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
America, We Have a Problem
May 22, 2011
Push aside the woes of publishers. After reading “Video Viewing on Netflix Accounts for Up to 30 Percent of Online Traffic,” I fear for America. I like to read. Recently I have shifted from non fiction to lighter fare, but I fall asleep in movie theaters and I just cannot pay attention to TV shows. Sports and a handful of other shows work like background noise for me. When the roar sounds, I look up and drink in the goal or the “moment”. Then, it is back to the book, iPad, or notebook computer. I am not sure watching videos delivers the type of hands on, kinaesthetic learning that my education offered. Couch potatoes can be bright, maybe Einstein class thinkers. I find this type of statement downright frightening:
People watching videos on Netflix take up more bandwidth on the Internet than users of any other Web site or service in North America, according to a report Tuesday by broadband analytics firm Sandvine. At peak Internet hours, as much as 30 percent of online traffic is generated by Netflix subscribers who are watching movies or TV shows over their laptops, game consoles and smartphones. The report highlights a rapid move by consumers toward the Web for their entertainment and news. Netflix accounted for 20 percent of Internet traffic just six months ago, according to Sandvine.
The new thinkers, yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2011
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Google I/O: Focus or Scatter?
May 16, 2011
Are the developments reported in EWeek’s piece, “Google Cloud Music, Movies Open Google I/O,” indicative of Google’s recent focus? It seems that the two most tout-able Google projects involve a music storage service and a movie rental site. Is it just me, or does Google seem to have little search news at its input/output conference?
With the turmoil over PageRank changes, Google is pushing into markets with a “me too” vengeance. I suppose we can’t blame Google for being a little search-shy right now. However, I don’t believe they will prosper by veering far from their core strength.
Besides, the move into music isn’t without its own complications. The article asserted:
“Unfortunately, like Amazon, Google has not secured music labels’ permission for streaming the songs…Jamie Rosenberg, Google’s director of digital content, argued that its approach is completely legal, that it is simply providing a music storage service for users. However, he allowed that labels were not receptive to Google’s service under its current iteration.
We’ll see which of Google’s many, many initiatives pan out as time goes on. We want to see more emphasis on search and details about the Blogger crash. If Google wants me to use a Chromebook, I want the Google cloud to be there, not offline with apps and content lost in the fog. The Google scatter may be reflections of the cloud coming to earth and reflecting at odd angles.
Cynthia Murrell May 16, 2011
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