The Google Business Model Revealed
January 29, 2012
Quote to Note:
I just read “Will Google Have to Start a Patent War to Get $9bn of Value from Motorola?” I find much of the write up somewhat interesting and silly. The purchase of Motorola has yet to prove it was a wise move. Nevertheless, there was one statement which now finds its way into the Quote to Note folder. Here you go:
Google’s business model – everywhere – is to disrupt by driving the cost of services down to zero, and monetizing them by selling ads against them. Even if it goes after all sorts of companies aggressively with those Motorola patents, I can’t see it charging per-handset for Android.
Sounds good. The problem is that the model does not apply to Google’s enterprise products and services. But why worry about details?
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Censorship Inputs: Filtering Content and Unintended Consequences
January 29, 2012
I find “inputs” annoying. An “input” is advice, a comment delivered in parental mode, or suggestions which are more about the person making the suggestion than the person receiving the suggestion. Twitter is getting “inputs” about the alleged filtering of tweets in certain countries. (Keep in mind that search engines filter on a routine basis.)
No tweets needed in this woodcut of the 1844 Nativist riot in Philadelphia. Social media just accelerates information flow. A happy quack to Wikipedia.
A good example is “Letter to Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey Urging Him Not to Cooperate with Censors.” The idea is a simple one—When asked to filter content, Twitter should ignore the request. But what happens when the request is made by a governmental entity? Does Twitter ignore that governmental request. This type of blow off sounds great sitting in a college dorm at 3 am talking about what is right and wrong. The problem is that it ignores three salient facts top most in the minds of governmental executives around the world:
- Social media is the mechanism for starting and sustaining revolt. Even the Googler involved in Egypt’s transformation pointed the finger at Facebook. Facebook’s executives were half a world away and probably not thinking about the system as a mechanism for revolt.
- Governments are behind the curve when it comes to technology. As a result, governments and officials with power want to stop the technology in its tracks. The idea is that if a service is a problem, one can make the problem go away. That’s why India, China, and other outfits want to clamp down hard on certain content channels or at least be able to pry them open and take action if warranted.
- The companies want to keep earning money and keep their executives out of jail or out of harm’s way. Most of folks providing inputs don’t know what could and may happen to a frisky executive who ignores a request from a nation state. In case you don’t know, the actions range from jail time, death, harassment, and multiple actions across financial and personal spheres of behavior. This is hard ball, kids, and you need to know that nation states act lawfully within their borders and have the same extra-nation state options that the US, England, Israel, and other countries do.
Here’s an example of the sort of input which can lead to some interesting situations:
We are very disturbed by this decision, which is nothing other than local level censorship carried out in cooperation with local authorities and in accordance with local legislation, which often violates international free speech standards. Twitter’s position that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is inacceptable. This fundamental principle is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We call on you to be transparent about the way you propose to carry out this censorship. Posting the removal requests you receive from governments on the Chilling Effects website will not suffice to offset the harm done by denying access to content. Twitter has said that, if it receives “a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity,” it may respond by withholding access to certain content in a particular country, while notifying the content’s author.
I heard that one nation state turned force on a crowd of protestors. See “Chinese Troops Seal Off Tibetan Protest Region.” Quite a spicy filter in my opinion. This is the real world and the social media which is touted as replacing search as the next big thing is fostering some interesting unintended consequences; namely, forcing governments to embrace tougher behaviors. I generally worked for governments and law enforcement. As a result, I am making an observation based on experience. There are two types of force: hard and soft. Filtering with software is about as soft as force gets. The hard force, on the other hand, is not something most readers of this blog want to experience as a receiver of input with intent.
Remember: I am okay with a person making inputs. I am not okay with the assumption that a commercial enterprise is going to be able to do the college dorm version of the “right thing.” Missing a class is one thing. Getting arrested, killed, or becoming the focus of a disinformation attack is another.
Finding is one thing. Inciting is quite another. Lowest common denominator, consumerization, commoditization—describe it as you will. There are interactions in the real world that don’t exist in a philosophical discussion among soon to be unemployable students.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Enough Already with the Books
January 29, 2012
The fire continues to burn. According to the IT World article “Google Wants Groups Removed From Books Lawsuits,” Google asked a federal court to dismiss copyright claims against its Google Books project by The Authors Guild and The American Society Of Media Photographers (ASMP). Google argues:
The associations are not proper parties to this copyright infringement case because they themselves do not claim to own any copyright at issue.
In 2005 The Authors Guild and The American Association of Publishers brought a lawsuit against Google in order to block them from scanning books and making the digital content available in libraries and online. They argue Google did not get permission to scan the books and by doing so they are violating copyright laws. ASMP filed their own lawsuit against Google in 2010 and the two lawsuits are being considered together. Interesting enough, Google did not file a dismissal motion against the Association of Publishers and it is believed that a settlement is in the works between the two.
Enough is enough, get on with it already. Hopefully an end is in sight because this fire fizzled ages go.
April Holmes, Janaury 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Amazon Embraces Flexibility
January 29, 2012
Amazon’s latest product Elastic Network Interface (ENI) seems to provide some additional options and flexibility to users and could prove especially beneficial for enterprise users. According to the ZDnet UK Blog article “Amazon Separates Servers From IP Addresses.” “
Amazon Web Services has released a product that separates its rentable servers — ‘instances’ — from their IP addresses. “ The new products will only work with instances that are in Amazon Web Services’ Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) product. A post by Amazon on its blog states:
Today we are adding additional flexibility to EC2 instances running in the Virtual Private Cloud. First, we are teasing apart the IP addresses (and important attributes associated with them) from the EC2 instances and calling the resulting entity an ENI… Second, we are giving you the ability to create additional ENIs, and to attach a second ENI to an instance.
Though this provides customers with some attractive options one can’t overlook the surging costs on Amazon. It will be interesting to see how long they control their bulging budget while continually to produce innovative products and keep their customers happy. Amazon continues to demonstrate that it poses a threat to Apple and Google. eBay? Already stung by Amazon.
April Holmes, Janaury 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
RightNow Takes the Oracle Money
January 29, 2012
Good idea in our opinion.
RightNow joins Endeca as a billion dollar baby, as revealed in TechCrunch’s “RightNow Stockholders Approve $1.5 Billion Merger with Oracle.” The vote was nearly unanimous; the $1.5 billion deal represents a per-share value of $43.
What will the customer experience management company bring to Oracle? What Writer Robin Wauters wrote:
RightNow’s solutions help companies handle customer interactions across a multitude of channels, including call and contact centers, the Web and social networks. Its products are used by nearly 2,000 organizations across the globe, the company says. With the acquisition, which is still subject to regulatory approval, Oracle will thus be adding a robust cloud-based customer service offering to its own Public Cloud solution.
RightNow has been around since 1997, and is driven to bring order, efficiency, and good will to customer interactions. For its part, Oracle needs to get its revenues back on track. Maybe, with Oracle magic, customer support and search will do the trick? However, Oracle faces legal set backs with regard to its Oracle litigation, open source threats, and the challenge of making those big search investments pay off in real money.
Cynthia Murrell, Janaury 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Proportionality Cuts eDiscovery Costs
January 28, 2012
There is no question that eDiscovery has gotten expensive and collateral discovery disputes are on the rise. In response to this trend, the concept of proportionality is being emphasized. Existing provisions are often bypassed and numerous are in support of an amended federal rule regarding proportionality. In fact, an amended rule is already in place in Utah. An interesting article titled “New Utah Rule 26: A Blueprint for Proportionality in eDiscovery” tells us more. The article informs us:
Utah Rule 26 has changed the permissible scope of discovery to expressly condition that all discovery meet the standards of proportionality. That means parties may seek discovery of relevant, non-privileged materials “if the discovery satisfies the standards of proportionality.” This effectively shifts the burden of proof on proportionality from the responding party to the requesting party. Indeed, Utah Rule 26(b)(3) specifically codifies this stunning change: ‘The party seeking discovery always has the burden of showing proportionality and relevance.’
Utah Rule 26 could be a potential model for implementing a federal rule and make proportionality the standard governing eDiscovery. The new federal rule based on this blueprint could be amended to expressly condition discovery on meeting the principles of proportionality. This could drastically lower the costs surrounding eDiscovery. On the other hand, when clients pay, advisors bill. Ultimately clients have to manage legal fees, proportionality or not.
Andrea Hayden, January 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Goggle: Now FUBAR Allegation. Yowza.
January 28, 2012
The goose is chilling. The docs have patched a webbed foot so there is some time to catch up on reading. I zipped through “Google is FUBAR” and realized that the poobahs, failed webmasters, former middle school teachers have changed. I think that the Google is pretty much the same post-2006 Google that I know and love. The FUBAR allegation underscores that the idealists and seekers of a Google campus visit are beginning to perceive Google differently.
Here’s the passage I noted:
Why is Google FUBAR, then? Because it is biting the hand that feeds it. Indexed search might have peaked, but it’s still huge, and still propelled Google to over $10 billion in revenue this past quarter. To become Facebook, Google must forsake almost everything that brought it success in the first place. It must irreparably alter its fleet of successful web properties to become more Facebooky. It must alienate users with weird, ungooglesque features. It must force Chrome and Google+ down the throats of users who are simply looking for a brilliant search engine.
My question: “What is causing the former cheerleaders to dress up like Goths and gnaw on the team?” Google is Google to me. I am happy with that. The Goths seem to have the green light for criticism which may be unwarranted.
Stephen E Arnold, January 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
File Extension List
January 28, 2012
Need a handy list of all known file extensions and types? Look no further. Nosa Lee at Seek The Sun Slowly has kindly provided such a list in “The Known File Extensions/ Types References – A” through “Z.” In a translation from the original Chinese, the listing explains:
Now, I collected all the known file extensions/types for your reference, I grouped them according to the first character due to there are too many file extensions/types.
Yes, there’s a page for each letter, and even “Number” and “Symbol.” To download them all in one fell swoop, click here.
I knew there were a lot of file types, but seeing them all in one place really puts the matter into perspective.
Cynthia Murrell, Janaury 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Proctor and Gamble Highlight Need for New Data Management Solutions
January 27, 2012
It was recently announced that the giant corporation Proctor and Gamble (P&G) has adopted even more project life management (PLM) software from equally as giant Siemens, a leader in the field of PLM. A recent article, P&G and Siemens Extend Ties – Analyst Blog, on NASDAQ explained how the two companies are strengthening their relationship. While not all companies come even close in comparison to the PLM needs of P&G they can take a note on the utilization of PLM.
The article explains the benefits of PLM by saying,
“P&G has always given great importance to its research and development. Its technologists have been responsible for several historic “firsts” that revolutionized their product categories. Siemens’ software was very useful to P&G, as it helped the retail giant to share workflow between many individual laboratories, or groups of labs that comprised P&G’s Research and development division. The PLM software helped to link labs together to standardize processes or share information.”
It is true that PLM benefits companies of all sizes by reducing costs associated with data management but it also does something much more, something P&G highly values – it streamlines workflow between departments. All too often as a concept moves through the various channels and chains of commands files get lost or can’t be shared because of incompatibility issues. New data management solutions eliminate those problems by offering cloud solutions and new methods of tackling PLM. Companies wanting to not only reduce expenses but also needing to share information between departments more effectively must adopt new data management solutions.
Catherine Lamsfuss, January 24, 2012
Protected: Resources for the Small SharePoint Owner
January 27, 2012
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