Alphabet Google: Cutbacks in Translation Will Not Change the Business Climate for Alphabet
December 10, 2016
The Alphabet Google thing is twitching its Godzilla like tail again. This time, the effect is more noticeable than the cancellation of Web Accelerator or Orkut. Googzilla has neutered its free online translation service. Of course, I assume the information in “Google Translate Now Has a 5,000 Character Limit.” Remember the good old days of November 2016 when Google announced an improvement in its translation service. Well, lucky are we that the entire service has not be killed off.
The write up I scanned reported:
there is a small counter at the bottom right corner of the text box that counts down the characters as you type them. This means that the maximum number of characters allowed per translation is set at 5,000.
How much text is 5,000 characters? That works out to about 2.15 pages of text in 12 point Times Roman on a default Word page.
What does one do if more text has to be translated? Well, translate in segments, silly.
I have noticed that when feeding Google Translate complex pages in non Roman languages, the Google Translate system was taking longer and returning truncated translations. Now the size limit is enforced and one sees a counter for text like this:
I have a number of translation tools, so the loss of the Google service is no biggie here in Harrod’s Creek. I did give this shift a bit of thought. I have some ideas about why this change has been made.
First, the new financial discipline in effect at Google is going to curtail some services which are not used by large numbers of Google “customers.” I know that amidst that trillion plus searches run on Google each year, a tiny fraction rely need online translations. It is, therefore, logical to allocate computational resources to other activities. The good old days of spending freely to support less popular services is over due to cost controls. Let’s face it. The shift to mobile, the crazy moon shots, and ill fated ventures like Google Fiber don’t produce big bucks. Logical. Go with ad spending, not feel good spending.
Second, the Alphabet Google tips its hand when it kills off products and services like the Google Search Appliance. There is no future in some services. That means that the hassle of charging people to use Translate is not going to generate sufficient money to offset the erosion in the core business of ad sales. The shift to mobile puts more pressure on Google’s only money making business capable of supporting the Alphabet Google system. The costs of slipstreaming ads into Translate is not going to produce enough money to justify the investment. Who at Google wants to run an ad service delivering English to Ukrainian translations when a bonus depends on getting more Ukrainian pizza ads displayed along side the translation results?
Third, the shift from search on a big desktop device to search on a tiny mobile device is a problem. One can have more than two thirds of the queries in the US and more than 90 percent of the queries in the rest of the world. However, when only one or two ads can be shoehorned into the available screen real estate, that’s an earnings problem for the Google. Right now the revenue pump up is chugging along, but the continued robustness of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and other online vendors presages more pressure for the Google.
What’s the common thread running through my three “ideas” or “observations”? The answer is a threat to Google ad model which is predicated on the desktop search model so generously influenced by GoTo.com/Overture.com/Yahoo. The only way to keep this dog from getting hit by speeding competitors is to change the kennel set up.
That’s what the shift in the GSA, the thrashing about YouTube, and the crippling of Google Translate signal. The joy ride of the free spending, we can do anything Google is ending. It had to happen. The founders are getting older. The legal hassles are going up. The silly little Facebook thing is now a very big thing chuck full of Xooglers who know how to probe the soft parts of Googzilla.
I am probably wildly off base in my focus on Google and its revenue. Nevertheless, I am willing to go into a part of the undergrowth that some in Harrod’s Creek avoid. The undergrowth, in this case, faces an environmental threat. Google has to find a source of revenue to make up the deltas between revenue from mobile and desktop mobile, tough to control infrastructure cost inflation, and the new product flop to success ratio.
Times are changing. Googzilla is being affected by its environment. Environments can be tough to change. Monocultures can be vulnerable. Very vulnerable.
Stephen E Arnold, December 10, 2016
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