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Yet More Google Gazing
povvell writes "Bob Cringely has joined the club and just set out his personal vision for the future of Google now that it's flush with cash, thereby joining a happy band of Google gazers. But is he right, and are they? My own guess is that the company intends to become the biggest advertising platform in the world. What's yours?"
you think google is heading for ad-world domination? :)
Well, im buying that
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Boxing Equipment Reviews
no they can't or at least its not very likely
Maybe they just needed the cash for hard drives for ppls gig o' spam accounts
Heck, if I can't get an interview, hardly anyone can get an interview.
I am sure Google really wants to have an interview with an asshole that complains of their micromanagement.
I am no Googlelover (as far as their IPO/business practices go) but I don't think it's a bad idea to ignore Cringley.
that I never really thought of Google as a company. For the longest time I was wondering how they were even making enough money to pay their employees.
I thought of them more like "A group of SMFs that wanted to make some neat shit". Which they accomplished.
So with all this money now, its almost as if the impression that I have of Google has died and something else has taken over.
You have no idea how the stock market works do you? The Google founders have a class of stock that gives them more voting rights than anyone else so unless THEY want to sell out, it'd be impossible for Microsoft to strong-arm them into selling.
I don't really care what extra things google will do as long as they continue to be a great Internet search engine
Google's adsense technology will ultimately grow outside of the Internet realm and include instant advertising during movies, tv shows, billboards, etc. Imagine that you are watching a movie on NBC without commercials, but whenever someone says the word "soda" an ad streams across for Coke/Pepsi. Maybe Google will grow into that realm of advertising.
Second, as reported on my website Google's stock price is still fairly attractive from a P/E basis. If Google stays on track to grow for the rest of the year, Google should be valued more than Yahoo, which could mean the stock should still be attractive above $100.
Just my thoughts,
Aj
-------
artlu.net
I see an excellent point made in the article, which is that the founders want to maintain control of the enterprise as much as they can. The problem is that as soon as you've taken a company public, it isn't your baby anymore. It sounds like decisions need to start being delegated before the founders wear themselves out from working too hard.
I've worked at more than one company where the founder(s) micro-managed the entire enterprise. The did themselves a tremendous disservice in the long run by discouraging independent thought and actions.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
Google's biggest assets above its staff, are its name and reputation for solid, advanced technology effectively implemented. I figure they could move into any web-based application field but expect that it will begin with licensing out search technology for company intranets (already available from them actually) and instant messaging/conference software. (Jabber?)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
What?!? They flushed their cache?!? What are we going to do when someone gets Slashdotted?!?
www.wavefront-av.com
We're talking about Cringley. So, uh, no.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Whilst I do like Google, I think they need to be very careful about the next few years. There *will* be rivals (Microsoft foremost, of course) in the search-engine space. Ads are one thing, but if people aren't visiting google out of preference for their search engine needs, much of the rest of their business model falls apart.
The hype - almost hysteria at first - surrounding the Google IPO has so much resonance with the dot gone fun of a few years ago, they would do well to look to the future without forgetting the pertinent and still relevant lessons of the past. Just because the stock market thinks you're worth $billions, doesn't mean it'll stay that way, or that you really are worth that much.
Remember Netscape? The parallels are noticeable. Cornered market until MS got there with IE and ownership of the desktop. It's a different political world now though, but it's worth remembering.
And for a company that's historically been very secretive, how will that play out in the publicly listed world?
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
Google does become the biggest advertiser and continues a policy of clean, unobtrusive adverts. not only does this reduce the percentage of annoying adverts directly by market share, but it makes people more sensitive to annoying adverts and eventually the stupid dumbfuck marketers realise the error of their ways and also adopt unobtrusive adverts.
Google uses its money to start buying up real life billboards and dismantling them, thus improving real life too. this turns out to be one of the greatest moves in marketing history and Google continues to prosper.
Maybe she has a point. That last part I mean?
I think you're on to something. Google's googlesyndication.com has already found its way into my list of blocked domains, right next to doubleclick.net. I wish they kept their tracking to their own site. When Doubleclick set cookies through their banners on third party sites, people were up in arms. Google apparently gets away with collecting data from webhits on third party sites, personally identifying information from GMail and Google Groups, social networking information from Orkut and of course their search engine. Let's hope that people stop being blinded by cuteness now that Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation.
reading the title of your post, I first thought you meant that google wanted the IPO money to buy Microsoft.
Now THAT would be a successful IPO.
As Cringley points out, the possibilities for google are extremely broad, but limited nonetheless by the necessity of playing to the "technology" strength of google management and employees. Presumably the 20% project time (i.e. where employees develop pet projects) will help in the short term and long term. The bazaar model may work, but in terms of making money off of technology, they need to expand their bazaar thinking beyond just new technology, into market creation and the like. Otherwise all that creative R&D time is lost in a sea, like many sourceforge projects. Presumably they allow _all_ their employees the 20% time, not just engineers, in which case this works.
Only vaguely relatedly, it seems that utilization of their distributed computing expertise and power (as per previous slashdot discussions) is an immediate area they can capitalize on. I wonder what a google-backbone based MMORG (with _ultimate bandwidth power_) would be like?
The company itself was founded on a relatively good concept, which in turn became a very good product.
All of the techies are fascinated with it because they have used it for so long and want to see the company prosper, that is, as long as the product doesn't suffer.
All of the suits are fascinated with it because they want to make tons of $$ by exploiting something they probably didn't know existed until a few months ago.
Everyone else is fascinated with it because the news keeps shoving it down our throats.
It's almost like seeing your favorite "underground"/local band get signed to a major record label, then end up on MTV's TRL. Oh you like their music and are happy they have become successful, but you don't want it to get fucked up by catering to what the suits at the record label (shareholders?) think is best.
Even if the stock goes to $1.00, the keep all the money they raised at the IPO. The only way they get "unflush" with cash, is to spend it.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
> Why would Microsoft buy a company for $20 billion and then run it into the ground?
habit?
How about something more meaningful than 'the biggest marketing company'? How about taking all that money and being the leader among big companies with loads of money by showing that being big and powerful does not need to turn you into a monster.
How about that?
Simpy
Umm, they'll use this money to turn a profit for their shareholders.
That can be done through improvement and research, but only if you consider "finding ways to shove advertisements down your throat any way possible" improvement and research.
Google is now a wholly different entity. It's about the bucks and nothing else now.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For your eyes only. In other words, the Mod's won't see this, so I expect only you to see this!!
P.S. Cheers!
They don't drill down this deep!
Wired 12.03: The Complete Guide to Googlemania!
... The Complete Guide to Googlemania! (continued). 4 Scenarios for the Future of Google
Sometimes a liquidity event changes everything. By Tom McNichol. ...
GooOS, the Google Operating System (kottke.org)
GooOS, the Google Operating System. He argues that Google is building a huge computer with a custom operating system that everyone on earth can have an account on. His last few paragraphs are so much more perceptive than anything that's been written about Google
Personalized Results: Exploring The Future Of Google ... Personalized Results: Exploring The Future Of Google. ...
msgraph Moderator view user profile joined-Nov 29, 2000 posts:1330 msg #:1, 7:29 pm on Feb 12, 2002 (utc 0).
MacMinute: The future of Google and Web searching? ...
www.macminute.com/2004/03/31/google - 29k -
* WWDC 2004: Discover how to put Mac OS X to work for you at WWDC! *. The future of Google and Web searching? March 31, 2004 - 07
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Am I the only one who's sick of GOOGLE? Everywhere I turn, there's some chap blabbing away about GOOGLE and its IPO. Enough, already!
C'mon, Mr. Gates, jealousy isn't very nice.
The problem with online advertising in its current state is that we, the consumer, do not want or like it.
We do like google. And when google started running little text link adds off to the right, I said "Way to go, google, now you can mage something for all your hard work." A lesser company might have sold "preferred listing" links *COUGH* YAHOO *COUGH* but Google remained honest and our friends.
And now, I see that google's little text links are actually usefull to me. I'm searching for airfare, and google suggests that I try an online airfare that I hadn't tried before. I do and I get a good price! And that place gets my business, and Google gets a few millicents for my click.
As long as google can remain my friend, I hope they do take over all of online advertising. Adds that arent' hideous in some way and actually advertise things I'm interested in will, in my eyes, revolutanize the online world.
Way to go Google.
As with all young companies that go IPO Google's course will go as follows:
1. All founders and current top executives will cash out and leave within the first year. Right now they are dizzy with possibilities and future ideas for the company but that will quickly fade to watching the stock ticker, taking long lunches, shopping for real estate, and counting the days to when they can legally cash out and leave.
2. Within 8 months new executives will be hired to take over when the founders and top executives jump out.
3. The new executives are have long resumes, short contracts, short attention spans, big dumb ideas, insane salaries, and lots of stock options. They will announce "a bold new vision" several times and sell out the company for all it's worth.
4. After 3 years and various layoffs the second generation management cashes out and jumps ship.
5. The third generation management comes onboard with a round of layoffs and useless new hires and looks at what else can be sold off. They change the name of the company and start shopping around for buyers to sell the whole company too.
You're forgetting that buyouts are not the MSFT way. Sure, they bought Hotmail, but they prefer to bury their enemies rather than buy them.
Here's the trend I see of lots of Kleiner companies like Sun, Compaq, AOL, Netscape, Electronic Arts, and yes, Google.
The begin with lots of top-talent in lots of areas - academic, practical, financial, etc. Eventually they do very well (Sun, Netsape and AOL come to mind as the examples most familiar to /.); and some of the bright peole move on - some to start their own things, some to retire, or get promoted to management. Whatever the reason, most (notable exceptions, electroninc arts, genentech) fade after a while; IMHO because the best people moved on.
Then KPCB'll invest in those best people's next venture that will once again take on Microsoft in the next hot area of High Tech.
IMHO it never was Netscape vs MSFT, or Sun vs MSFT or AOL vs MSFT -- it's always been KPCB vs MSFT; with Sun, NSCP, AOL, Google just minor divisions of KPCB's virtual company bound together by a common culture of great innovation.
sPh
Sybase and Symantec as well.
I was kind of wondering the same thing myself.
Do we really need _another_ story about Google so that we can rehash what has already been discussed in the other stories?
This story isn't a dup per se, but it has just as much charisma as one.
Whatever happens to the stock in the future does not affect this. Future stock price affects things related to money in the future, but all the money raised in the IPO is cash in the bank, so to speak.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
If the people at Google know what's good for them, and a suspect they might, they will keep their search engine clean and fast. Refineing it such that it stays on top. No more wading though countless newsgroup posts to find what your really looking for. Or a better way to refine searches that do hit things like newsgroups.
After that they can branch out and play in the market. Gmail is one such venture and there are others that are worth a stab at such as the peoplefinder thing that I don't remember off the top of my head right now what it's called but it's been a pet project for a while now. Other things such as Froogle seem to be worthy of more development.
However key to all the fishing they might want to do they have to keep that main engine humming. Do no evil! Keep the respect of the geeks and lusers alike. Computers move fast and the internet moves even faster and once you slip it's very hard to go back.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Not really. The buyout would still have to be approved by Google executives and shareholders, the only reason they would approve that is if Microsoft offered more than the mid-term market value of the stock which Microsoft is not likely to do especially at these prices.
Google will spend the money to create new search technology that will search for buried treasure. Then they'll be rich I tell you, RICH! And not just this rich in the play stock money rich.. oh now... they'll have real gold dabloons, cups of silver, and precious gems from the farest reaches of this world. Ayh! Dabloons I say! Million of em! And they'll be rich!
That would be a great theory if the majority of the company wasn't still held by actual google staffers...
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Crudely Drawn Games
I did a WebCrawler search and can't find anything about it. It is a NCSA Mosaic enhancement?
I don't know how much they paid, but here's an example of a formerly-good service being bought by Microsoft and replaced by crap: Mapblast.com.
Part of the reason google is so sucessful is because they DON'T use the model you are talking about. It isn't as simple as 'more ads == more money.' If the quality of the service is hurt by attempts to make a profit, it will drive away the users, which will drive away customers (advertisers won't pay for all those ads unless somebody actually _looks_ at them). It is pretty hard to make a profit with no customers.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Is google an advertising channel or a search engine? Right now the advertising channel only exists because of the search engine, and the channel is what's making them money.
How does google make its advertising independent of its search?
How do you broaden search to make it more useful?
What kinds of things are people searching for?
What's happening to their enterprise search business?
When businesses want information, how do they get it?
I'd expect them to buy doubleclick as their first acquisition.
The fascination with google is simple. In today's broken capitalist economy it is very hard to get ahead. The biggest most powerful corporations are those that do "evil" and use lots of advertising and lies to get ahead. Google is the first company to hit it big in a long time in the true Adam Smith capitalist sense. They made the best product, they did right by the customer and they have a policy of "no evil". People voted with their dollars and now google is on top. If only the same thing happened in all markets and not just web search engines we might live in a much better place.
Imagine if your car was as good at being a car as google is at being a search engine. Imagine if the tv channels and radio stations you watched had a similar advertising policy to googles.
Google is fascinating because it proves you can get ahead without underhanded business tactics, coercion and lies. You can just make a product that is better than everyone elses, quality wise, and that's enough.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I like that you failed to RT Entire FA, and therefore missed this:
so technology doesn't scare these guys. In fact, they prefer it because machines are more predictable than people, as Schmidt learned when he tried to turn around Novell.
So I guess he did mention it. I would also guess that he assumes the above is all he needs to write for his target audience to understand the points you made.
I think google should use the money to build their own theme park. With hookers! And blackjack! In fact, forget the theme park!
It seems that, while ad revenue has made Google what it is, ad revenue can not be the company's only source of income forever. They have to expand into other areas. Everything they do seems to be based on the expansion of their ad revenue (i.e. - GMail, Froogle, etc.). They also bought they recently bought Picasa, so where else will they expand and how will they make money doing it?
Try eMusic. DRM free, legal, MP3 downloads.
"Google's strengths are its technology, its brand recognition, its current status as a stem cell of Internet business"
Wow, first use of stem cell as a metaphor.
If the rumors of Google's 100,000 servers and proprietary grid/cluster OS are true, then what I think would make the most sense for Google is to offer free access worldwide to their supermachine from any standard computer or through special terminals. Google could essentially be the next OS: virtually unlimited storage, bandwidth, and information at your fingertips from anywhere in the world. People could log-in from anywhere in the world and have access to vast resources for running applications remotely, instantly searching and sorting all your files, or managing your personal email or other information. And all you have to do is put up with a couple of unobtrusive text-based ads, or pay the low, low subscription fee of $29.99/month.
Information about consumer habits and desires drives product development. Knowledge is power, and many companies are driven by marketing initiatives. In other words, marketers determine the need and direct product development.
Credit cards provide a useful way to track consumers and build files on their habits. Other electronic cards (club card memberships, air miles, etc.) provide similar ways to gather consumer information. The companies that gather this information then sell it out to other marketing firms.
It's safe to say that Google is an internet search used by everyone. This means they have some of the most valuable information for a consumer world. They could easily make billions packaging this data properly and selling it to marketing firms.
How much of your time do you spend searching anyway?
Because the stock comes with no voting rights. It is in my opinion much like the queen of England: worth the price only for its symbolic qualities.
This was also part of the reason why Yahoo! was also so successful. They too had a clean front page, quality service and two founders who augmented their schooling and created a nifty search (well, directory) tool. Then they chased the cash and we all know what happened to Yahoo! after that.
I'm not saying that Google is going to pull a Yahoo! but if there's anything I've learned in life is that history repeats itself.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
I think they will buy Sun, who has a different set of strengths in high-end computing (customer contacts).
This is made more likely because of the personal connections between the companies, including having the same investors, whose portfolio companies often help each other long after they're small (remember AOL,NSCP), and recieved their seed money from Andy Bechtolsheim one of the founders of Sun Microsystems .
If they're so successful, why the need to go public?
As the shareholders get more and more say, they'll try to make it as simple as "more ads == more money". That's the road Yahoo went down, well that and the silly "internet portal" thing.
You're right. It is pretty hard to make a profit with no customers. That's when you haul out the lawyers like Netscape, Sun or SCO.
They all turned to litigation as a source of revenue, whether they sued MS or linux users is pretty much irrelevant.
I'd like to see Google stay the way it is, and simply improve incrementally as it has been doing.. But I'm afraid the writings on the wall.
They got a whole new rulebook. If they want to keep the war chest full, they have to make investors happy, and investors may not share the founders world view.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
There isn't enough public history of this company to even merit speculation based on fundamentals. Its hype, then growth, then maybe numbers. In that order.
$100/shr. * 6 million outstanding shares = $600,000,000
Microsoft spent 2 billion on the settlement with sun. No one was concerned, why? With QUARTERLY profits of 10 BILLION dollars, MSFT can buy most anything it wants. They also have tremendous cash reserves.
If microsoft wants google, there is a good chance that they can get it.
Unfortunately I think Google has been getting worse at its primary function, finding relevant webpages based on simple queries, for years. I remember back in 1999 when i 1st discovered Google. The results at Altavista were littered with spurious results, and I usually had to use long boolean searches to get decent results-- usually on the 3rd try and the 4th page of results. Google came along and blew that all away, and there was 1 big reason-- no one was trying to SPAM Google's results, and I doubt anyone even knew how.
Fast forward 5 years. So many SEO types are now infiltrating Google's results that they are not nearly as relevant as they once were-- remember when Google was sued for downgrading linkfarm results, and they backed down? Anyone use the "Feeling luck?" button anymore? It's nice you can see 100 results per page, but I usually end up doing 2 or 3 queries to get the proper result these days. I still use Google, but Teoma (Ask.com, I believe) seems to work equally as well, and if Google doesn't improve their search results, they will have a long, slow decline.
Their other innovations are nice (Froogle, Google News, GMail), but they are really just sidelights to their core competency-- finding relevant webpages. I'm hoping they figure out how to do it.
This is the same irrational exuberance that persisted throughout the late 90s. People say, "Look, that looks cool, and a lot of people use it, so it MUST be a good investment." This groupthink forms a feedback loop and before you know it, the stock price is way beyond fair market valuations. When the company starts to run into trouble because it has too much cash on hand and too little management experience, people start dumping the stock, trying to get out while the price is high. This forms another feedback loop and the stock plummets.
Never, EVER buy a stock where the conventional wisdom says it is a sure thing...
They have every bit of info on the company you work for and deal with, everything from your blog, and everything about the software you use... Think about it.
End the FUD
Having billions in cash helps ward off potential suitors.
ah, right you are, I should have hit 'reload'.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
The majority of stock was not publicly offered.
That which was offered had no voting rights.
Tough to do much under this scenario.
They are just trying to solidify the BRAND, so they can start selling tasty, fruity, frozen GooglePops (with Vitamin C)!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The overarching answer to the question "what does Google want to be when it grows up" is a provider of information services through the web. That means at least two different things, stuff like the search engine and Gmail that will be aimed at individuals, delivered through a browser and funded through adverts but probably a bigger deal is the provision of Web Services through APIs to businesses funded by micropayments or more likely subscription.
Obligatory Simpsons:
Gates: You didn't think I got to be the richest man in the world by writing a bunch of checks...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
"THAT's why Google is cut from whole cloth with every new hire chosen to be of the body."
Is there anyone who can parse this?
"chosen to be of the body"?
Is that even English?
Two things, first thanks for the Wired link on Cringley. I own both of the 3 tape Oregon PBS sets of his, enjoy them. I do disagree with him from time to time, and when I've replied he snaps back. Supercomputers are still sexier than clusters of commodity crap. Sorry Bob.
.jp).
Anyways, I'm a heavy user of Google. But recently when unable to find a link or two I've reverted to the Yahoo search engine at search.yahoo.com. The interesting thing was I found what I was looking for without the same amount of false crap! (I think I was looking for some info on the MIDI protocol, but I don't 100% remember). It wasn't bad. So now I wonder by using google only, what am I missing out on? Alot of people are playing games to get their garbage ranked high.
My attraction to Google has always been the fact that the pages are lightweight and not filled with ads. I'm sure others feel the same way. The search.yahoo.com thing is pretty leightweight as well, I didn't know it existed until someone else (on slashdot perhaps) pointed it out.
Orkut has turned into a slow dog. Gmail is okay I guess, I still think it could be utilized as a music or warez distribution system! (Break down files and span them across mailboxes. Wala, uber bandwidth at your disposal). A client would use a server to track all of the mailboxes to find the needed data. Don't hate, it is jus the first thing that came to mind when they said free mailboxes and 1gb of storage.
Anyways, my two cents. Google ain't the only game in town. I totally don't get ask jeeves though. And how are companies like Yahoo worth so much money? Do they actually make money outside of maybe personals and auctions (I hear the auctions site is huge in
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
while they develop new inventory ala gmail to boost ad sense / ad words revenue. Their fault tolerant file system and proprietary storage will allow them to do these things better than anyone else.
They will also expand into graphic ads as they are much more effective than text ads.
online ads are the future.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
They have quarterly revenues approaching ten billion, not profits. There is a huge difference. Last quarter profit was about $2.7 billion. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3918721.stm)
At $100/sh, google's market cap is over $25Billion, according to my broker (etrade, if it matters). The fact that well over 60% of the stock is held by insiders, means that google is almost certainly one of the things that microsoft can't buy.
There's a few folks at Google that want a house, car, yacht, huge bank balance, etc. What other reason could their possibly be?? Well, perhaps Schmidt, Brin, Reyes, etc. just want to become the first Google-aires!!
I don't know who modded this troll, but that's bullshit. Otter is right.
If you people devoted to Google-worship out there would take your heads out of your collective asses, you'd see exactly what he's talking about. We're only now getting over one disastrous dotcom bubble, and now Google could very well be initiating another one. Just HOW are they going to make enough money to justify their IPO? Advertising? They can't do it through their current ad market. They've sold investors on the promise of profit through some kind of nebulous business expansion. Into WHAT, they won't say. We're just expected to belive that Google will make fabulous money because, well, they're Google.
P.T. Barnum was wrong. There's not a sucker born every minute. There are thousands of them. And apparently, most are investors that refuse to learn their lessons. To make money, you have to have a product to sell.
Oh, and Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto? They're a publicly traded company now. You can kiss that goodbye. Shareholder interest just became the most important principle, no matter how much control Brin and Page think they're keeping.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Isn't it funny how, in the dot-com boom of the roaring 90's, "disintermediation" was the buzzword for the phenomenon that was going to make everyone super rich? Cut out the middleman, allow shoppers to directly access your site, and watch the dough roll in.
:)
And isn't it great how the most successful web businesses, like Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and Google, are all busy making money through "intermediation", acting as the middleman who points buyers to sellers, and making money by selling ad space and transaction fees?
I love it when a plan comes together
Maybe so (but can 1000 hamsters actually power google?)
They're going to redirect all search results to "http://thebrainisyourmaster.com," thereby making it the most popular site on the internet, and therefore one of the most trusted, making everyone want to elect the Brain as the leader of the world.
Then, to really clinch it, they'll use the money to buy everyone free t-shirts. It's foolproof.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
What is your vote for the next great search engine once google sells out and all we see is ads in the top results? (you know this is what will happen)
Meh.
Within a year from now, Microsoft will be giving a superior search experience, subsidized by their billion$, with few advertisements, and no screwy paid placement. It will be just like the golden age of Google was, before they started to cash in. Microsoft will suck them dry over several years and once they have 85% market share, we'll see ads and placement and perversions of search like we've never dreamed of.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Why in the world would Google buy Sun? Google does not want to sell hardware or Java. Google's data centers run el-cheapo commodity x86 servers. And Sun is not even profitable.
cpeterso
The way I see things going is that Google will be augmented/supplanted in niche markets that can be better served by a more customized solution that takes advantage of the characteristics their markets. A good example would be http://www.jiffyspot.com/ WARNING: adult search engine
Pattern Recognition, Yep, that's it - add some AI and get singularly muted.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
All I can say is... why would Google do pop ups?
They know that the reason their text ads are so much more effective then reguler banner ads is because they are useful, low bandwith, and unobtrusive. Giving this up in favor of a more obnoxious, less effective, advertising scheme would be useless and would alienate all the customers they have garnished on good name alone. Constantly i hear "what if google turns around and becomse evil" with no reason why. "what if google suddenly realies that a gigabyte is too much", "what if google sells out to the man", "what if google steals my bicycle."
Google is making a lot of money, right now, doing something well. As long as they continue to do well, you can trust them. And, as long as people trust them, they will continue to do well
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
...that they do not suffer from the netscape effect and go out and purchase a large number of tech companies that are not generating profits that cause a drag on their earnings whilst fending off m$ft.
a polar bear is a rectangular bear after a coordinate change.
Something to think about for them, I hope.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Some interesting comments can be found in this article on Yahoo! Finance
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Is this the case you were thinking of? If so, Google won. There's also a Slashdot story about it, if anyone cares to dig it up.
Just to prove the above posters point:
Koch Industries
Oppenheimer Bank
Check those first if you are looking for a reference
What!?! Remember these are the guys who bought QDOS!
Microsoft purchased:
I could list hundreds more, but I think you get the point.The AC is absolutely correct. Buying their way in is absolutely the Microsoft way. However, this is more a revision of the grandparent's point than a refutation. Once in, Microsoft simply abuses their market share in other areas until they bury the competition. They do not buy out competitors. They only buy to get a foothold in that market. Then they outsource (recently offshore but traditionally in the US) improvements to that software.
Another aspect of Microsoft: they team up with a company to develop an extension to their current software then dump the partner. Both Roxio and Citrix fell for this.
Microsoft probably would buy out the competition but for those pesky anti-trust laws.
WARNING! here comes an opinion! It's on-topic and it may not jibe with your own opinion, but that does not make it a "troll"!
You are right, I believe that Google will be come an insanely huge advertising machine. At the same time it will do more to remove a persons on-line privacy than any company before.
They have already moved in both these directions in big ways in the last few years. Now that they are insanely flush with cash, it is a little frightening to think about how much further in both areas they may go.
At this point, based on past and current moves, I trust Google less than any other corporation.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
What Google can do is know, very early on, what people are looking for -- worldwide, by specific location, by demographics.
... The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Eleventh Series. Mills, Robert
... Davidson, Avram, Sources of the Nile, The, 1961 JAN, nv, ...
If you don't remember the short story that nailed down the value of this knowlege, read Avram Davidson's story "The Source of the Nile" -- it nails this down.
FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION: ANTHOLOGIES (by content)
P. Doubleday (1962).
www.sfsite.com/fsf/bibliography/ fsfanthstorieswhen11.htm
Most analyses don't cover google's main 'product'-- for $X, they'll give you a box you hook up to your intranet and *presto*, you now have google searching internally.
$X tends to be 'about one full-time salary per year' for each box you need, and you get a number of boxes based on how many internal pages you need archived. So if you have a large site, you might need 2, 3, 4 boxes.
But it all works off the shelf, minimal integration, it's wonderful.
Problem is, most places think, "wait, we can't afford $100k for internal search! Let's just make our own!" So they pull 2 guys and have them half-time to make their own 'solution', those two end up dragging in a sysadmin at quarter time, a web designer for a couple of months, and before you know it, you've blown 6 months for 4 FTE equiv and have a bad implementation that requires a half-timer permanently assigned to keep it going.
So google has a pricey but superior solution for doing internal searching for any large corporate or gov't site... the only problem is convincing the customers it's a) better and b) cheaper, really!
But you sell 1,000 $200k annual systems that keep contracts for 5 years, that's an easy billion dollars of revenue that's almost pure profit, just reselling your existing tech. Finding 20 customers per US state isn't hard-- each state gov't division, each state-wide corp, toss in a multinational or megacorp that's based in that state, you could make it.
A.
I usually go to Yahoo first. Rarely do I not find what I'm looking for.
If they're so successful, why the need to go public?
I don't know that the Google folks have every come out and said why, but the folks on the sidelines were placing bets that it was because Google had given so many employees private stock.
From what I understand, once X people hold private stock in your company, you have to start making reports to the SEC. Apparently, expensive reports (at a guess), because the general opinion was that since you're making SEC reports anyway, why not IPO and get a cash infusion.
At least... those are the types of comments that got mod'd up back when the Google IPO was just a rumor last year.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Google is fascinating because it proves you can get ahead without underhanded business tactics, coercion and lies. You can just make a product that is better than everyone elses, quality wise, and that's enough.
Well, at least as far as we know about.
There's been enough shills and shysters along the way (Sunbeam and the exec who was known as either the axe-man or the fixxer-upper dude) that it's best to wait and see for a few years before annointing them saints. Wal*Mart used to have a good corporate image as well, but I refuse to buy from them unless they're the *only* place where I can get product X. (Happened once last year.)
So far, Google looks clean... if they still are clean 5 or 10 years from now, I'll agree that they are truly a company to be admired.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Google's only real vulnerability is in the court of public opinion, so privacy issues are a big deal. For now, they can't go too far for fear of public backlash. Soon, they will be held in check only by their "don't be evil" mantra. But the more money and power that their storehouse of information can provide, the harder it will be to resist using that information in unscrupulous ways. In my experience, you just can't trust in someone else's personal integrity to safeguard your interests; either that integrity will crack under pressure, or the person will be swept aside and rendered irrelevant. (Especially if it's a public company...)
I'll end with a little scenario. Someone bombs a building. Google decides to help out, and tells the FBI who bought the needed materials and when, everyone those people know, what they've looked for on the web, and what time they've been awake for the last few years.
Okay, the last is a stretch -- but I bet if I plotted every Google search I made against time, you could at least get a feel for what hours I'm keeping.
And they'll report the same for all of the bomber's acquaintances and those acquaintances' acquaintances, one of whom happens to be you. But don't worry; I'm sure the FBI would delete all that information once they were done with that case.
But watch out for how much trust you put in them, how do you know they won't start doing popups etc?
Bad example. I block all pop-ups, and Google's not about to get a pass there.
I'm more worried if they sell out & data-mine all the Gmail accounts in some intrusive way. Of course, every other webmail provider could do that, too...
I was just meditatating on the economic theory of agency and moral hazard, and had coined this formula just before I found your post; so allow me to show off.
The economic theory is that sales is really an agency for the customer which ought to be paid for by the customer. That this does not happen is described as a moral hazard. Another moral hazard is that, paid by the customer or not, a sales agent will not present the product which serves the customer best.
In contrast, a marketer should be paid by the producer to offer correct product information to the best sales force. Ebay automates this.
Thus the future of the Ebay and Google types is as producers and consumers respectively of better semantic information. Can the semantic web deliver?
And, the point is made above that marketers also comsume sales information.
Michael J. Burns
no, i can drive myself to the porno shop...
*gets the keys*
Even if it were possible for MS to buy then out, it would be morally, socially, and strategically reprehensible! Instead, these guys need to go for MS's jugular, and advertising is not the best way to do it. They need to capitalize on what truly makes them different - GFS (Google File System).
They need to expand Gmail to include all user files native on the PC (Gstore?). To do this, they will need to first purchase one or two storage management companies with serious brainshare to augment their already vast storage capabilities. Offer 20GB of FREE file storage. Users will depend less and less on their desktop as a tool for storing files and data. Kick Microsoft straight and hard in the balls by being the first to files off of the desktop and on to the network. 5 to 10 years from now, Google could be hosting the world.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Most importantly, SQL Server tech from Sybase...
As popular as Google is, and as much as most other search engines suck far worse, I have to say that Google sucks. It's just the best option we have right now.
First, I can't believe they don't try and derive more context out of the combination of words I search for. That would help a lot.
Second, you can't search with more than 10 words! So given that Google isn't too smart, it should at least let you craft a decent sized search string to cut out the cruft of unwanted urls (ranking only works well if it knows what you want).
Third, it doesn't even have a NEAR operator like Infoseek used to. That was so useful. You could say "Tom NEAR Dick NEAR Harry" so that those words had to at least be close to each other but not necessarily next to each other.
I wish something better than Google existed. If someone knows of one, please let me know.
Well, buying SUN would be the first step towards taking over the Solar System, right?
The earth is so overdone these days. Why not go *big* and *creative*?
This company makes a engine nearly to that spec, but it's not aimed at the Internet, just law/personal information. If it were, you'd have a search engine that'd work as such.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.