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Who Will Google Buy Next?
Androsynth writes "Kuro5hin is running an article entitled Who Will Google Buy Next?, which features a list of all Google's previous buyouts and some interesting suggestions for the future." A Google-buyout betting pool seems in order.
I'll put google.com(r) tattoo's all over me for $$ , they could buy me ;)
Slashdot of course. Imagine all the searchable insightful posts.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I wrote the article for K5. Hope you like it!
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
"Feel Lucky ?"
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
Buy me! Buy me! I promise I'll be good, and I don't eat much, I swear! I'll be ever so greatful! Puh-leasssssee? I'll be your friend!
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
where does google want to go today?
or
"640 buyouts ought to be enough for anybody"
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
I wonder how soon it will be before we see Google partnerships (similar to the SBC/Yahoo partnership)...?
... we're heading for American zaibatsus, I guess ;)
Seems to be a lot of such things these days (like Apple/Intel/Nokia)
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Go ahead.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
which features a list of all Google's previous buyouts and some interesting suggestions for the future.
Right at this moment, someone at VA Software sits expectantly near the phone... waiting... counting their LNUX stock...
What is music when you despise all sound?
Well, if they buy out the bookie taking google-buyout bets, they are sure to win...
Dodgeball - Google acquired this two-person cell phone social networking company in May 2005. The company was looking for investors, and Google apparently fit the bill. So far, nothing has happened with this company, but it will probably have something to do with Google Mobile.
Google Mobile? So are they making cell phones or something? I'm confused.
Buzznet - Yahoo! beat Google to the punch by acquiring Flickr, one of my candidates in the first draft of this article. Like Flickr, Buzznet is a photo hosting and sharing service that features unique tagging features. It is possible to browse by tag and see all sorts of interesting stuff. Buzznet would probably jibe with Picasa's Hello photo posting service, perhaps include some sort of photo-Blogger, and integrate well with Orkut.
I think this would do very well and could be a competitor to Imageshack.us. I also think they would integrate it w/ Picasa probably and Blogger.
Monster - Monster is the most popular job search site. Some bloggers have tossed this idea around, touting various forms of integration with other Google services. They also mention that Yahoo! owns HotJobs. However, one wonders whether Google is interested in this market at all.
Hmm...that'd be interesting to see
Anyone seen Epic? Epic is a mock 'history' presentation on Google from the POV of 2015. It's quite interesting and while the idea of this is creepy it'd be cool at the same time.
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
All Book publishers so they can do that book searching thing sans lawyers. Finally, the day will come when we can read War & Peace and have direct links to shop for it on Ebay.
I thought the Oracle had foretold the destiny of Google in EPIC!!! What's going on?! Is the world going crazy?!
/joke
Apple and Intel. The new company will be called Apoogtel, or Ingoople, or Super Google.
A small Soviet satellite country. I have my money on Estonia.
Slashdot posts so many Google articles anyway, might as well drop the act and go all the way.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Skype.
I think VoIP is about to hit a tipping point and Google can cash in on it quick by acquiring Skype. Get rid of the stupid name, bring on some Google quality branding and user experience and people will be bidding on eBay for accounts just like Okurit and gMail. The Google brand and marketing power can bring Skype the thing that any network needs to succeed- users.
It would be a very inexpensive acquisition for Google and it would add a sort of voice infastructure into the entire Google range of products.
Who is Google gonna buy?
Well, it should be obvious--they've stated that they're going to cruise around downtown in a van, so it sounds like they're going to start buying hookers.
This is probably the first significant indicator of evil...
Google will build the new stadium in NYC and name it The Googleplex.
They Network is growing fast.
Google should buy zombo.com
You heard it here first.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I totally read that as "Who Will Buy Google Next?". I was like: "whoa...who bought Google?!?!?". Then I thought: "wait...whaaa? next?!?!?". It finish off with a little: "eh? oh...wow...I'm stupid...".
Thus I proved the real three stages of denial:
1) What? How could they do that?
2) What? I jsut don't understand!
3) Oh, wait, nevermind, I'm just a dumbass.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Goorgle -- Dental hygenist search engine.
Smithsoogle -- the library digitization project gone insane.
Google Bitches -- Like friendster but for pimps.
Google Jobs -- nope, not what you think...it's actually Steve Jobs since his soul seems to be up for sale lately.
Google.gov -- DHS meets Patriot Act meets all your data. Pledge your allegiance, boys, and come to grips with the fact that we're all screwed.
Or something better than this slow,spammed,fraud everywhere network we call the internet.
Bring highspeed ondemand network to the people.
Broadband has been hijacked by the corporates and it isn't as fast as they want you to think.
Was I the only one who read the subject line and read, "Who will buy Google next"?
Which could lead to a much more interesting discussion ...
Is Micro$oft eager enough to buy it? Is it dumb enough to think it could? Or maybe a company like Oracle, that might be able to find a business case for purchasing a company like Google?
Or Apple ... "Hey, we've improved Spotlight with our new Google technology!!"
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Makes sense, the cash cow that is MySpace is crashing under its own load. Imagine Google purchasing it, cleaning up the code, replacing the flash ads with small text based ones, and integrating it with Gmail. A personals site is really the only thing all of the other portals have that Google does not.
The World is Yours.
OK, that epic thing was scary as fuck. HJ
1) CraigsList
2) EBay
They must really appreciate all the free business advice they are getting.
Google's going to buy the source code to OS/2 of course.
a stock purchase or an options purchase if you want to bet on the time frame as well.
t
I don't think they will be buying hookers, or taxis or anything like what people are saying.
Google has stated many times that their goal is to collect and organize all the information in the world.
DankLogic - There is a system to everything.
Whoa. Talk about the /. effect... so that's what it's like, eh? Wonder if it'll pass 1000... --M
There is a place where you get money for guessing something like this. It's called the stock market
One: I would look for some data mining companies with some nice IP. If you choose correctly you could end up with a nice product to brand. Some nice Algorithms to improve your own systems. And some nice IP to own. Think along the lines of say Biometrics, pattern regconition, and datamining. The idea is to imporve your own search and to leapfrog remaining companies in this space by tying in data mining into search.
Two: GIS. Purchase some of the providers of the data for your Google Maps. Purchase the company which will scan buildings and real world strucutres to put into Keyhole. You might also want to pick up a nice clean multiplatform 3D engine. You also want to pick up better GeoCoding capabilities.
Three: Realtime Monitoring. Traffic.com and other sites like this which provide real time data about the real world. Also look into companies which provide real time monitoring of other transportation systems.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
MSFT total equity, Q3 2005: $47.4B
GOOG Market Capitalization, 06/14/2005: $77.3B
It would be a really, REALLY difficult thing for MSFT to buy out GOOG. Esp since that wouldn't really give them ownership of the company, as the outstanding shares don't add up to 50% if I recall correctly.
I was particularly interested in the acquisition of the Australian mapping company (which hasn't been greatly publicised). Does that mean that Australia might be getting Google maps? If so, WhereIs might be an acquisition they could consider, although it seems to be part of a larger Sensis search group. It's pretty good already, but it would benefit from extra bandwidth and a bit of Google sleek-ifying.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
With a price-to-earnings ratio of 110:1, Google better buy up companies with solid earnings potential or risk a dot-bomb collapse (and probably drop the Dow and the Nasdaq a few hundred points in the process).
110:1 isn't insane, but it's still pretty high. They just need to avoid pulling an AOL-Time Warner. That screwed TW big time (now facing big losses) and the AOL brass made millions by selling their over-valued stock.
You forgot Keyhole. I think they read Snow Crash.
It seems like they are imagining a free (to the user) all-knowledge-and-communication-anywhere brought to you by anonymous infrastructure. The problem with their scheme is its all based on advertising. Bleagh.
Since they haven't made any inroads in the music industry...maybe they should take a look at my sig...
I have nothing clever to put here...
What the heck is going on... I can do anything thanks to zombo.com. !!!!
Ooohhh the flashing lights and hypnotic voice.
After seeing Google Video, i'm somewhat curious... What is the point (money wise) that when google says they want to put broadcast TV in the archive, and the **IA's say to go to hell, Google just BUYS the media associations, and is done with it.
I bet that the big G doen't have anything CLOSE to the funds to pull that off, but IANAMA (Market anylist).
Thoughts?
"Whom Will Google Buy Next?"
Really. "Whom". It's not so hard.
Don't think there are any profitable non-evil companies in corporate America to absorb...
I would love to see that, why not? if Intel is not interested of course ? ;-)
With a P/E of 110, GOOG buying anything huge (like ebay) would be similar to AOL buying Time Warner. We saw what happened there, all of the irrational exuberance of the dot coms crashing and AOL becoming a shadow of itself and becoming a subsidiary of it's purchasee.
Not that GOOG isn't profitable (and only will go up up in the future thanks to their BRILLIANT, calculated moves) but it's probably WAY overpriced right now. eBay on the other hand makes money from so many ways through it's auction service and float money from Paypal plus eBay has had the time to be subjected to market correction.
GOOG stock is set to be corrected to reality anytime now. It's gonna be ripe for the shorting soon.
Who cares? Lots of people care. And the last time I checked, /. was 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters'. Considering half the nerds around here would give their first born child to work at Google, and considering the giant that Google has become in the IT industry, I would argue that Google's past, present, and future buy-outs have a significant impact on the lives of quite a few /.'ers. And by the way, technology and business go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
at first I read this "Will Google buy NeXT?"
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Or Intel?
How about _both_ Apple and Intel?
And IBM?
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
Assumming that Google has enough cash on hand and the ultra-loyal big wigs (aka Gates, Ballmer, etc.) don't have a large enough stake, why couldn't Google buy Microsoft out and transform the company using their "don't be evil" company slogan. I know Slashdot isn't much for biblical quotes but in this context if Microsoft would "shall beat their swords into plowshares" I think I could start feeling good about corporate America again.
...
Imagine all the people
using applications that work
under both Linux and Open Windows.
You may say I'm a dreamer
it has lots of....insight? i'll let go of it for 500000 dollars. you can hire me after that!
best college pickem site ever: pickem.terrbear.org
Google will have to wait their turn.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Buying a $25 hammer...
Q: "What impetus could possibly turn 1.3 million formerly straight-laced geeks to shameless self prostitution in a single night?"
A: Googlust
FvckYoogle
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
"Assumming that Google has enough cash"
Yes. And assuming that debt == cash on hand is foolish.
Sorry.
I'm curious about honest opinions on whether they would buy out my employer become.com. Our search results are good, but I wonder if they have too much invested in Froogle to consider it.
A Google-buyout betting pool seems in order.
If there is an option to choose Cowboy Neal I'm going all-in!
Microsoft
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Who Will Google Buy Next?
Micheal Jackson's lawyers. If they could get him out of that much heat (the nth time around), SCO will be no biggee.
Tivo.
Well, why not ?
Google could unleashing searching on the DVR's. This would allow users to just input a search term and have it record all episodes that the term returned in results. Who needs the TV guides or tvtome anymore ?
I'm not the only who predicts it -
[flash video] http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
...would be proud.
GooglZon!
There are many start-ups out there that would love to have google look at them. MS makes it easy enough to approach them. Google has no page set up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is only a matter of time before Google realizes that the largest "untapped" database in the world is the spoken word. ergo: CallMiner, they create databases, normal sql databases, of every word in a call. Backed by investors, real customers, and oh yeah, another in-q-tel company.
That'd be a merger between two companies that have virtually nothing in common. VoIP is not something you want Google to be able to search, you know. If they can let you search it then that means that someone has been recording all of your conversations.
I think Google would be better served by buying out a company that makes GPS software. That way they could build a system that would allow Google to integrate advertisements into the GPS system. They could work on a GPS system that passively retrieves geographic-specific information based on your GPS coordinates and delivers things like good restaraunts and that targets things like where to find a mechanic for your car and other businesses.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
It makes a LOT of sense. Of course, a lot of the script kiddies that plague the Myspace right now will be forced to learn proper CSS or abandon ship, and I'm afraid the latter is more likely.
Microsoft has a market cap of $274bn
They also have close to $40bn in cash.
They could easily put together a half cash, half shares offer for Google at a very good price.
You are not comparing like with like - shareholders equity and market cap are altogether different things. In any case smaller companies can buyout bigger ones, by paying with shares in the combined business - however that is not necessary here.
Where you may be right is that Google is too closely held to be easy to buy - a few big shareholders could block any bid. Incidentally you mean free float where you say outstanding shares.
The company they really need to buy is google gear because their current Google Store is hidious.
I mean a google site using ASP? bleh
www.cyc.com
...
...
it's a project so ambitious (it will take those guys other 15 years to come up with something IMO) that only google can afford to sponsor it
on the other hand, if such a thing will be successfull, it would really be the next very big thing in technology since the internet
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
Save the drama for yer momma.
K5 users on Slashdot have already modded down my post, even if it is mostly the truth about K5.
I left K5 long ago, it is like the Titanic and Rusty and crew are too busy rearranging the deck chairs to patch the huge gaping hole in their service. Trolls run rampant and only trolls with viewpoints the editors don't agree with get anonymized. Yet even that is pointless as the anonymized trolls keep coming back with new accounts. The editors are the K5 Cabal, and often troll with their own fake accounts.
I am amazed that people cross post K5 stories on Slashdot, as K5 tends to make fun of Slashdot a lot, and considers themselves the superior journaling/story site. Mostly due to elitish snobs on K5, who think they are better than anyone.
Just read the diary section on K5 some day, it is scary.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
After all, they try to buy the presidency with each election.
Google will form into Googlezon! ttp:albinoblacksheepcomflashepic
Yet... You're here.
...Who'll buy google next.
That had to be said.
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
Amazon, and they will become Googlezon.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Nope. Linux is not a company (such as Microsoft) or a corporate asset (such as MS Windows). It's not even really a single operating system. Instead, Linux is a class of similar, compatable, interoperable operating systems (commonly known as "distributions") that use common components and are put out by a number of different organizations. There are literally dozens of different Linux distributions (i.e. operating systems).
Google trying to acquire Linux would be like the Sony corporation trying to acquire "car". It ain't gonna happen. But, just as Sony could build and sell cars, Google could create their own Linux distribution.
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato
In the form of RealNetworks and Sirius Satellite.
R(k)
I'm available for corporate sponsorship.
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
Heh. Considering that in my native language "orkut" is slang for "orgasms", I can only agree with you.
The owls are not what they seem
Maybe they're getting big, but they seem to be a bit of a big friendly giant. Those who read a particular Roald Dahl story will remember the reference.
This sig no verb.
...as well as Google maps, I reckon. Here, see for yourself - this product is based on Terraserver (read, superb terrain photography) and blended nicely with Mappoint. And it is likely to be free.
But back to our topic: I think the next "who" Google must buy is be Microsoft ;-P
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
Puh-leease?
Actually... this is "news for geeks; stuff that matters" This matters to us geeks. Not everything on here is tech-related. You do afterall see alot of things about stuff like natural disasters, books, movies, etc.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
Missing companies are:
Actually, Linux is just a kernel. Google will take the Linux kernel and genetically engineer it into a microwave-poppable linux kernel.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
Think about it, get a google card, they inspect your buying habits like email with gmail. Hit you with targeted advertisements and also provide you with cheaper alternatives (froogle)on goods you have bought.
;)
Yes it's a diabolical though, but hey there not evil
All we need to do is enter the previous buyouts into google sets , and google itself will tell us who else it'll buy :)
Can't believe nobody has mentioned....
:p
Microsoft?
eTrade SUCKS
orkut, if you a dwarf, elf, halfling, or man of gondor?
Not Free SF Reader
It is calling for an slashdot poll, with a Cowboy Neal option!
DON'T PANIC
https://us.etrade.com/e/t/invest/financials?conten t=2&site=financials&sym=MSFT&ah_flag= claims MSFT has $16B in cash. I really don't think they could pull it off. Blowing all of one's cash and short-term investments is not generally safe in what is still an uncertain market.
;)
And yes, probably so. I'm only minimally interested in any of this, limited by the fact that I dislike capitalism
I think they could buy Clusty from Vivisimo. The clustered search is real handy and it's something I haven't seen Google do yet.
But for foto blogging since yahoo bought flickr, google should buy fotopages.com which is a nice system.
On Google.gov instead of having a clean easy to use interface, you must fill out at least 6 forms before your search query is returned, and when it is returned its entirely acronyms.
That's like slashdot, only run by a dictator and no longer allowing new users (or so I'm told). It's kind of a ghetto slashdot. We're getting NEWS from them?
Slashdot has far too many google apologists and not enough thinkers. Ask yourself, what does Google know about you? I reckon it's much more than you want.
Thats exactly his point
Without precision, my life would be imprecise....
Latest financials show the monopolists cash pile as $3.7bn, but you need to add another $33.8bn in short term investments to this - whether money is held as cash or short term investments refelcts their treasure management rather than how much money they have.
They are unlikely to do anything this big, but they easily have the ability to do it.
Easily the least necessary image of the day.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Daily Google Story Alert ... Daily Google Story Alert! Seriously people, is a story about Google a day necessary, even if it's not newsworthy in the least?
Rather than buy more companies, why not develop some of their current ideas beyond the point of "Beta".
Sometimes I think that Google uses the term Beta just to make users feel like their in some kind of exclusive, pre-release club. Beta as a branding concept. Who would have thought!?
Ok, Slashdot has an article about a Kuroshin article? Next, K5 needs to have an article referencing this Slashdot article that references the original K5 article...
And then it'll be like in the dentist's office with those opposing mirrors to infinity....... (and beyond!)
And then the net will implode...
are you as booring in person as you are on slashdot?
I can be bought for a measly $10 million. I'd say that's a bargin!
the main homepage is blank except for support email
o gle.cst
but the website still has info on their flagship product - Trakken
http://www.neotonic.com/trakken/
basically an email helpdesk system
google used to be a client of thier's
http://www.neotonic.com/trakken/customers/case-go
and ended up snapping them up
Buying Time-Warner was the best thing AOL ever did for its shareholders; trading vastly over-inflated stock for one that's actually worth something!
Time-Warner shareholders got screwed, but that wasn't AOL's problem...
Are those two separate articles?
Who Will Google?
and
Buy Next!
Will Google Buy Next?
Oh, I get it. It's:
WHOM WILL GOOGLE BUY NEXT
not when your anonymous.
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
http://www.fuckedgoogle.com/
Surely it should be sold on Ebay?
Truely cripped...
Xerox PARC was already bought and sold, and not owned by Xerox anymore ... This think tanks seems good fit with Google.
What's so scary about it?? I mean, lets get a bit of a grip. People will write their own newS? Every single person will be able to contribute? Everyone will have power to contribute to everyone easily?
NEWYORK TIMES DIES! The horror! Geez.
Skype is proprietary and doesn't even use standard VoIP protocols. Google would be better off taking Psi or some other standards-compliant IM program and adding VoIP support (SIP or IAX2) from scratch.
Luke-Jr
Oh, I don't mind that. Just the scary overtones and the deep music that accompanied by the idea of digitizing everything in the world including my personal hygine - then podcasting it. Maybe I don't want googlezon to know if I like Coke instead of Coke Lite? HJ
Wikinews. From the creators of Wikipedia.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
My point exactly. In many ways what they did already exists. It looks like they had a lot of talent and they wasted it on quite a strange subject... There are plenty scary subjects nowdays to cover, no need to invent ones.
Yes, you're correct. "Linux" proper is just the kernel, not the operating system that's built on the kernel. Although most people just call the entire operating system "Linux", GNU zealots and other pedantic persons insist that its proper name is "GNU/Linux". :-)
:-D
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato
If being exciting involves incoherent rants using poor grammar and spelling rather than literate, informative posts, then I'd rather be "booring", thank you very much.
#INCLUDE snarky comment regarding proper spelling and capitalization.
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato