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Google Paying for Firefox Installs
slashkitty writes "Google updated their AdSense service to pay publishers for referrals. What's interesting is that now they pay publishers $1 US for each FireFox download with the Google Toolbar installed. Is this the bump that Firefox needs to boost downloads? Will Google be able to pay the millions for all the downloads?"
Easily. If Google can pay the $100, the $1 (1%) will be no probelm especially since there's a disclaimer - the depending on the user's location part.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Google REALLY wants to fscking kill Microsoft! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!
This is much better than a fight between gladiators. Popcorn, anyone? B-)
I think it invites a massive fraud potential which not only drains money, but bandwidth.
Ok, so I lied -- I found the Fiscal Year 2004 balance sheets, instead of Google's most recent quarterly report. which you can find here. Google does have 7.1 billion in cash and marketable securities. 10 or 20 or even 30 million is rounding Error. Unless every man, woman, and child on the planet decides to download Firefox, Google is fine here.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
"Will Google be able to pay the millions for all the downloads?"
Checks NYSE.... Do you suppose? Since we're talking about a lot less than "millions", more like a million or so on a good year here on out. That's for all installs, not the fraction of installs with google toolbar.
Since the data/referals they'll get will grow/improve significantly. I would imagine that this is a screaming deal for all parties.
Personally, I doubt I'll use it. The last thing I need is another toolbar I don't use (actually I would use the spell check, but that's a lot of real estate to give up to somthing that should be on the tools menu). The search bar is already more than I want. By more I mean I generally turn it of an use keywords to forward search terms to google from the address bar.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Don't you think that there is a bigger plan in the works, rather than just a little bit of money here? Like a lot of money? Google is planning the Os in the web, not the OS of the web. Firefox's very open API will only help them, and hurt microsoft. Why pay for windows, when any os that will run firefox will work? Even BeOS could be viable. Even a stripped down PC with no HDD and a knoppix cd, or a PXE machine will work.
Google doesn't want to control the OS, they want to marganilize it, even eliminate it. It's going to get interesting from here on in.
Anybody who thinks "only search as a product" neither understands Google nor the power of search.
Pining for the fjords
Hmm... a scenario:
Google starts providing OpenOffice as a client-side components within Firefox, perhaps downloaded as XPCOM components, perhaps using the GoogleToolbar as the entry point. The browser now provides straightforward access to both thin and thick client functionality.
The gmail, google maps, etc interfaces are melded in too, providing a uniform interface to a free persistent 'office environment' that people can access through any browser, anywhere, with temporary working files stored locally for performance and content network-backed to Google's servers...
This could explain Microsoft's recent launch of Windows Live as - perhaps - a preemptive defensive maneuvour.
Hellooo, the program is only for people ALREADY signed up for AdSense. That means, those people have already PAID Google. Google loses nothing at all. Plus look at the stats
390.43 +4.48 (1.16%) 4 Nov at 4:00PM ET
Open: 389.98
High: 391.79
Low: 385.45
Volume: 8,824,846
Avg Vol: 9,472,000
Mkt Cap: $$$$110.29Billion $$$$
Sorry to bitchslap you with facts, but Google just introduced a major desktop product based entirely on IE and COM/ActiveX infrastructure. Just the kind of Internet product that Microsoft has been talking about since Pearl Harbor Day, 1995.
If Google actually thought that way, they would build their stuff on Mozilla technology. But facts speak louder than words.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The Google toolbar gives me enough advantages that I install it. The option to open searches in a new tab/window is very nice as is one click link to search on the page for search items. In addition spell check can be very handy (if I remember to use it). I don't use the other options very much, but until they start acting more evil I'll keep it around.
Sig is on vacation
Or more likely Google wants to use cool stuff like xforms and CSS3 and Microsoft with IE is holding them back...
How about just having a "download Firefox" link on Google.com? They get, what, a billion visitors each day? All the people who really want to spread firefox are already spreading Firefox.
Ok ok, so that was a bad question... But, is it worth it for the $1 install? Most spyware companies only pay $0.25, and they get massive pop up ads and unlimited upgrades!
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
I cant believe how lame this idea is by Google. There will be a complete feast of recruiting over at forums such as DigitalPoint etc. I can easily see how people will try to divide their income into as many accounts they can possible create to get that 100 bucks for a signup.
So lame. So 1996. Go google, king of pyramid-schemes.
If Microsoft did break their sites on purpose Google would sue them just like Opera did (msn.com was broken on purpose for Opera users) and win millions from it. I think it's much more likely that Google is doing this so that they can control where the web goes in the future.
Follow me here for a second. Google pretty much already controls Firefox (they pay their key developers and are the main people funding it) so it is in their best interest to get Firefox to be the defactor browser so that they can add new capabilities to it when they please. Without adding even more powerfull features to a web browser Google will not be able to create complex enough web based applications that can take over most desktop applications. This is very smart long term thinking on their part.
They certainly have enough money to pay the "milions" of FireFox downloads. And rest assured that they will MAKE money out of it as well.
The prime reason for M$ being number one is because M$ bundeled the browser with its operating system. I certainly hope that FireFox or why not KHTML-based browser beats m$ explorer. IMHO the only way to make the web more secure. Heck why not abandon m$ altogheter and switch to Linux or Mac. Stories of viruses, worms, and zombie's will all soon be a thing of the past.
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. T. S. Eliot
You can do that with the preinstalled google box you know.
Absolutely not!
Microsoft = Bad
Other companies trying to be like Microsoft = Good
Blame the user, not the software.
interesting .. how quickly can you transfer (8.2MB * 3,500,000,000) = 26.72PB?
..
Now with the average cable internet download speed approaching 2200kbps (275KB/s), you're looking at 3388.77 years for a single client running at last years average. OTOH, to acheive this in a single day should ideally just require 1236903 cable modem subscribers and a properly distributed and co-ordinated effort. Of course it would probably be easier to simply hack the download counters