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Posts tagged google inc
Cosa attendersi da Google Me
Aug 25th
Google ha dato un valore alla ricerca quando gli altri erano ancora fossilizzati sui contenuti. Su questa base la società di Mountain View ha costruito un impero online. Google Inc. si è successivamente diversificata proponendo una galassia di servizi. C’è però un fronte sul quale non è ancora riuscita a sfondare: il social networking.
Google ha messo in atto differenti tentativi per diventare sociale, ma si sono rivelati tutti al di sotto delle aspettative. Friend Connect, il sistema che permette di integrare dei box sociali sulle pagine Web è stato adottato da un certo numero di Siti di grandi dimensioni, ma non dal target principale: la piccola editoria online. Wave, la piattaforma di collaborazione in tempo reale rimasta a lungo in beta ad invito è stata poi chiusa per mancanza di iscritti e troppa complessità. Buzz, il servizio sociale legato a Gmail ha avuto grossi problemi di privacy in fase di lancio e non sta facendo presa sui navigatori. Il motore di ricerca ha poi anche integrato numerosi contenuti sociali nei suoi risultati. Ma si tratta di terze parti. Nulla di proprietario. Anche il tentativo di rendere maggiormente sociali i profili Google non ha fornito la spinta necessaria per fare il salto di qualità.
Adesso Google ci riprova con Google Me e non può permettersi di fallire ancora. Se Google intende diventare un player importante nel settore dei social network dovrà proporre un servizio che aggiunga qualcosa a ciò che è attualmente disponibile. Un clone di Facebook non avrebbe senso. Una parte della vision di Google si può dedurre della presentazione dal titolo “The Real Life Social Network” tenuta recentemente da Paul Adams, senior user experience di Google.
Secondo Adams il principale problema che si riscontra su servizi come Facebook è quello che a differenza della vita reale, non c’è modo di diversificare il proprio comportamento sociale a seconda del contesto in cui ci si trova. Tutti gli “amici” sono infatti in uno stesso grande “ambiente”. Adams ha portato un esempio: “Se sei a casa di tua madre, ti comporterai diversamente da quando sei al bar con i tuoi amici o con i colleghi nel tuo ufficio”. Il ricercatore di Google ha anche sottolineato come nella vita reale ci siano tre differenti fasce di relazione: le persone più care con le quali si comunica costantemente e in modo approfondito, i conoscenti e coloro che si sono incontrati una volta nella vita. Collassare queste categorie di relazione nel medesimo contesto sociale come avviene nei social network attuali crea confusione e rischi, conclude Adams.
Google sostiene insomma che la rete sociale offline degli individui venga distorta, se trasferita online su siti come Facebook. Propone quindi un ambiente Internet di gruppi di contatti indipendenti tra loro in differenti contesti sociali. Occorrerà però vedere se e come Mountain View riuscirà a costruire su questa base un nuovo servizio e soprattutto se incontrerà il gradimento dei navigatori.
Di seguito, la serie completa di slide utilizzate da Paul Adams nel corso della sua presentazione:
Cosa attendersi da Google Me é stato pubblicato su downloadblog alle 11:00 di mercoledì 25 agosto 2010.
Via | downloadblog.it
Popularity: unranked
Wall Street Journal Throws A Softball To MySpace
Jul 6th
I’m sort of scratching my head at the Wall Street Journal’s article (mostly behind a paywall) that MySpace is in negotiations over some kind of new search advertising deal.
“News Corp. is in discussions with Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. about replacing MySpace’s crucial search-advertising partnership with Google, which expires next month, according to people familiar with the matter,” says the WSJ, which is also owned by MySpace parent News Corp.
Well, yeah. Their deal with Google is ending. Supposedly in August, although the Google agreement I read said it ended in June 2010. Everyone knows MySpace has been trying to figure out a way to replace that $300 million/year in revenue. And everyone knows it isn’t going to happen.
But anyway, here are some interesting things that the WSJ left out of their article:
First, Fox Audience Network, which serves most of the ads on MySpace, is supposedly on a tear with their self service platform. Our understanding is that News Corp.’s goal is to grow FAN to the point where MySpace doesn’t need an outside partner for search advertising.
Second, FAN is definitely up for sale by News Corp., and at least one bidder – Silver Lake Partners (they own part of Skype, and made a failed bid to invest in Facebook) – has made an offer. If FAN is sold, it’s a solid bet that MySpace will quickly be sold, too. The two companies live off each other.
Third, the WSJ says MySpace thinks it can carve a niche for itself by exploiting Facebook’s privacy weakness (good idea, but way too late now). Apparently there will also be a new logo.
MySpace is apparently still counting on artists and bands to keep users happy - “A band, for instance, could use MySpace to share music with fans and get feedback, as well as adjust their touring schedule to add concerts in Texas, for example, if the musicians see their MySpace fan base is heavily from that state.” But sometime this year, probably sooner rather than later, MySpace is going to turn off their free music streaming and move to a subscription model.
A related point – MySpace Music was driving most of the searches that made up the massive page view obligations that MySpace had under the Google Agreement. With free music going away, those page views will go away, too. Meaning a search deal is even less lucrative.
There’s no real news at all in the WSJ article, although it will certainly help ensure that Microsoft, Google and Yahoo all know that the other guys are maybe looking at a deal, too. I think the far more interesting questions around MySpace have to do with what’s going on with FAN, and what will happen to their music business, none of which was addressed in the article. Far be it from me to say that there’s a conflict of interest in this story given that the WSJ and MySpace are owned by the same company – I’ll let others say it instead. A more critical approach may have been a better choice.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: unranked
Acer expects to overtake HP as world’s biggest laptop vendor by year’s end
Jun 19th
Ah, the inexorable rise of a once-small Taiwanese company. Acer chairman JT Wang has told investors in a conference call this week that his company is on track to overtake HP in worldwide laptop shipments before the year is through. That assertion is backed up by Gartner’s data, cited in the Wall Street Journal, which indicates that Acer shipped 9.49 million mobile computers in the first quarter of 2010, just ahead of HP’s 9.47 million. Positive vibes are also being felt on the desktop front, where Acer aims to shift 10 million units this year, while a decent $15 million is being invested into “developing a a smartphone platform based on Google Inc.’s Android.” We’ll be curious to see whether this thrifty strategy pays off against HP’s ebullient $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, but one thing’s for sure: PC vendors are hungry for some of that sweet smartphone pie.
Acer expects to overtake HP as world’s biggest laptop vendor by year’s end originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Via | Engadget
Popularity: 1%
WSJ: Facebook, MySpace & Others Share Identifying User Data With Advertisers
May 21st
A report in the Wall Street Journal this evening reveals that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and a number of other popular social sites are passing along data that advertisers could potentially use to identify users who click their ads. The article is focused on Facebook in particular, which appears to have been passing along the most data of the aforementioned sites and has also been embroiled in a major privacy controversy.
The Journal article doesn’t get into too much technical detail, but it sounds like Facebook and the others are failing to scrub ‘referring’ URLs that are always passed along whenever a user clicks a link. This is actually normal behavior — typically when you click a link on a website, the site you’re being directed to will get to see where you came from. The issue is that these social sites include some identifying information as part of their URLs; when you visit a friend’s Facebook profile, the resulting URL might include both your friend’s username and your Facebook ID, which could be used to associate you with the ads you’re clicking on.
That said, the Journal reports that the ad companies it contacted had not used the data:
Several large advertising companies identified by the Journal as receiving the data, including Google Inc.’s DoubleClick and Yahoo Inc.’s Right Media, said they were unaware of the data being sent to them from the social-networking sites, and said they haven’t made use of it.
However, the article doesn’t say that all ad networks that placed ads on Facebook were ignoring the data. We’ve reached out to Facebook to ask if it’s possible that smaller networks could have leveraged it.
The WSJ article notes that the discovery was pointed out back in August by researchers from AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but that the issue has persisted until this morning (Facebook and MySpace have now “rewritten some of the offending computer code”).
Image via alancleaver
Via | TechCrunch
Popularity: unranked
Google Ventures: Year one
May 3rd
When we launched Google Ventures last March, we wanted to honor Google’s entrepreneurial roots while tapping into the wealth of human and technical resources available at Google Inc. to build a unique venture fund. Rather than looking for investments that would simply be strategically useful to Google, we aim to invest in best-of-breed ventures in a wide variety of fields. Our fund’s calling is to generate a financial return while supporting entrepreneurs who are creating transformative ventures. In doing so, we try to bring to bear Google’s resources to support them in that mission.
The job is fairly straightforward: we want to find outstanding entrepreneurs and start-ups, perform thorough and careful due diligence with the help of the combined experience of more than 20,000 Googlers, and then do everything we can to help those companies grow and succeed. To do so, we’re building a team of seasoned entrepreneurs, subject-matter experts and investors committed to this goal — above all else, we want to provide more than dollars to our investees. From product launches to code reviews, from help with communications to UI design and beyond — there are a lot of areas where Google’s collective experience might be helpful to a start-up.
We recently revamped our website, where you can find out more about the people that make up the growing Google Ventures team as well as information on the 10 currently announced portfolio companies.
Google Ventures is an expression of our optimism in the future and the belief that looking for, supporting and fostering innovation is worthwhile. We don’t know where the next great idea will come from, but with the help of many Googlers, great co-investors and a growing team, we’re going to keep looking while working to help entrepreneurs succeed.
Posted by Bill Maris, Managing Partner
Via | Google blogs
Popularity: 1%
