Mark Evans

A Rare Google Casualty

In what may be a first, Google is closing down part of its empire - albeit a little-known photo-sharing service called Hello that was acquired as part of Picasa in 2005.

There’s probably been Google services that have quietly disappeared into the bowels of the Googleplex never to be seen again (Dodgeball?) but closing a service has not been part of Google’s operating manual.

Then again, when you have an army of developers spending churning out new services, at some point you have a buffet of products (or “100 children” as Monster founder Jeff Taylor describes it). Not all of them can be successful even if you slap the Google brand on them.

In the book “It’s All Too Much” about battling clutter, they suggest that for every thing new you bring into your house, you throw something out. Maybe Hello is just Google doing some de-cluttering.

For more, check out Mathew Ingram, who says Hello was a solid service. As well, check out Ryan Spoon’s list of the 15 online services he would pay to use.

Technorati Tags: Google , Hello

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Desktop RIP?

In my house, there are three laptops of various vintages, as well as a lonely desktop that rarely gets used these days. The desktop collects dust mostly because it’s fixed in one place while the laptops wander around the house happily connected to a robust Wi-Fi network.

I hadn’t really thought much the desktop’s isolation until reading this story about how Dell is closing a desktop computer factory in Austin while laying off thousands of employees around the world in a move to save $3-billion a year.

Now, the decision to mothball the desktop factory may have everything to do with Dell’s struggles but, nevertheless, the decision and the lack of attention my desktop receives got me thinking that maybe there’s a bigger trend here. Maybe what’s happening is the desktop is dying/disappearing.

Think about it this way: With 3G, Wi-Fi, cloud computing, the growing popularity of smart devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry, more people want their computing devices to be with them at all times. By being able to connect to the Internet, there’s less of a need to be fixed in one place and, as a result, less of a need to buy a desktop unless you’re a business looking for cheap computers that can’t easily escape from the office.

You could argue that the popularity of the MacBook is just a high-profile sign of this trend. One of the reasons that people love MacBooks is because they’re great computers that you can stuff into a bag. And it’s possible that the MacBook Air will become the computer of choice for the road warrior.

At the same time, prices for laptops have tumbled. It used to be that buying a laptop was a luxury because it cost so much more than a desktop. These days, you can purchase a pretty solid laptop for about $500, while an Everex laptop can be picked up for less than $400.

If I was thinking about buying a new computer, my first choice would be a laptop, preferably a MacBook if there were enough pennies in the piggybank. If forced to a desktop, I would probably consider an iMac or Mac Mini.

If you don’t buy into my the desktop is dead/dying thesis, maybe you’ll believe Gartner, which suggests worldwide PC shipments will grow 10.9% in 2008 to 293 million units with strong demand for mobile PCs.

“Technology and design improvements have not only lowered the price of mobile PCs but also significantly improved their value proposition relative to desk-based PCs. The relative value of mobile PCs has also been bolstered by the continued expansion of mobile access, and this increase in value continues to stimulate strong demand for mobile PCs across both mature and emerging markets. Gartner analysts said mobile PC shipments will gain additional momentum as so-called “affordable” mobile PCs, which address price points once thought impossible for mobile PCs, become more widely available.”

Note: Microsoft has announced XP will no longer be available after June 30 other than on ultra-low cost PCs. Ars Technica has all the details and some good background.

Technorati Tags: Laptop, MacBook, MacBook Air

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Google’s Hunger for Power

When it comes to the Internet’s growth, there’s a lot of talk about the digital divide, network neutrality, and the sharing phenomena (Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.) but one thing that rarely attracts the spotlight is the more people who go online, the more energy that’s consumed.

After all, you’ve got tens of millions of computers and modems sucking up electricity, and thousands of data centers that need enormous amounts of electricity to power servers and cooling systems.

So, where does this power come from, and where are these data centers located? An interesting take on the need for power can be found in this month’s issue of Harpers, which looks at Google’s power needs, and some of the aggressive tactics it has taken to get what it needs to build new data centers everywhere from Washington state and Siberia to Dubai and Shanghai.

The articles succinctly goes a long way in explaining Google’s growing lobby presence in Washington, as well as its recent embrace of green energy. One eye-catching factoid from the article is that Google’s U.S. data centers consumed more power in 2006 than all of the television in the U.S.

(As a side note, try connecting a powerbar to your computing space, and then turning everything off when they’re not in use. You’ll be surprised by how much power you’ll save.)

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Does Google Need to Buy Every Cool Thing?

There are reports that Digg is really (and finally!) on the block, and that one of the four suitors is - surprise, surprise - Google.

While it might make strategic sense for Google to acquire Digg given its traffic and advertising potential, it just doesn’t feel right that Google seems to snap up every interesting Web service as it strives to control the Internet.

In the past year, for example, Google has bought cool start-ups such as Panoramio, FeedBurner, Adscape, GrandCentral, Postini and Jaiku, while Facebook slipped through its M&A clutches when Microsoft was allowed to buy a teeny-tiny stake for $250-million. (A complete list of Google’s acquisitions can be found here.)

Is it really healthy for the Internet that Google is so dominant and capable of buying anything within its strategic desires? Is the lack of a strong #2 player going to be bad for the Internet’s evolution when you’ve got one company essentially running the market, including its ability to control the economics of many businesses through AdSense.

Maybe we’re starting to enter the anti-Google (AG) era. Look at it this way, Google has gone from cool start-up that came out nowhere into an economic powerhouse with its tentacles increasingly stretching into every nook and cranny on the Web.

This is purely anecdotal but I think there’s some Google Fatigue starting to set in as people grow tired of seeing Google around every corner. For anyone looking to liberate themselves from Google, a good starting point is using a different search engine - a difficult task for many people but perhaps necessary task for Google to be reigned in.

Technorati Tags: Digg, Google , M&A

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The Rise and Fall of Geosign

My friend, Robert Thompson, has a story in the Financial Post magazine that provides a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at Guelph, Ont.-based Geosign, which built a $100-million business by arbitraging Google AdSense keywords and Yahoo Ads.

Geosign’s success allowed it to raise $160-million of venture capital from American Capital, and turned it overnight from a company with almost no profile into Canada’s tech darling.

The bottom abruptly fell out, however, when Google changed AdSense’s terms of service. Geosign had to fire dozens of employees - many of whom had just been hired - and the company was split into two with American Capital taking control of Geosign’s marketing and advertising assets, which it spun off in a new entity called Moxy Media.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Geosigns, Google

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Google’s Flawed MSFT/YHOO Strategy

Since its inception, Google has exuded an aura of cool, calm and collected.

This obviously comes from top as Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have reputations as the confident, pragmatic and ambitious co-captains of the S.S. Google.

So, it seems strange that Google has come across looking so scattered and frazzled in reaction to Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo. First, its chief legal beagle David Drummond writes a blog post that comes across as patronizing and disrespectful. Now, Brin makes a comment that Google finds the idea of a MSFT-YHOO marriage “unnerving” as well as a threat to the future of the Internet.

This is not only strange behavior but terrible public relations. It’s like Google is the most popular and good-looking kid in high school but can’t help but to openly diss the new kid on the block even though there is no threat.

Sadly, Google has decided to go public with its concerns as opposed to quietly working behind the scenes to delay or scuttle Microsoft’s plans. It makes Google comes across as not only the Internet’s dominant player but a pissed off and paranoid bully….and that’s a long way from its “Do No Evil” motto.
Links: Mashable’s Mark Hopkins has some good insights, including a suggestion that Google’s real issue is a Microsoft-Yahoo combination will make it more of a “nuisance” than they’ve been as standalone competitors.

Technorati Tags: Google , Microsoft, Yahoo

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It’s All About Location…and Local News

If you’re a fan of Google News, you’ll be interested in a new feature Google has rolled out - local news.

By entering the name of your city or zip code, you can create a section on Google News that picks up local news sources. It’s pretty impressive.

A couple of thoughts:

1. It’s hard to tell whether newspapers will be happy about this development or not given going local seems to be one way for newspapers to survive. If Google is providing local news, this may not be a good thing for newspapers. Or it might drive more traffic to newspaper Web sites.

2. More important, Google Local is clearly another way Google wants to drive local advertising. The market, so far, has been a tough nut for everyone, including Google, so perhaps this is a way for Google to drive deeper into the market.

Technorati Tags: Google , Newspapers

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Google on MSFT-YHOO

Google’s official response to Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo is, well, a surprise and a major disappointment in many respects. Nick Carr describes it as a “remarkably contemptuous broadside”. Sounds about right to me.

Technorati Tags: Google , Microsoft, Yahoo

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Google Isn’t God…But Addictive

A few years, I took a half-hearted attempt at giving up Microsoft (sort of like my terribly unsuccessful endeavor to become a vegetarian.)

It was a difficult task given I was using XP and Office but there was a sense of satisfaction in embracing Firefox and Thunderbird rather than IE and Outlook. These days, Google is the new Microsoft but as much as I’d like to cut back on my Google addiction, it’s difficult. Let’s look at my Google “portfolio”:

1. Search. Simply put, Google continues to be the best, although I’m curious/interested about new search engines such as Powerset.

2. Blog search. Google Blog Search is, strangely, far from compelling but it will continue to be the tool of choice until something better comes along.

3. Image search. Love it. Works.

4. Finance. Google Finance has a nice clean look and feel but Yahoo Finance can be just as good, particularly when it comes to analyst information.

5. Picasa. I just started using Google’s photo tool. It’s pretty good but there are plenty of solid alternatives. For photo-editing, Picnik is great.

6. Google Docs. A great tool if you need to collaborate with other people, and a complement - but not a replacement - to Office.

7. Google Reader. I used to be a big FeedDemon fan but jumped on the GR bandwagon when it became obvious that an online tool was a must-have.

8. Google Earth. Tres cool.

The funny thing about using all these Google services is they kind of just sneak up on you. One day, you’re using search on a regular basis, and then before you know it, you’ve migrated to a bunch of other Google-powered services.

What’s interesting that I look at each Google search as a standalone entity rather than as an application suite - perhaps because there’s little integration between each service. One of the reasons that I really like the concept of a Google Browser (aka GBrowser) is it would give Google an interesting way to showcase its entire portfolio, while controlling the tool that’s replacing the OS as the foundation for personal computing.

More: Jeff Jarvis declares that “Google is God” after looking at the company’s growth in terms of search, pay-per-click, traffic, brand and financial results.

Technorati Tags: Google

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Goog-pedia or Just Another Google App (JAGA)?

So what is one to make of Google’s latest project - a social content tool called knol that looks and smells a lot like Wikipedia.

Is this just Google throwing yet another piece of Web 2.0 spaghetti on the wall to see if it sticks? Or is Google really serious about creating a new content destination where authors can write authoritative articles, and share in any revenue generated from the Web page? Nick Carr takes a shot at explaining Google’s motives, while the New York Times provides an overview on knol.

Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of people such as Mathew Ingram and Steve Rubel who are very excited about the possibilities but I’ll take a pragmatic approach before jumping on the bandwagon.

As much as Google is all powerful and had successl with non-search services (GMail, Google Reader), it has also had more than its fair share of duds: Froogle, Orkut, Picasa, blog search. Just because Google has launched a Wikipedia-like service doesn’t mean the world will beat down its door.

But it’s Google, and everyone is fascinated with Google so getting on the this-is-going-to-kill-Wikipedia movement seems like the right thing to do.

And here’s another consideration: the more Google pushes out into new markets/services, the greater the risk of inciting a backlash. At some point, people are going to realize they’re completely dependent on a single supplier for a wide variety of services. And as much as Google’s service work, people like variety, and wide variety of players lends itself to a healthy competitive ecosystem.

For some excellent perspective on knol and Google’s expansion in other markets, Ars Technica is a must-read. I also like Deep Jive Interests‘ take on how Google is treading on dangerous group with Knol.

“Google’s Knols sound like a way for Google to fiddle with its Golden Goose, so that it can maximize how much it can milk it for its Golden Eggs. Its got to be very careful, however, with how sharp its trying to be with this new experiment (particularly as there are no editors and no obvious sense of quality control), lest it lop off the head of said goose.”

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