March 31, 2006
Daily SearchCast, March 31, 2006: Google To Sell More Stock; Who Cares If Google's A Portal?; Google Health Coming To Check You Out; WSJ's Mossberg Loves Ask; Ballmer To Kids On Google: Just Say No & More!
Today's search podcast covers Google buying a chunk of AOL; Google
selling a chunk of itself to raise more money; Google selling chunks of its maps
to advertisers; Google Health perhaps coming to declare you are too chunky; some
chunks are thrown at the idea of Google as portal; Ask gets some chunks of love
from WSJ tech guru Walt Mossberg; Microsoft's Steve Ballmer tells his kids not
to blow chunks by searching with Google and chunks more!
Tune-in by listening to this
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file, listening via WebmasterRadio
at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our
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Three New Microsoft Search Patent Applications
Gary Price reports on three new Microsoft patent applications that were published yesterday. One on spam, the others on advertising. The first is named Content evaluation;
Evaluating content is described, including generating a data set using an attribute associated with the content, evaluating the data set using a statistical distribution to identify a class of statistical outliers, and analyzing a web page to determine whether it is part of the class of statistical outliers. A system includes a memory configured to store data, and a processor configured to generate a data set using an attribute associated with the content, evaluate the data set using a statistical distribution to identify a class of statistical outliers, and analyze a web page to determine whether it is part of the class of statistical outliers. Another technique includes crawling a set of web pages, evaluating the set of web pages to compute a statistical distribution, flagging an outlier page in the statistical distribution as web spam, and creating an index of the web pages and the outlier page for answering a query.
The second is named System for partial automation of content review of network advertisements;
Upon receiving a proposed network advertisement from an advertiser, a publisher determines whether to automatically approve the proposed advertisement for publishing, automatically reject the proposed advertisement from being published, or manually verify the content of the proposed advertisement prior to publishing based on a distribution channel of the proposed advertisement, a trust rating of the advertiser, a business rule, or expected traffic of a location at which the proposed advertisement is to appear.
The third is named System and method for generating an orchestrated advertising campaign;
A system and related techniques host and serve selective, orchestrated advertising campaigns and other content to users depending on contributing advertisers' campaign strategies as well as use interests, prior history or experiences. According to embodiments, users may navigate to a Web or other network site which contains or invokes ads or other media or content. When ad or other content is called, according to the invention in one regard a user identifier may be checked, to determine whether the user has subscribed to or had a profile established with the orchestrated ad platform of the invention. If the user does have a unique identifier associated with them, an ad engine may perform a lookup of the identifier against potential ad campaigns or delivery modes, to deliver a more coherent or orchestrated stream of ads or other media to the user. Those selected campaigns may include for instance immersive delivery modes in which a number of ads related to an area of interest, such as cars and related services or foods and restaurants, may be delivered or streamed to the user's browser or other application at a comparatively high frequency or intensity. The sequence of that content may in one regard be conditioned on the user's browsing or other history, including topics of interest as expressed for example in prior search activity, in explicit questionnaires, or in prior purchase or shopping activity, as well as other behavioral patterns such as averaged length of browsing sessions, or other parameters. Because the experience which the user receives is targeted or tailored in nature, and in addition presents a set or series of content which is selected to reflect a meaningful relationship or theme, the effectiveness of the advertising or other content delivery campaign may be enhanced compared to undifferentiated delivery techniques.
How about that for some weekend reading?
Google Talk Adds Buddy Avatars
Angelo Embuldeniya found a new version of Google Talk that allows you to add buddy avatars to your profile. You can either set up a pre-defined avatar, as Philipp Lenssen shows here or you can upload your own avatar. The new Google Talk is currently available for download here.
Comcast/NBC VOD: $0.99, Ads Included
 Lest one think that paying $0.99 for a TV program exempts a viewer from getting advertising, Comcast's new VOD deal with NBC Universal will include spots, the company told me. This is the deal that involves on-demand access to "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", "The Office", "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", among other shows. (UPDATE: NBC network prime time shows are $0.99; Cable and late night shows are free.)
Will they be new, more targeted spots that use the data available about set-top-box users (or daypart data, or that type of thing)? Nope. Not yet. They'll just be standard national spots, and they'll apparently be skippable via fast-forwarding technology. Ah, the opportunities missed. I seem to recall a while back that Comcast (maybe in talks with TiVo) was discussing ways to insert fresher spots more suitable to the person (and the day, and the time of day) into on-demand programming. Guess that'll be down the road.
My colleague, Rebecca Lieb, also notes the implications for net neutrality in this type of agreement. As folks like Comcast increasingly see the benefit of using their pipes for on-demand programming, there's the potential for them to favor partners (a la NBC Universal) over non-partners, when it comes to speedy delivery of programming. Not a good thing.
Posted by Pamela Parker on Mar. 31, 2006 |
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Mobile Offerings Multiply This Week
Channel 4 in the U.K. will provide free-to-view video on mobile phones. It claims to be the first time a U.K. commercial broadcaster will offer free, ad-supported video on a mobile platform. One of the first advertisers to run a campaign on the platform is consumer electronics company Samsung.
In the U.S. several publishers entered or increased their mobile content. Dennis Publishing's Maxim and threeHearst publications started new mobile content this week. Online property of Fox Interactive, IGN Entertainment, said it would deliver videogame and entertainment news and reviews, game tips and cheats, gear reviews, DVD features and other daily content to Cingular users with the rest of the carriers to follow.
Mobile Content from the three U.S. publishers is primarily offered as a premium, with limited opportunity for advertisers. The technology is there, it's up to the publishers to explore the logistics and sell to sponsors.
Via DTG News (Channel 4)
Posted by Enid Burns on Mar. 31, 2006 |
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See related stories in these categories! (available to
SEW members)
RSS Means Change Your E-Mail Opt-In Model
The double confirmed opt-in e-mail subscription model has always been the highest industry standard. ClickZ's always been mighty proud to be the only publisher in our niche using it, too.
It's important to stay double-confirmed, but I see a change on the horizon the most ethical e-mails (ourselves included) are going to have to address sooner or later. And sooner is better, right?
After requesting a subscription on the Web site, a subscriber must first reply to an confirmation e-mail from the sender. This ensures the person didn't sign up by mistake, or were subscribed by someone else. In the case of ad-supported publications like ours, it proves our readers really want to receive our newsletters.
Now, thanks to the miracle of RSS, a bunch of early adopters (myself included) are migrating their e-mail subscriptions to their RSS readers.
Example: One of the most popular RSS services is Web-based Bloglines. It enables users to create a unique e-mail address for each subscription (e.g. username.27531127@bloglines.com). This helps keep your inbox clear and is a pretty good way to nail mailers who start spamming you or selling their lists to third parties, too.
Yet under this system, I'm unable to subscribe to ClickZ and other publications as my Bloglines address is receive-only. I can't confirm a subscription via e-mail under the subscriber address.
So we're going to look into modifying our double confirmed opt-in model -- without compromising its integrity. Perhaps we should give new subscribers the option of "reply to this e-mail" or "click this link to confirm your subscription."
Any other newsletter publishers out there grappling with this issue yet? My bet is you will be in six months to a year. What changes are your making to your own double opt-in systems?
We'd love to hear input on this issue. I'm moderating a panel on RSS at AdTech SF next month and this is a topic sure to come up.
RPA Awarded By Both Google & Yahoo For Paid Search Innovation
AdWeek reports that ad agency, RPA, has been awarded awards from both Google and Yahoo for paid search innovation early this month.
"RPA's ability to leverage the entire Google network helped them creatively manage the innovated Honda and Pioneer Electronics campaigns by finding customers not only on our core search properties, but across thousands of Google AdSense partners," said Chris LaSala, Google's head of agencies, New York, in a statement. "This approach reinforces their leadership in the industry."
Chris Sherman wrote about the Yahoo "Search Light" Award around a month ago.
More On Google Health & Bosworth's Involvement
Philipp Lenssen writes of an "anonymous" source that tells him Google has a project named "Google Health." Google Health supposedly building out specialized vertical search solutions for health and medical searches, the similar to how Google handles other vertical searches. The source told him that he got the impression that Google was going to "build a self-diagnostic aid." In our past coverage we note of several engines that already have specialized health and medical search features. It is also important to note that Google has yet to respond to our questions about the Google Health project or if Bosworth is involved with that or has the title because he oversees the "health" of Google's tech systems.
Postscript: A reader sends us this note suggesting Google Health is indeed real and Bosworth is involved:
Bosworth was one of the Googlers who came to a recruitment drive at my university and introduced himself as "working on Google Health" or something like that. When I asked him what Google Health was, he said they "didn't know yet" but the kind of stuff he mentioned seemed to point towards a self-diagnosing thing, and how Google has all this information about medical stuff, and people go there for information anyway. He quickly changed the subject thoough, so unfortunately can't tell you much. But thought you might want to know that it seems Bosworth is indeed involved.
MSN Local Adds Send To Mobile Phone Feature
Russell Beattie reports that MSN Local has added "Send To Mobile" feature from your business listing. For example, go to my listing here and you will see a link under the address that says, "Send to Mobile." Click on it and a DHTML popup will ask you to input your mobile number. I tried it myself and it sent a text message, with a mobile link to my Treo. Russell accurately notes that Yahoo Local has a similar feature, just the link placement is at the top of the result, on the right and the text used is "Sent to Phone". See my Yahoo Local listing here, to see for your self.
Search Forums Roundup: Mar. 31, 2006
Today's SearchDay, Search Engine Forums Spotlight, features our weekly links to this week's hot topics from search engine forums across the web: Who Cares If Google's A Portal - Local Search Still Not Cutting the Mustard - Private Search Engines Explored - Anyone Checking Out ecomXpo? - XHTML and SEO - Ask and PPC Advertising, and more.
Posted by Chris Sherman on Mar. 31, 2006 |
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How To Add Your Local Business Ad In Google AdWords
I just posted about Google's New Local Business Ads, but this entry is going to take you step by step on how I added my icon and logo to my company's, RustyBrick, listing. I logged into my Google AdWords Account, which was also linked to the Google account I used to update my local business listing. I was presented with a link to "Create New Local Business Ad", which looked like;
I clicked on that link and moved on to a page that asked to help identify my company. The page was a form prefilled with my company's information, so I clicked continue below the form. Here is a screen capture;
Google found one listed and asked me to confirm this listing before preceding, so I did, here is that screen;
The next screen asked me to create my ad, and it showed me a preview of the ad, as I create it, much like how normal ads work in AdWords. It looked like;
Part of this screen, they asked me to pick a map icon, here is the dhtml pop up of icon choices;
I then uploaded my logo and clicked save, which took me back to the ad preview page for both my listings (i.e. normal ad and geoad);
So I clicked on edit ad, under the geo ad, and was presented with the full view on the AdWords management screen;
Here is a view of my listing on Google Local Maps;
When I click on that windmill logo, it brings up my image ad portion;
No, I did not click on my ad, and I hope you guys don't either. That is the reason I did not link directly to the Google Local result. :)
Google's New Local Business Ads
Google has launched, as expected, Local Business Ads. The official overview page from Google can be found here. ClickZ has their write up here and News.com over here. I am sure you have questions, such as how do I get my logo in the local results? Well here are three useful answers for you... First one;
You can create a new local business ad at any time by following these steps:
(1) Log in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
(2) Click the keyword-targeted campaign that contains the Ad Group you want to edit.
(3) Click the appropriate Ad Group.
(4) Click the Create New Local Business Ad link.
(5) Identify the Google Local business listing you want to advertise. If you don't have a listing, learn how to add your business to our local listings.
(6) Enter your description lines and URL. (The business name, address, and phone number of your business will be automatically taken from Google Local.)
(7) Choose a business icon. The icon you choose will appear for all local business ads in the campaign.
(8) Optional: Upload a business image to appear in the info window that expands from your map marker.
(9) Click Save Ad.
Second one;
Each local business ad can include an image. The image you upload for your local business ad will display in the info window that expands from the map marker associated with your ad.
Please follow these guidelines and requirements for local business ad images:
- Dimensions: 125x125 pixels maximum
- File size: 20k maximum
- File types: JPG, GIF, PNG
- Format limitations: All images must be static (no animation, flash or other rich formats)
- Other restrictions: The image may be a logo or photo that relates to your business. All images will be - reviewed by an AdWords Specialist. Regardless of your business type, images must be appropriate for all audiences.
Third one;
The map marker for each local business ads contains a business icon. You can choose an icon from a list provided during local business ad creation. The icon is set at the campaign level, so all ads within one campaign will display the same icon.
March 30, 2006
Citizen-Generated Cinema
 Tomorrow is the opening day of the new Beastie Boys concert feature, Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That.
The BBs seem to know nothing about SEM (I could only find the film's Flash site via beastieboys.com), but they're apparently up on CGM. Director Adam Yauch handed 50 Hi8 camcorders to fans in the audience of a Madison Square Garden concert and voila -- feature film. Never mind that some critics are calling the pic "unwatchable."
This is about control. Not as much control as citizens have on the Web with Google Video and YouTube, to be sure.
But the Beastie Boys are a brand, and in making this film (good or bad), they're allowing fans to participate in the brand, directly (the videographers) or vicariously (the film's audience).
Forget about the execution. Hold on to that idea.
Dulance Dies, While StreetPrices Has Cool Product Tree View
Brian Smith at ComparisonEngines.com
reports that the
newish
Dulance shopping search engine seems to be gone. I certainly can't reach it at
Dulance.com. Meanwhile, Autumn Looijen
over at StreetPrices reaches out for
a bit of link love for her shopping search engine, which she says has been
around since 1997. OK, I'll bite. A quickie search for
treo 650
looks OK and nice that I can narrow to a specific
category, such as the Treo as cell phone rather than Treo accessories.
Narrow in, and you can even see little price charts over time. But what
drove me over the edge to give it a mention was tree view. Look at how you can
see everything related to the Treo 650 in this
example. Nice!
Optimize Your Blog For Google Finance
Danny mentioned in his write-up on Google Finance that it shows both Google News results and Google Blog Search results on the stock results landing page. Now Seth Finkelstein offers a few tips on perhaps enhancing your chances of showing up for a stock search in the blog posts section of Google Finance. The basics are to use the full company name in your blog title, and you have a pretty good shot of being included on the page.
For more information on Google Blog Search, see here. Plus look at Thoughts On & Poking At Google Blog Search to understand there's even a chance a blog might be in news search and blog search.
Ask.com Gets Good Mossberg Review in WSJ
Gary Price points to a write up by tech guru Walter Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal, where he says "Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ (Google) on some searches." Mossberg also adds "Ask.com is well worth a try if you want to benefit from some features that go beyond Google." Read the full article here.
Social Voicemail: Latest Marketing Tool?
 With Social Voicemail, you call one toll-free number to leave one message for all your friends. Your friends receive a text message alerting them to check for the voice message.
The soon-to-launch service is offering early registrants free service for life -- and seems to be aiming at the MySpace/Facebook/Friendster set. They're encouraging early registrants to spread the word virally on those sites.
I can see plenty of marketing opps here. Stay tuned.
via Warren Ellis
Spam-Fighting Hardware for Consumers
 It's disheartening to think there's a market out there for Spam Cube, a $150 appliance consumers install between their broadband modem and computer to block spam. David Pogue reviews it in today's "New York Times."
Enterprises have been using anti-spam hardware solutions for some time now. Pity to think that in the wake of CAN-SPAM and mighty efforts on the part of ISPs to fight the scourge, the spam keeps coming in volumes that impel regular people to fork over this kind of money for these types of solutions.
Moreover, Pogue got plenty of false positives, and the gizmo failed to flag his phishing messages.
Google TV Coming Soon?
Today, there have been a couple of people bringing up the topic of Google hiring TV engineers. They both point to an article at The Radioactive Yak, which shows a "recent" job posting at Google for a "Product Manager - Interactive TV." Actually, I saw this job posting a few weeks ago, and then dug up some more information, and noticed it wasn't incredibly new then. This is just more evidence that Google is making a play at TV, from what Gary posted back on Nov. 30, 2005.
China Search Market Usage To Expect Decline In Growth
Shak informed me about this article that shows the growth of China's search engine market is expected to slow down over the next 18-months. Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, blames the expected decline in growth of search usage to "poor user experience, unstable advertising effects, and some irregular channel operations."
The China search market is considered to be in the "initiation stage," and the search results do not meet searchers' expectations. According to Analysys International's research of 1500 samples, only 20% search engine advertisers obtained results that exceeded their expectations, while about 29% didn't get the results they had expected and were considering reducing or suspending their search engine marketing expenses.
Protecting Your Online Intellectual Property
The law is still in its formative stages when it comes to the web, search engines and other online technologies. What do you do when someone is uses your trademark in a paid listing, or is scraping your content without permission and making money with contextual ads? Or what if a competitor alters your press release to point to their own site? These and other questions were debated by a panel of legal experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies panel, covered in today's SearchDay article, Trademark Protection, Copyright and Search Engines.
Posted by Chris Sherman on Mar. 30, 2006 |
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Justice Department Subpoenas Data From 34 Others Companies
Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL are not the only ones subpoenaed to give over their data to the government. InformationWeek reports 34 other companies were also asked to hand over the goods. The list includes Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms. And Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL thought they were special. :) Here is the full list:
711Net (Mayberry USA), American Family Online, AOL, ATT, Authentium, Bell South, Cable Vision, Charter Communications, Comcast Cable Company, Computer Associates, ContentWatch, Cox Communications, EarthLink, Google, Internet4Families, LookSmart, McAfee, MSN, Qwest, RuleSpace, S4F (Advance Internet Management), SafeBrowse, SBC Communications, Secure Computing Corp., Security Software Systems, SoftForYou, Solid Oak Software, Surf Control, Symantec, Time Warner, Tucows (Mayberry USA), United Online, Verizon, and Yahoo.
For more background on this debate, read here.
Keyword Trademark Infringement Case To Go To Court
Elinor Mills at News.com reports that a case where a competitor purchases a trademarked name in its PPC campaign is going to go to court. Real Estate company, Edina Realty is suing TheMLSonline.com for using "Edina Realty" in their search advertising campaign. Edina Realty is suing for trademark infringement and trademark dilution and would be the "first case" to do so, in court.
Postscript: Also read Eric Goldman from Marquette University Law School thoughts on this here.
Postscript 2: Gary Price has posted the full-text of the case here.
Google Adds Continuous Playback to Google Video
Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Video has added continuous playback. What that means, if is you are watching a specific video you searched on, after that video ends, Google will show you a random video by default right after. It is suggested that Google added this default feature to add a stickiness factor to Google Video, if the videos keep playing the Web users will stick around. But, there are problems with this as Nathan Weinberg points out; watching a video of Rabbis, followed by a video about lesbians kissing - just doesn't sit right with many.
The Google Portal
Last week's
launch of
Google Finance revived the entire "Is Google A Portal" question. I
previously wrote in my article on how I saw Google Finance as being closer to
Google's search mission than some other products it has launched. Still,
Google's got plenty of other things that firmly put them into the "stealth
portal" or "Portal 2.0" category for me. But does it matter if Google's a
portal? One reader recently asked me this. Maybe not; maybe so, especially given
their own denials. Below, a further look at that, plus some related commentary
around the web. Let's start off with revisiting what a portal is. That was a tricky question
even back in the days when everyone wanted to be a portal, kind of like people
trying to say what's a Web 2.0 site today. Seriously. When portals were hot,
everyone ran around saying they were a portal regardless of whatever set of
features they offered. It's very similar to how everyone calls themselves Web
2.0 today without there being agreement of what
what is Web 2.0.
To me, a portal is a highly trafficked site that offers a core set of
features designed to allow a general audience to either start their day at the
portal or return to it once if not often during their internet day. Ironically,
portals can be both "sticky," in trying to keep users coming back to them, as
well as living up to where they get their names, portals through which you flow
to other sites.
Search is a core feature of a portal. If you don't offer robust search, you
aren't a portal, in my books. Other features, including search, I'd say include:
- Search
- Email
- Personalized Home Page
- Instant Messaging / Chat
- Free Home Pages / Blogs
- Communities / Club Areas / Discussion Lists
- Stock Portfolios
I'm not just making this list up because it conveniently itemizes things
Google now has, as a way of proving my point that Google's a portal. These are a
set of features that evolved in the late 1990s for portals. If you're a Search
Engine Watch member,
see my archived
Portal Features Chart from 1998 which illustrates this for the major players
back then.
Here's some more background on the history of portals as they related to
search engines, for those trying to rub Web 2.0 dust from their eyes and
remember what portals were all about:
-
Welcome To SearchEngineLand from me in 1997 looks at how search engines
started to evolve portal features.
- Racing to the start
line from News.com in 1998 is a good overview of how these features fell
under the "portal" name.
- In the
Web's 'Portal' Industry, A Search for a Better Word from the Wall Street
Journal later in 1998 looks at how some portals tried to get away from that
name because they didn't like the impression it gave of people just "passing
through" them.
- Portals: the new
desktop? from News.com in 1999 about how we were getting away from having
stuff on our desktops and instead using web apps from portals. So much for
that being a 2005ish Web 2.0 thing :)
-
The End
For Search Engines? from me in 2001 on why search engines went the portal
route, why it made sense (in short, no paid links back then) and how they
managed to survive when paid links allowed their most important feature --
search -- to become a money maker.
-
Return To
The Sad Days Of More Than A Search Engine? from me in 2004 on how search
engines were getting back into the portal game.
For even more background, see
Portal Features category of
Search Topics
and older portal articles archived
here. Again, these resources are for our Search Engine Watch
members.
So let's say I've semi-convinced you that my list above defines a portal.
Does Google have all these features? Absolutely. Search is a given as one of its
portal features. Here's a rundown on other features, with how I commented about
their portal natures when they came out:
Blogger
Acquired Feburary 2003
From my story,
Google Buys
Blogging Company - But Why?
In the
1990s, it was "home pages" that were touted as the easy way for anyone to get
a presence on the web. Today, weblogs make it even easier for people to
express themselves and share information, plus they are largely seen as more
sophisticated than having a "home page."
The
comparison to home page-hosting services is critical. When search engines
transformed themselves into portals in the late 1990s, offering home page
building services was one of the essential features they all grabbed. Yahoo
probably made the biggest splash when it
bought
GeoCities in early 1999, and the move was seen as a way to capture users
and keep them associated with Yahoo.
Google has
long said it has no intention of becoming a portal, but so far, it's hard not
to see the acquisition of Blogger as adding a portal feature in the same way
that Yahoo did when it bought GeoCities. We'll almost certainly see an
eventual option from the Google home page inviting visitors to create their
own weblogs using Blogger. It will be discrete. It won't get in the way of
searching at Google. Yet, it will have nothing to do with search, a giant
departure for the company.
Note that I called blogs the sophisticated successors to personal home page
tools. Nevertheless, three years later in Feb. 2006, Google also
launched
a Google Page Creator, a dedicated
personal home page tool.
Gmail
Launched April 2004
From my story,
Google
Launches Gmail, Free Email Service:
Email, of course, was one of the first "sticky" features that the search
engines of old added when they transformed themselves into portals. Excite
jumpstarted the move, and Yahoo and Lycos quickly followed. Even AltaVista
eventually offered free email in 1998, only to give it up in 2002 when its
attempt to be a portal failed.
Isn't becoming a portal something Google vowed never to do? Not exactly. As
I reminded recently, Google has never ruled out email or any other feature it
thought it could do well.
"I won't say we won't add services, but we wouldn't put free email on our
site unless we thought we could do a much better job," Google cofounder Larry
Page told me back in 1999, talking then about Google's potential future
directions.
That interview is especially telling, as it highlights another reason
Google wanted to avoid adding portal-like features. To keep its portal
partners from viewing it as a threat.
Today, with two of the three major portals gunning for it, rolling out
email is a way for Google to fire back at MSN and Yahoo. Whether that might
also upset Google-partner and major portal AOL remains to be seen.
Google Groups
Relaunched May 2004
From my story,
Google
Groups Adds Mailing Lists & Other Features, Competes With Yahoo Groups
The new free mailing list
feature, while useful and welcomed, seems like another move to add another
sticky portal feature.
Indeed, Yahoo Groups exists
because way back in 1998, they were
created
(and then called Yahoo Clubs) as part of the race to add portal features and
capture users. Mailing list capabilities came as part of Yahoo's later
acquisition in 2000 of eGroups for $428 million in stock.
Now as Google's competitors are
fighting to win users in the current
search
wars, Google Groups 2, like Gmail and Blogger before it, seems a way for
Google to strike back at the portal features that some (see
Forrester and
Moreover) mistakenly assumed it would be weak on or missed buying.
What's next? I'm betting some
type of financial type of service similar to
Yahoo Finance. Letting people set up
stock portfolios and linking these to information was one of the earliest
sticky portal features around. It's a big gap at Google, in the way that the
service once had a big
gap in
term news search.
Google has since filled that
news gap, with its 2002
enhancements making it a more compelling place for newshounds to start
their day -- and perhaps pulling some of those people away from
Yahoo News.
Similarly, a financial service
makes competitive sense. It also fits in with Google's mission. In addition,
once the company goes public, it might want to offer this if only to avoid the
embarrassment of employees seeking financial updates elsewhere such as at
Yahoo or MSN. Currently, both are key providers of data that Google's largely
unknown stock quote
service uses.
Google Personalized Home Page
Launched May 2005
From my story,
Google
Launches Personalized Home Page:
The new personalized home page
service will no doubt make many people scream "Portal!" That's because despite
the name, it is essentially a "My Google" feature, similar to the My Yahoo, My
MSN and other My Whatever pages that portals created so their users could
access the many features they offer.
Well, Google's already been a
stealth portal
as I've called it for some time, offering standard portal features such as
email, search and the home pages of today, blogs. The new personalized home
page is merely a visible acknowledgement of this.
But the feature is also
welcomed. It makes sense for Google to offer a unified page for many of its
services, and the page does this without impacting the regular Google site nor
getting far away from the general Google feel at all.
Google Talk
Launched August 2005.
From my story,
New Google
Talk Offers Instant Messaging & Voice Chat:
The entry sees Google directly
competing against the much more mature clients and established user bases of
competitors Yahoo and MSN, not to mention its own partner AOL. The move also
opens Google up to accusations that it is way off its
mission of
"to organize the world's information." Heck, Google Talk doesn't even feature
a box to let you search for things, as rival products from AOL, MSN and Yahoo
do.
Of course, the failure to
launch an instant messaging product would leave Google at a competitive
disadvantage. In the end, while the company may not like the P word, but a
portal Google effectively is.
Google Finance
Launched March 2006
From my story,
Google
Launches Google Finance
Finance areas are a staple of
portals, one of the first features they all introduced to help attract and
keep searchers. After all, if you've established a portfolio with a service,
you're less likely to depart to someone new.
Google is allowing people to
save a portfolio, a further extension of the stock tracking it already
introduced for its personal home page service back in May. So this move
definitely gives Google another portal feature to notch on its belt buckle --
and a feature that may help keep searchers sticking with it (though at the
moment, there's no import portfolio feature to better ensure this).
But Google Finance is not just
a sticky portal feature. Many searches are financial in nature. Offering a
finance area is actually firmly within Google's core mission of organizing the
world's information. In fact, not having offered some type of financial search
was something I
wrote in article for SEW
members as
being a big gap back in 2004:
As you can see, by the time Google Finance rolled around, whether Google was
a portal or not no longer seemed a matter of debate. I felt earlier moves
already made this a self-evident fact.
Still, the popular media revisited the issue.
Google Finance: A Portal Play? is a recap of notable blog commentators
calling Google out for a portal play.
Google Evolves Into All-Purpose Web Site from the AP is another look at this
(I'm quoted in that, but my comment on Google Finance being within the search
mission didn't make it).
The AP article gets into how the Google mission has changed, how things it
promised not to offer such as chat, horoscopes or financial advice were removed
from its philosophy
page not too long ago (and all of which you now get,
including horoscopes). That
change actually
happened last August, but the latest portal addition is attracting new
changes.
So is Google a portal from its official view? Back to the AP story, we're
told:
The company remains committed to guiding its visitors to other Web sites
with useful information. "Our motivation isn't to provide sticky services."
Are you kidding me? Or course Google's offering sticky features! What planet
is this coming from, Google Mars? How
can you say sending people to Gmail each day isn't sticky? How can you say
offering them their own personalized home page isn't sticky? Why are you telling
them to personalize it, if you aren't expecting them to come back often? Geez --
offering good web search is sticky.
Let's step higher on the Google food chain, say up to CEO Eric Schmidt. He
told John
Battelle back in December:
Battelle: OK, so does that mean Google’s a portal? Because if you think of
it that way, as Terry Semel recently pointed out, it ranks as one of the
smaller ones.
Schmidt: Well, if I can be obnoxious --
Battelle: Please.
Schmidt: You’re using a tired model of looking at corporate behavior.
You’re looking at us based on market share for technologies and ideas that
were invented 10 years ago. A much better way to ask that is to say, Are the
things that we’re doing consistent with the mission of the company? We’re not
in the portal business, we’re in the business of making all the world’s
information accessible and useful.
So Google's not in the portal business. Got it? Except, with respect Eric,
you are. And by the way, Google Finance is now your eighth most popular service,
Hitwise
says (though seeing Google America Samoa at 11th does give me pause).
Finally, who gives a darn anyway? So what if Google's a portal. One of my
readers loves getting portal things from Google. Isn't it a smart business move
for it to be making?
Sure, I agree. Some of these portal features are smart things to offer.
There's no reason why Google shouldn't be a portal and ALSO a good search
engine. My reader and I explore this more in a thread at our Search Engine
Watch Forums,
Who Cares
If Google's A Portal? I'll quote my two main points as to why being a portal
might be bad:
Why care? Two reasons:
1) You're pretending that you aren't, and that's just annoying. Be proud! Say
yes, we are a portal, a portal that doesn't forget about search and one that
knows we're stronger in search for our users if we stay closer to them with
portal features. This pseudo "I never had portal relations with those users"
just feels like you think we're stupid.
2) If they slip on search, even a little bit, they leave themselves open for
accusations they've lost focus, that they've forgotten their roots.
Those are my two reasons why people might care. They can easily solve the
first. The second really depends on whether they can indeed juggle all the
balls well. Time will tell on that front. There's a strong argument as I've
said that if they don't go in some of these directions, they might be making
business mistakes that eventually could hurt them on the search front.
Agree, disagree, have comments of your own. Please share in our forum thread,
Who Cares
If Google's A Portal?
March 29, 2006
Google To Issue 5.3 Million Additional Shares
Google has just filled with the SEC a supplement to Prospectus dated March 29, 2006, which shows that they are offering 5,300,000 class A shares to be sold in the offering. This offering should raise an addition $2.1 billion, if they go by today's close price of GOOG. For the full details read the filling here.
Hat tip to ResourceShelf.
Google/AOL Close in on Closing
Well, they're getting closer. After stating their intentions back in December, Google and AOL have signed definitive agreements outlining their new relationship. So says GOOG's latest SEC filing, which indicates the two expect to close the deal in the second quarter.
Included, of course, is Google's $1 billion investment to take a 5 percent equity stake in the Time Warner property. As a reminder, the other provisions call for Google to (I'm quoting from the annual report here):
- create an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of our advertising technology.
- expand display advertising throughout our network.
- collaborate in video search and showcase AOL's premium video service within Google Video.
- enable Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met.
- provide AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.
[tip o' the hat to SEW blog]
Posted by Pamela Parker on Mar. 29, 2006 |
Permalink
Google Reaches Definitive Agreement To Buy 5% Stake In AOL
Reuters reports that Google has finally reached an agreement with AOL to buy a 5% stake in the company. You can view the update here that says, in part; "On March 24, 2006, the parties signed definitive agreements governing this $1 billion investment in AOL and Google expects that the investment will close in the second quarter of 2006." So Google needs to hand over $1 billion in cash to AOL to acquire a 5% equity interest in AOL.
Advocacy Inc. Responds to Video E-mail Skepticism
I got a note from Maggie Duncan, Advocacy, Inc.'s assistant director of client relations, in regards to a post I made the other day. Basically, I questioned the impact of a video e-mail sent using Advocacy's system on behalf of Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman of California that linked to an interview of the candidate on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."
I stated, "I get how this might make Sherman seem more hip to some voters, but to me it's just another example of political campaigns missing the point by thinking that goofy viral=votes. I don't think anybody's proved that yet, and I'd be surprised to see this sort of thing ever making a difference in terms of getting people to the polls or swaying votes."
Maggie wrote to me today in response and approved of me posting her message:
I saw your blog posting this week about the Brad Sherman for Congress video. Our point in sending out the video was as an example of successful video email, a tactic we're going to see more and more campaigns and elected officials using in the upcoming election season. From video newsletters to press releases and clips of (serious) political speeches, the impact of video email has shown itself to be immense. I included Rep. Sherman's campaign email to demonstrate how easy it is to embed a video image into the body of an email--thus making it much easier for people see it. With the technology our management system offers clients, recipients do not have to download video players onto their computers, and we're seeing very high click-through rates as a result.
The subject of the video is, of course, up to the campaign or offi |
