Google's Campaign Against Microsoft

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Official Google Blog: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet

Above is a link to a recent post on Google's official blog that puts forth a very interesting viewpoint from one of Google's senior VPs, Alan Eustace. Here we have someone from Google's camp who is appearing to speak for the company, speaking out against their rival Microsoft.

This post is incredibly interesting, because it is not very often that we get to here one company voicing a profound distaste for another company on such a fundamental, philosophical level. Google is not just Microsoft's competitor - Google believes that Microsoft is actually bent on destroying what Google believes is great about the Internet, and even the world.

I imagine the guys over at Microsoft don't actually carry pitchforks when we're not looking. But I think they do see financial profit as their firm's foremost reason for existence. And who can blame them? This is Economics 101. Firms exist to make a profit.

Now, obviously, it's the way in which Microsoft makes its profit that Google finds deplorable. Google sees Microsoft as ensuring future profits by damaging the markets in which it competes. The obvious result is the current near-monopoly that Microsoft enjoys in the PC operating system market. Especially from Google's perspective, it seems like Microsoft doesn't just seek to protect its own interests, but also seeks to enforce its interests on everyone else. After all, it was just about one year ago that Microsoft decided to launch a massive attack on Google over copyrights.

If Google's perspective is accurate, then what kind of future would we see if Microsoft is able to buy out Yahoo! and start to work toward an Internet monopoly that mirrors its monopoly in software? Perhaps Microsoft would eventually produce an OS that would show heavy "preference" for websites in the Microsoft network of sites. Is it that hard to imagine a Windows message saying something like "You have attempted to access a website outside the Microsoft network. You may be opening your computer to unwanted security risks." Maybe below that box, we'd see a link to a quite imaginative list of advantages of working within the Microsoft network.

Would this be an accurate visualization of what Google is picturing?

Breathe Deep The Gathering Gloom: GOOG Down 3.5% In Early Trading

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Are we seeing further signs in the Internet world of a storm on the horizon? Early reports indicate that Google stock is down 3.55%, or about 20 points, at $564 per share.

According to Google's own SERP, the Nasdaq info that came up in a search for "goog" is delayed by 15 minutes. Whether or not 15 minutes is incredibly significant, when I started to write this post, reports where saying Google was down 2.6%. It's 9:04AM now, and apparently, 5 minutes has been enough for the company to lose an entire percentage point.

Microsoft is also reporting a pre-market loss of 1.9%, or $0.59 per share, which brings them to about $31 per share.

And just to make it a tri-fecta, Apple is also reporting significant losses, down $17.5 - no... $17.6 per share. This is yet another stock that fell further as I was checking on it. That's a whopping 11.3%.

Actually, the consensus seems to be that Microsoft, Google, and the bulk of Silicon Valley's business giants are all being affected by Apple's disappointing Q2 forecast, just released. Apple reportedly thinks that revenue will grow only 29% in Q2, down from Q1's 35% in revenue growth.

It's amazing that positive reports are bringing the world down this fast, just because they're not positive enough. I'm no stock analyst, or prophet of doom, but from the looks of these falling stocks, we could be watching lights fade from every room.

What? No Matt Cutts Among 10 Fascinating Googlers

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10 fascinating Googlers - FORTUNE

All I have to say is, Where is Matt Cutts? So what if one of the ones that they did pick eradicated smallpox?

Obviously, I'm just kidding. This is an interesting article over at Fortune, highlighting 10 Googlers with fascinating backgrounds. Maybe they consider Cutts to be too much of the Computer-PhD-type to be a "fascinating" Googler. Maybe. But it's still a look at some of the faces behind Google.

Google Bread

Alas, I am breaking my silence in the blogging world. This one I decided was just too juicy to leave alone - it's another article about another professor out there banning their students from using Google and Wikipedia. Here's the link:

Lecturer Bans Students From Using Google And Wikipedia (from The Argus)

In the article, the professor, Tara Brabazon of the Univ. of Brighton, labels Google the "white bread of the Internet", which drew a good chuckle from my lips as I read. However, the other part of the story that caught my attention was the fact that Prof. Brabazon is a professor of media studies who is banning her students from using a resource provided by the world's largest media company.

Now, I know what the professor is saying - that she feels her students are not properly researching their papers. They are probably not including enough peer-reviewed sources in their bibliographies. But my question is, why then doesn't she just require more sources? Why not give the students a positive admonition, rather than just a negative one that resembles a simple rant against the modern advance of technology.

My view is that knowledge ought to be fluid, open, and above all, free. Knowledge ought not cost us any money. We should not place restrictions on who gets to learn what. And those of us in influential places should work to make sure knowledge is not bound by time or place, either. In my opinion, that's exactly what Google and Wikipedia are doing - they are using technology to bring knowledge freely and quickly to everyone with access to a computer.

Now, obviously, it's what the owner of the computer does with the knowledge that counts. Regurgitating the top 5 links on Google's SERP or an article from Wikipedia is not necessarily good research, but neither is regurgitating an article from the New York Times. One is not worse than the other.

I have the new version of Gmail - finally!

Amid all the chatter online about Gmail 2.0, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get to use it myself. It turns out that when I checked my email this morning, it was there - the link to the "older version" - and I knew that Gmail had quietly upgraded overnight for me. So now I can say with those great SEO bloggers that I read every day - "I have the new version of Gmail - do you?"

OpenSocial Hacked In Minutes, and Other Exciting News

Just to keep the pings going, I decided to post a couple of headlines from the feed world this morning.

Apparently, the first application to be launched on Google's Open Social / Holy Grail framework was hacked in just a few minutes after its launch. Interesting.
OpenSocial Hacked In Minutes
First OpenSocial App Hacked in 45 Minutes

Also interesting, someone is now claiming that P2P users actually buy more music - not less - than everyone else. Could this be the Copernican Revolution of the 21st century music industry? Yeah. Probably not. But it's a good read anyway.
Gov't Commissioned Study Finds P2P Downloaders Buy More Music

Oh - and this could be the announcement of the month - Google is planning to unveil its 'Android' phone software project today.
Google to unveil 'Android' phone software

And I know - I never posted a follow-up to last week's SEO series post. It will be coming soon. Stay tuned...

A Beginner's Guide to Search

This is another useful post form the folks over at SEOmoz:

SEOmoz | Rewriting the Beginner's Guide - Part I: How Search Engines Operate

Above all, I like their frequently appearing cartoon characters - the Google robot and, in this post, the Yahoo! spider.

Gimme a Break, Microsoft: You'll Never be Something You're Not (Google)

It looks like MS is now trying to get on the online-documents bandwagon, with their beta launch of the new MS Office Live Workspace. See this article over at SE Land:

SELand: Microsoft Office Live Workspace To Challenge Google Docs

But, really - give me a break, Microsoft. Your online file-sharing is really nothing better than an FTP account if you must have already purchased MS software in order to use the service. This is no competitor to Google's Google Docs software, which plays an entirely different game by allowing users to use software that is completely free of purchase, along with a file storage system that is also free.

Stop pretending, Microsoft - you'll never be as good as Google!

Can't Ignore the Drama

YouTube - University of Florida student Tasered at Kerry forum



I decided that I just could not ignore the news that is going on in real life - a student gets tasered for being overly outspoken at a John Kerry event on the campus at the University of Florida.

Looking at it with social media in mind, it is truly incredible. Instantly, the Youtube video was posted by the Gainesville Sun, and in 4 days it's been viewed over 1.5 million times. It has 20,751 comments on Youtube. There are 70 video responses. It's a national media blockbuster on news channels.

My personal opinion is... well, I don't want to give people too many reasons to dislike me...

Going back to the 1.5 million views in 4 days... That's 375,000 views/day. That's about 15,625 views/hour. That's about 260 views/minute. And that's just with the 1 video from Gainesville Sun - I'm not even thinking of all the copies that are floating around the internet.

Since the video is about 6 minutes long, one could say that at any single moment over the past 4 days, 1,562 people have been watching the video from the Gainesville Sun simultaneously.

The Sens Take on the Googs

Google-DoubleClick Senate Hearing To Begin Next Week

As I said before, I don't think it's likely that the government will block the merger of Google and Doubleclick. I think the reasons for anti-trust action are too technical for the average person to care, and people translate to votes. This drastic action would not have a payoff of popularity with the general public, in my opinion. Even though the FTC is supposedly insulated from the voters, they still answer to politicians. And this is why I think that Google-Doubleclick will continue forward as the new organizers of the world's information.

Google Acting Screwy

Just now, I was trying to view the Adwords campaigns that I'm managing, and I got a page with the following message from Google:

The AdWords account interface is temporarily unavailable due to system maintenance. AdWords is expected to be down from approximately 10:00 AM until 2:00 PM PDT [?] on September 8, 2007. Please note that your campaigns will be running normally during this short period of downtime, which only affects your account management pages. We apologise for any inconvenience.

It's probably nothing, but I just thought it was worth noting, since today is September 20th.

Put Yourself on the Map, Google Analytics

Website Optimizer Gets an Update

Amid all the updates and fanfare for the steadily improving Google Analytics service, there is one glaring omission, and that is the Google Map. We have the ability to see a "Map Overlay" of our visitors, showing us primarily where the people came from, but the map lacks the functionality of Google's own maps, which would actually be useful in this application.

Maybe this is part of Google's agreement not to divulge personal information of website visitors, such as I.P. addresses. An exact location, I suppose, may also fall within that agreement. Who knows?

Selling Links what the worst that can happen

Selling Links what the worst that can happen

All I can say is, Dave, please read your posts before we do. That title doesn't even make sense!

He does raise some good questions, as always, though.

Finally!!! Search in the place you'd most expect it

Official Google Reader Blog: "We found it!"

It looks like the millions of pleas for a searchable Google Reader have finally reached the ears of the Google gods. At long last, we now have the ability to search within Google Reader.

When they label the post "We found it!", it makes me wonder what they are trying to communicate. Did they just now remember how to do the one thing that they are good at? Did they create the functionality, then lose it, and then find it again?

Anyway, it seems like this was one feature they should have placed within the Google Reader gadget from the start. Their post makes them sound oblivious to the fact that most people saw this as a glaring omission to this point.

How Search Engines Will Grow

SEOmoz | Where are Search Engines Most Likely To Innovate?

Above is a very quick and interesting look at how search engines might change and grow over the coming years, posted by Rand over at SEOmoz.

Personally, I see vertical search as the area with potential that has been developed the least, and therefore has the most potential for growth. I say this with sites like Magicyellow.com, Yellowbook.com, and ServiceMagic.com in mind, because these are the big players in the game of "who-ya-gonna-call" in the online world. These are the cats throwing the most money into offline advertising and branding, in efforts to push people onto their sites and use their listings.

Basically, these sites are also the reasons that I say the area is under-developed. Case in point: if you need a plumber, and you want to find one online, these days you go to Magicyellow or Yellowbook (or place your own home-service-related website here). You plug "plumbers" into the search box, along with a location, and press Enter, and you are given a results page that has a long list of plumber-related services.

Sidenote: if you're on Magicyellow, you're only given a list of the categories that most closely match your search. Do you want "plumbers" or "Plumbing Drain & Sewer Cleaning"? Will one give you better results because it sounds more specific? Are they really different categories, or just different names listed for the same group of businesses? In spite of the poor interface, I click on "plumbers"... and get a page full of ads! What's the difference between "Premier Advertisers", "Preferred Advertisers", "Sponsored Listings", and "Courtesy Listings"? Did the courtesy listings people pay to get their business listed, or are they provided as a "courtesy" of some sort?

Anyway, when you do get to the list of plumbers, there is no added value - the experience gives you the same benefit as looking up plumbers in the phone book (on paper!). There's a list of companies, and you still have no idea which is best for you. As I said, you might as well just open the phone book.

And don't get me started on sites like ServiceMagic. Here, you don't even get to look at the list - you have to submit your personal information into cyberspace, then wait while the website contacts plumbers "for you". Are you kidding? That's not the internet! That's not what the internet is supposed to be. I want to pick the service myself! I can be my own 411 - just give me the required information!

More on this later... I'm at work, and this is starting to take up more time than I thought it would.

What You Say Is As Important as What You Pay

What You Say Is As Important as What You Pay | Modern B2B Marketing Blog | Marketo

This is a very interesting, and brief, post about the importance of targeted landing pages. I was very surprised to learn that only a quarter of all PPC ads take users to targeted landing pages.

Japan Is Getting its Foot in the Door

Japan Begins Government-led Search Research [SearchEngineWatch]

This is an interesting development. Normally, I would be saying that any government-led foray into anything business is probably going to go very slowly and not do nearly as well as a private establishment could.

It's my opinion that governments are supposed to take us in directions that businesses will not be able to. There are several reasons that business communities don't do things - usually the reason is that there is not a good way to make a profit from providing a service. Other times, the service is something that everyone needs, and there is no business big enough to take on the task. Public transportation is a good example of a service that, in most areas where it is provided, fits these two characteristics.

However, governments all over the world actively direct their own economies. America has farm subsidies. There is OPEC. And Japan looks like it is trying to push its economy forward in the area of search. I think it's a good thing for them, because, at least from the looks of it, someone in the Japanese government has sat down and taken a good look at where the technology market is going. This is an intelligent move by government, and I hope it does well for Japanese businesses.

Google Sued! By Idiots! With Lots of Money!

Google Sued For Trademark Infringement By American Airlines Over Sponsored Ads

Dude, this is amazing. This is just another example of big corporate lawyers making more work for themselves over frivolity. If they're so smart, they could put some of that brain power to use by solving the worlds problems, instead of creating new ones.

Matching Keywords With Yahoo

Got Ads?: Yahoo Panama Tip: Advanced Match vs Standard Match Type - Advertising revolving around Google

This is a short but informative post over at Got Ads about the way to best optimize your Yahoo! keywords. Admittedly, I don't have very much experience with Yahoo search marketing, especially compared to what I have done with Google Adwords. This is one difference that just makes me think, "why couldn't they just copy Google?" Really. Why wouldn't they?

With Yahoo!, you have two options for keyword matching in your ad systems - Standard and Advanced. The two options are vaguely explained:

• Standard match type – for exact matches of your keywords or their minor variations.
• Advanced match type – for matches that use your keywords in various contexts.

That is not very helpful. In an apparent attempt to clarify, Yahoo added:

"When using Advanced match type, we also provide you with our Excluded Words option to help refine your matches by filtering out searches that do are not relevant to your business.

Standard Match Type The Standard match type displays your ads for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular/plural variations and common misspellings."

C'mon, Yahoo!, throw us a bone.

A Funny Look At The New Google Adwords Formula

Graywolf's SEO Blog: New Google Adwords Formula = Just Pay Us More

This post is good for a few laughs. Actually, I was reading about the new Adwords formula just yesterday on the Google Help Center, and briefly wondered how this would affect my current ad spending. It's interesting that Michael openly acknowledges that this is bad news, except for...

"except for you pesky blackhat ppc seo’s with two accounts …"

Those pesky people with 2 accounts, huh? Doesn't Google know how to sniff those people out? Seems like yet another thing that Google ought to be able to catch quite easily, but apparently hasn't.