Googled

Googled Book: Chapter 1-4 -create a new page labeld Googled

In reference to ….I know half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half? What was the traditional Model of Advertising vs. Google’s Model

In the traditional model of media, companies pay before their ads are broadcast. They are sure that the target audience gets the message.

Unlike traditional model of media, Google created the technology Adwords for advertisement. For a fee, advertisers could put some words next to the people’s search result. It was really inexpensive at the beginning. The other technology they had was the cost per click : companies only paid if the internet user clicked on their ad. The Cookies allow companies to target internet users more specifically because they can keep track of the user’s historic navigation (including websites he visited, searches…)

Thanks to its technology Google Analytics, Google can show the efficiency of advertising to the advertisers by providing them the number of clicks and the number of sale. Google provides a strong, measurable and very effective targeting way of advertising

What was the main idea of how Google wanted to create a search engine and why was it different from the other search engines that already existed?

Google’s mission statement stipulates « organize the world’s information and make it accessible and useful ». Google’s founders wanted to do more than a basic search engine. They wanted to make the information accessible to everybody, with interesting and precise content without censorship. Google’s first interest was not to make tons of money but to develop a product that contributes to the world community. Their root value is not to be evil and they perfectly illustrated it with the chinese government.

Explain why Overture sued Goolge?

Overture, which is a paid search company, developped a project called « System and Method For influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine ». They filed a patent application to protect this idea.

They sued Google for patent infringement regarding the Google’s Adwords service which they considered as too similar as Overture’s idea.

Googled Book: Chapter 6 -On your blog in the Googled page

Why were goolge’s main concerns about going public?

Before going public Google were mainly concerned about the eventual problems that would cause. Google were afraid of revealing to competitors proprietary information and the company’s true trajectory. They were also fearful of having to cope with what they considered the short-term mania of Wall street. Very often, companies are afraid of revealing financial information and when you go public, some mandatory financial information go public.

Give a short summary of what happen before and after Google went public, how many google employees become millionaires?

Google refused that Wall Street would set the initial stock price. They preferred to propose their own solution instead of listenning to experts. They came up with an egalitarian method. They ran an auction similar to the one that Google used to sell advertising. They distributed stock options to the employees to make them become stockholders. All the stakeholders were embedded with the same amount of rights (about 40 million stock options). That is how 100 employees became millionaires.

What did google mean by saying they wanted to be the next Microsoft?

Google has tons of data centers all around the world (number kept secret by Google). This may be the most massive computer system, geographically spreaded. This allow people who log onto Google to benefit from a high speed result while searching on the web. This is possible because Google identify your approximate geographical position and connect you on the closest data center. This huge computer system and the backgrounds of its management is so powerful that Google could be the next Microsoft, while Microsoft is still training its guns on search.

On Page 134 summarize Google’s tarnished deal with China

In 2002, Google launched a chinese-language version of Google. As China is a communist country, the government found that some of the news such as « Free Tibet » were politically objectionable. The Chinese government started to ban Google searches as the company refused to engage in any self-censorship. Google wanted to fit their values « Don’t be evil ».

Google had a dilemma: Banishing Chinese citizens « some » political searches or denying them « all » searches. Google thought that it was better to provide Chinese citizens less information rather than no information. So Google decided to comply with the Chinese laws and they even created a separate search engine named Google.cn. This Chinese version would offer politically sanitized searches in China.

On page 154 outline the three issues (money, copyright and trust) between Google and the broadcast companies.

Money was the first issue and it was a stumbling block. Traditional media companies sought a version of the system they had long relied upon: an up-front license fee from distributors to air their content. Google was agree to pay but argued that Youtube was a new distribution platform and that traditional media companies sould not be locked into old expensive formulas, especially if this new platform will contribute to the audience. Moreover, traditional media companies argued that if they charged less their licensed content to Youtube, cable systems owners would demand the same dicount.

The second issue was copyright protection, and how to protect the media content once it is on Youtube, because it could be rapidly stolen and redistributed to other places such as Myspace, Gorilla.

The last issue was trust. It was more about the needs and the expectations of Youtube and Daumann, and as this was new, there was a lack of trust.

What outcome was CBS hoping for when negotiating thier clips to be viewed on YouTube.

CBS is a broadcaster and its revenues depend exclusively on advertising. Increase its revenues and gain a new audience was the outcome they were hoping for, while negotiating their clips to be viewed on Youtube. Indeed they didn’t see Youtube as a competitor but more as a tool to help broadcasting their clips. CBS established a cooperative relationship with Youtube and Google. CBS really wanted to get « their content to where the audience is ».

On the last pages of chapter eight, what was Quincy Smith’s view on using Google as a platform to help monetize others content.

According to Quincy Smith, a small company has to do everything itself to grow, but there is a point where the company needs help to get everything done. This is where the Internet and Google play a role, because it is a platform for media and information. A company has to be multi-channel, taking the example of CBS. Quincy Smith thinks that Google is a great tool because it helps to monetize a company’s content. But according to him, a lot of companies still don’t understand this key point.

Create a table outlining how disruptive technology has affected the following traditional media. Use Dates and profit and loss percentages when available.

In General, disruptive technology has affected negatively the traditional media.

Industry	Dates	Figures
Music
Traditional music sales	1990	15 million $
	2007	3.7 million $
Digital Music sales	2003	+1%
	2007	+ 15%
Newspapers
Ad revenues	2000	-20%
Advertising in newspaper	2007	-9.4%
Circulation	each year	-2%
Circulation of the Journal	2009	+1%
Books
US Sales	2007	3.13 billion $
Radio
Internet
Advertising	each year	+30%
TV
Audience	2008	-10%

Googled Book: Chapter 17 – In your blog on the Googled page

In order to maintain its dominance and avoid the rollercoaster, Google has to avoid two sets of obstacles, one external, and the other internal.

Summarize Google’s External Hurdles with Microsoft, Facebook and the Government

Google has always been audacious. Therefore, Google had to struggle with many companies and industries. The first external obstacle is with Microsoft. Indeed, Verizon chose Microsoft’s search engine for its phones in 2008. Google had to come up with a new idea: Google’s Android. Moreover, in 2009, Google launched a newly remodeled browser to become an operating system for PC’s that would be easier, faster and cheaper than Windows.

The second external hurdle is with Facebook. Google considers Internet as the primary platform and the Google model is based on getting users out of Google and to other sites. But Google is worried about Facebook because it could be the start page for people that use the web. Indeed Facebook, like other social networks, looks to keep users on their platform, to become the hub of their online lives, to become their home. This is a problem for Google because Facebook and other social networks have a huge database, storing in-depth information about users. Because of it, advertising becomes more powerful and marketers can use a push model to sell their products. Therefore, when people are looking for a product online, they could not start their search with Google anymore. To survive, Google needs to get more information on the users so they could develop an algorithm that provides a single perfect answer. But this is still an ideal at that point.

To conclude, the last external hurdle that Google has is with the US government, but governments in general. More often, it is a legal hurdle such as the Federal Trade Commission holding up the DoubleClick acquisition, or court threats and festering opposition to Google’s Book Search settlement. It also depends on the administration that is in power. In addition, Google can also encounter governmental hurdle abroad. The Chinese government censored their search engine and, in early 2009, blocked Youtube for a time appearing before the world’s largest Internet audience. More in general, Google’s mission is to share as much information they can, but this could be a threat for a lot of governments.

Summarize Google’s Internal Hurdles

Google also encounters internal hurdles. To begin, Google is a young and successful company that is willing to accomplish a lot of things. However they have an inability to listen. The clash that Google had with book publishers and the AP, or with ad agencies and governments illustrates that. They failed to comprehend the fear major advertisers have of placing their ads alongside potentially unfriendly user-generated content, and they failed to sufficiently anticipate that users would find ads intrusive. Also they have a really science oriented way of thinking about ads. They have to understand that selling other ads is not like a search auction, but definitely an art.

Second, Google’s algorithms have a lack of common cense. For example, the algorithms push to the top of the search results those sites with the most links. Consequently, you can end up your search with outdated stories, and sometimes, inappropriate content.

Another internal hurdle is that Google is a really big company and that slow down their innovation capacity. Things don’t get launched as quickly and they missed the video opportunity with Youtube and the whole social network thing. For this reason they often had to buy companies such as Youtube.