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  • Infographic: Google's Revenue

    BusinessMBA.org puts Google's revenue and global power in context with this remarkable infographic. Those of us who work in the online media world are especially struck by the reality that Google's massive (beyond massive, really) revenue figures are still almost completely driven by advertising. Take a look (hat tip Barry Ritholtz ) From: BusinessMBA.org
  • Roger McNamee on the Internet's Big Shift

    Roger McNamee has been a leading investor in science and technology for thirty years. Lately, he has been telling people we are on the verge of a new tech cycle--one that will change the way that we interact with technology, with businesses, and with each other. And while he can't put his finger on exactly what is happening, he has six "hypotheses" that he says we should be watching and testing. McNamee discussed these hypotheses in a talk at TEDxSantaCruz :
  • Sean Parker Shares Concern over 'Rapid Fire Investing' in Silicon Valley

    Sean Parker helped lead Napster and Facebook into the world. So he is a big believer in supporting new ventures. Indeed, as managing partner of VC firm Founders Fund , he continues to encourage and support entrepreneurs in the digital and tech sectors. But he is concerned that there may be a little too much encouragement going on. Parker sat down for an interview with CNet 's Paul Sloan while attending Techonomy 2011. And he shared his concerns for Silicon Valley, where he says a lot of investors are exhibiting behavior that is not sustainable in the current economic climate: There was a huge inefficiency in the market six or eight years ago, where there wasn't enough early stage capital. It was that opportunity that allowed Founders Fund, my venture fund, to enter the market to fill that void because angels had become very skittish and started to believe they could never get their money out. Now we've seen this explosion in angel investing. There are lots of angels coming out of Google and Facebook investing very rapidly and wanting to be players. I think that's some of the motivation--wanting to be players, to stay close to the game and wanting to have a seat at the table. And they're making tons of investments often in companies that aren't fully baked--either the team isn't fully baked or the product isn't fully baked or there's no conceivable revenue model. Read the full interview here .
  • Google's Motorola Deal: Phones or Patents?

    As Andrew Ross Sorkin reminds us, Google has been denying suggestions that it wants to get into the mobile phone business for years now. So we might want to be a bit skeptical when Google tells us that its $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola Mobility is all about acquiring patents. On his DealBook column for the New York Times, Sorkin writes ...it is undeniable that Google’s new chief executive, Larry Page, has long had a hankering for the mobile phone business, and this acquisition may be the culmination of his ambitions. Mr. Page, after all, was the executive who personally pursued the acquisition of Android and has been its biggest proponent. And he pressed Google to compete in federal auctions for wireless spectrum in recent years at a time when others were more hesitant — and in some cases was willing to overpay for spectrum. “He was the guy behind Android,” Mr. Levy said in an interview. “Larry is a big ambitious guy; he will roll big dice.” If there’s any question about Google’s motivation to own a handset maker rather than just a portfolio of patents, consider this: InterDigital, a licensing company that owns some 8,000 wireless patents and has another 10,000 patent applications being processed, has been up for auction. Many industry insiders were sure that if Google were serious about acquiring a portfolio of patents, InterDigital would be its target. The company’s market value is only about $3 billion and it doesn’t come with all the baggage of Motorola’s handset business. Read Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company? No, It Says here .
  • Google+ and Brand Marketing

    In what we might simply term the power of G, Google's Larry Page says the Google+ social networking site has reached 10 million users in 2 weeks. And those users are sharing 1 billion items per day. That didn't take long. While it is of course too early to say what the impact of activity is for brands, but marketers are now trying to figure out how to best operate in Google+. We expect they will apply lessons learned from other online spaces, Facebook and Twitter in particular. AdAge 's Irina Slutsky writes about the potential opportunities that Google+ may provide. And the big advantage comes with the data Google already has on consumer behavior. Slutsky writes: Building out brands on Facebook has turned into big business -- costing up to tens of thousands of dollars a month -- and if Google has its way, companies such as Buddy Media, Vitrue, Blinq MEdia, WildFire, 22squared and many others could be adding Google+ optimization to their offerings. "We're seeing Google+ as a strong competitor in social media from an advertising opportunity," said David Williams, CEO of Blinq Media. "The brand pages need to roll out, an ad model needs to develop, and we want to take advantage of all Google+ has to offer." Mr. Williams, who works with brands including Baskin Robbins and Mentos, says that because Google has expertise in search, what has always been true for Google and Facebook remains: While Facebook knows who you are, Google knows what you want. That difference could be a major advantage when it comes to advertising. "Facebook has interest data, but not intent data," Mr. Williams said. "Google will have a tremendous amount of intent data that could allow them to create a better ad model for social than Facebook -- a very, very powerful ad model." Read Marketers Intrigued by Google+ but Questions Abound here .
  • Report from Google on Brands, The Internet, and Word of Mouth

    Google and the Kay Feller Group released a report earlier this month on how reliant brands remain on conversation. The authors title the report "Word of Mouth and the Internet," and they find that most Word of Mouth conversations are still conducted the old fashioned way--face to face. But the Internet is vital to brand impressions in those conversations. It is the primary source of information for those conversations, surpassing television and other forms of news media. It is also where people turn for information following up a word of mouth conversation. And for the moment, according to this Google funded study, search still dominates social media as the place people are getting most of their information. You can read the report here , and watch the following video for a good summary of the findings:
  • Don't Be Evil, Be Compassionate: Google, Happiness, and the Bottom Line

    We all remember Google's "Don't Be Evil" pledge . But is it possible the company is not simply trying to not be evil, but is rather working proactively to be compassionate? Chade-Meng Tan started as an engineer at Google eight years ago. And now he has risen to a very unusual job at the company. Tan is Google's Jolly Good Fellow , or Head of Personal Growth at the company. And he is on a mission to make sure that the employees at Google feel compassion. Meng believes compassion might be good for business. That is, it might increase profits. He explained the importance of happiness and compassion to the bottom line for his company in this Ted Talk:
  • CNN Money: Early Impact of Changes to Google's Secret Search Formula

    One small step for Google , one big leap (or fall) for many businesses. Google made a change to its search algorithm at the end of February . The idea was to improve search results by moving high-quality content sites (rather than content farms and other sites that are simply working the SEO system) up on the list of search responses. Now, according to CNN Money 's David Goldman , we're starting to see results. Google's change appears to have most harmed so-called "content farms" like Mahalo, which critics say amass content for the sole purpose of luring in search-engine traffic. Sites like Mahalo.com, Wisegeek.com, Ezinearticles.com and Yahoo's (YHOO, Fortune 500) Associated Content were among the biggest losers in the algorithm tweak. Google-generated traffic to each dropped more than 75%, according to software firm Sistrix. Interestingly, Demand Media (DMD) -- one of the most oft-criticized content farms --appears to have gotten off relatively scot-free. Its most prominent site, eHow.com, even grew its traffic after the algorithm change, though some others like AnswerBag.com and Trails.com dropped off. The biggest beneficiaries seem to be originators of what Google calls "high-quality" content, which the company defines as "information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on." Traffic to sites that belong to the Online Publishers Association grew between 5% and 50% the day after Google's tweak, according to Pam Horan, president of the OPA. Read Google's code change shifts billions from losers to winners here .
  • Nielsen Color Map of Smartphone Use

    Scott Moritz of The Street shares this graphic visualization of the relative use of smartphones and mobile operating systems: Google must be happy at what this reveals. But Moritz is more surprised by Microsoft's share. But he says Microsoft execs should not read too much into a 10% share. Since this isn't a survey of phones sold in the past three months -- it's merely a tally of where things stand overall -- Microsoft's sizeable chunk of the market is misleading. The Microsoft category is a mix of old Windows Mobile and new Windows Phone 7 devices. In other words, that 10% level is very much at risk of coming down if new Windows 7 phones can't offset the decline of Windows Mobile users. Read the full article here .
  • Business Insider: Verizon Apple Deal on iPhone May Hurt Google Most of All

    Yesterday Verizon and Apple announced that the iPhone will soon be available to Verizon subscribers . Business Insider 's Dan Frommer says this is clearly good news for the two companies involved, and he names them the biggest winners in the deal. Other groups or companies that will see a boost from the deal include Qualcomm. iPhone app developers, and media outlets. The biggest loser, according to Frommer, is Google. That's largely because Verizon was so important to sales of Google Android phones. Here's exhibit A for why Frommer thinks Google should be unhappy about the deal: Read Verizon iPhone: The Biggest Winners And Losers here . Also see, Verizon iPhone: 5 reasons to buy, 5 not to , from the Christian Science Monitor .
  • Effective PPC Tactics in B2B Marketing

    Here's an interesting new chart from Marketing Sherpa . Researchers consulted close to a thousand marketers to find out how they were utilizing pay-per-click tactics (PPC tactics) in their B2B efforts. And here is a look at what they learned: Jen Doyle , Marketing Sherpa's Senior Research Analyst, adds: In general, the more effective PPC tactics -- indicated by the positioning of the spheres along the Y axis -- are also the most commonly used tactics, as indicated by the sphere size. The one exception is the creation of highly targeted ad groups. Creating these ad groups can have a positive impact on PPC campaigns in a number of areas, including improved clickthrough and conversion rates and improved quality scores. Read more here .
  • Hulu Reaches 1.1 Billion Ad Impressions in October

    comScore released the latest online video rankings this week, and they included some data on video advertisements. There are no big surprises in the overall rankings--Google sites, which includes YouTube, account for nearly 40% of all online video viewership. Hulu comes in at 10th in number of unique visitors, but is second only to Google sites in minutes per user. This may explain why advertisers seem to like the Hulu model. And indeed, in terms of the sheer volume of ads, Hulu is lapping the field. The site set a record with 1.1 billion ad impressions in the month. Take a look at the breakdown: View a summary of comScore's findings here .
  • Where Physics and Marketing Meet

    You might remember some basic Physics. Like Newton's second law: force = mass X acceleration. But do you ever think about that law as an important marketing principle? Or how about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle? Okay, you probably don't remember that one, but Dan Cobley , marketing director at Google , does. He says that Physics was his first love, and that it helps him be successful as a marketer. Here is Cobley giving a very accessible Physics lesson for marketers at the TedGlobal conference:
  • Who Is On Your List of the Most Innovative Companies?

    Michael Arndt , the writer of Business Week' s online NEXT: Innovation Tools & Trends column, is asking for comments on the most innovative companies. Business Week will publish the 2010 rankings next week. Arndt has posted the 2009 top 25. Here's the top 5: 1. Apple 2. Google 3. Toyota Motor 4. Microsoft 5. Nintendo Innovative or not, it is hard to imagine Toyota holding its ranking with all of the company's recent problems. Who do you see at the top this year? Read Debate: Who's the Most Innovative Company of 2010? here , and then tell us what makes a company stand out as a leader in innovation.
  • The Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein on the Investing in China

    As Google tries to sort out its strategy in China (yesterday it moved its search engine operations to Hong Kong , and today the Chinese government partly blocked the site ), some private equity firms are working to get more involved in the economy of the world's largest nation. The Carlyle Group has made a big move into China. Carlyle Group Founder and CEO David Rubenstein says his firm is not the largest private equity investor in China. He is a little concerned about moves toward "economic nationalism" there, as he is with protectionism other places, including the US. But that hasn't stopped him from wanting to participate in what he sees as rapid economic growth of the economy. Rubenstein recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal 's Alan Murray , and he said he expects China to overtake the US as the dominant global economy by 2035: