Google subsidises MySpace

As part of being a company that's listed on the stock exchange, Google has to report to its investors on the potential risks to the company. In their most recent filing, they provide the usual detail on the financial risks involved in running their search engines.
Obviously there are potential problems around killer competitors emerging or people turning completely away from Google branding. The most interesting paragraph, surprisingly, is the following:

Payments to certain of our Google Network members have exceeded the related fees we receive from our advertisers.

We are obligated under certain agreements to make non-cancelable guaranteed minimum revenue share payments to Google Network members based on their achieving defined performance terms, such as number of search queries or advertisements displayed. In these agreements, we promise to make these minimum payments to the Google Network member for a pre-negotiated period of time. At June 30, 2007, our aggregate outstanding non-cancelable guaranteed minimum revenue share commitments totaled $1.66 billion through 2011 compared to $1.17 billion at December 31, 2006. It is difficult to forecast with certainty the fees that we will earn under agreements with guarantees, and sometimes the fees we earn fall short of the guaranteed minimum payment amounts.

In August last year, Google were celebrating a deal with MySpace that provided $900m worth of advertising to them. They've also signed major deals with eBay, AOL and some other large sites globally.

In their enthusiasm for getting these exclusive deals, it does look like they've overpaid. It definitely implies that they were working to some assumptions that must have been extremely wrong. Signing deals for over $1 billion that don't make you money looks a little silly.

The 'Information Revolution'

I was on the tube this morning and I noticed an ad for the 'information revolution'. Wasn't entirely sure what it was, nor who it was for.

This intrigued me, so I remembered the URL on the advert and had a look at the site when I got home. It annoyed me as I don't like letting those creative types know how successful they were at their cunning cross media approach. In my opinion, I'm only interested in it because I'm a geek.

The site purports to be telling people about the dangers of relying on only one information source. It features interviews with 'real people' and some unsourced facts about the peril we are exposing ourselves to.

Although they don't explicitly say it, they are arguing that you shouldn't just use Google to do your searches - you should diversify.

I strongly suspect that this site is a cunning attempt by Yahoo! or Ask to subvert people into changing their searching habits. The site doesn't have any adservers tracking activities on the site, and there is nothing overtly associated with any brand.

The only clue that something is weird is the search box in the bottom right of the site.Seems unusual to put them in alphabetical order...

I ran a WHOIS on the URL (a technique for finding who owns the website) and found it registered to a little company called Profero. One of my best friends, Lydia, works there and therefore I know that it's a digital advertising agency.

A quick look at their client list shows that they have both Yahoo! and Ask. I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that Yahoo would be willing to sign off - they're a bit overly corporate and this seems quite brave. Therefore I think it's Ask Jeeves looking to change people's behaviour.

It is a good site, but I think it falls just short of where it needs to be. There's no controversy, there needs to be more emphasis on the bad things that could happen if we all used Google.

Getting in trouble with the legal department is difficult, but it does need to make some statements that show it's some kind of movement rather than a corporate site. Maybe make up a term about 'information pollution' or some catchy name for a homogenous infrastructure.

Might keep an eye on it to see what happens!

Google's "Masterplan"

Nice little video by what looks like some design students. Really reminds me of the graphic design which was part of the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. Their concern centres on the privacy issues around Google.

This blog is written on Google software, they can see what I search for (personalised search), what I read (Google Reader and Google News), and even what files I look at (Google Desktop). This will translate into a very detailed picture of me.

Google's performance shows that the majority of people are willing to accept services in exchange for a loss of privacy. It is quite impressive how much information Google currently has on me, but I am quite comfortable with that. There have been no examples of Google abusing privacy so far (that I am aware of).

As with all web services, Google are acutely aware that their competition are only one click away. If you even think that there's a small possibility that Google could do something that would make your life worse, you're going to go to the competition. Hopefully Google will keep that in mind when they're being tempted to abuse their data.

Search Engine Share

I was reading something about the most recent Microsoft results, which managed to point out that Microsoft has lost market share in the last year, despite their well publicised launch of search services. This was an American article, so I thought I'd have a quick peek at how they've been doing.

If we look at the current performance in terms of unique users, they're not doing too badly. This is based on the Windows live search page, and compares their growth vs Google and Yahoo. The scale is relative to the average over 2006 - couldn't get Swivel to index it relative to the beginning.


When you look at the absolute numbers, the performance isn't too bad either:


However, once you look at this by page impressions (or number of visits), you see that Microsoft have completely failed to make any sort of dent into Google. It's quite scary when you look at it. Google is in green at the top, MSN and Yahoo are lurking at the bottom.


The differentials in the share of page impressions swing to hit them even harder once you look at revenue. My own experience is that Google sends through people who are slightly more likely to buy. This means we are willing to pay slightly more for their adverts.
This extra margin means that Google are making around ten times more than their nearest competitor. This is a mark that would usually attract the interest of a regulator in any other industry. However, this dominance has been achieved by having a better product.
We'll have to wait and see what Yahoo! manages to do with their new system, 'Panama', which will be launching in the UK later this year. They'll need some good luck too.

Interesting Move

Spam is destroying the internet yet again...

Wikipedia is probably one of the most tempting places to put Spam - you can edit it however and whenever you like. There are few controls in place to stop abuse.

It'll be interesting to see what Google do from this - I would expect that a large amount of certain websites receive much of their ranking due to links originating from Wikipedia. If Wikipedia sets it so that Google ignores the links, then they might disappear.

We'll see what happens, but should be good to see if Google begins to work on ways to exclude random spam links while including genuine links to relevant articles.

Dogs On Acid - Whats your favourite name on DOA?

Dogs On Acid - Whats your favourite name on DOA?

Just found this page!!!

Thanks Ben!

"Malcolm Murdoch" - Google Search

Finally!

Now when you search for me on Google, the top result isn't the silly page that says I once played Diplomacy.

Also, there's a little Ziki thing where they're bidding on my name. In some ways that's cool. In others it's probably not.

Anyway - check out Ziki it's quite a funky service and there are some people on there who are worth subscribing to.