Google

Google To Trial Print-Based AdWords Service
Google is set to announce a new advertising partnership with over 50 American newspapers, in an initiative designed to create an online marketplace to help Ye Olde Printe Media sell advertising electronically.
Big newspapers like The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post are already onboard for the trial, with Google planning to expand the service internationally.
Under the scheme, Google will offer some of its AdWords customers the opportunity to advertise in print newspapers in much the same way as they buy advertising on the web.
Newspapers signed up to the scheme enter demographic details about their titles and give example advertising rates, while advertisers list how much they’re prepared to pay for classified space in specified titles.
Publishers then decide whether to accept the offers.
Launching as an early “alpha” trial, Google has said that it won’t initially charge for hosting the service, but expects to levy a ‘relatively modest commission’ if it takes off.
Runaway success
Google online AdWords campaign has been so successful that they’ve been able to keep up with the demand from advertisers, with Tom Phillips, Google’s director of print advertising, commenting about the print service: “This is money that our advertisers would spend with us if we had the online inventory for them to spend it on.”
Philips added that Google wanted to help the newspaper business, but was still chasing the dollar, “We are not just doing this to be friends with print media. We are doing this because there is a big business opportunity here providing value to media properties,” he added.
Google’s turbo-charged revenue increases (up 70 per cent in the third quarter) continue to give traditional media outlets the heebie-jeebies, as advertising revenues continue to crash in tabloid and regional titles across the UK.
Last week, research revealed that Google is now coining in more cash from advertising than Channel 4 in Britain, with the Internet Advertising Bureau saying that online ad spending in the UK had soared 40% in the first half of 2006 compared with the same time period last year.
Google AdWords
6 November, 2006
Gmail Java Mobile IS Available Outside US
You’ve probably seen the news yesterday that Google released a new Java client for accessing Gmail from your mobile phone.
The majority of Digital-Lifestyles writers are UK-based, so we were feeling a little left out by being lead to believe by Google that the application was only available to those who live in the US. Google official press release contained,
It is currently compatible with all J2ME-enabled phones in the U.S. and works with a variety of carrier service plans.
When you pointed your computer Browser at the Web address given by Google to download it, you are indeed met forwarded to Google Mobile with no option to download Gmail Java Mobile.
Being the inquisitive little ferrets that we are, we jumped on to our ever-at-hand mobiles to try the same thing. Not expecting much, as we’re outside the US, you can imagine our surprise when we were given the option of downloading the app – but persisted with the US/Canada only malarky. We were warned that the app might not work correctly.
A little frisson of excitement hit the room (yes, it’s true) as the app flitted over the air, all 112k of it. We were met with the gmail login screen, which after entering the relevant, we crossed our finger (nto before hand, have you tried typing with crossed fingers?).
Argh .. the handset we used fell at the final hurdle, but we pressed on with some others until success! We checked in with Cristian Streng to find out he’d had success too using his Nokia E50 in Romania.
We can confirm that the app is a big improvement on the previous browser-based version with the number keys being used to carry out commonly-used functions.
So non-US, Java-mobile phone carrying, gmail users – with a desire to get your mail on the go (phew), you can rest assured that you can get access to it.
Gmail Java Mobile From your mobile phone browser of course.
3 November, 2006
Gmail Mobile Improved By Google
Browsing Gmail, Google’s email service, wasn’t particularly great when you did it from a mobile … until now. With the new release of gmail mobile that was launched today.
Gmail for Mobile Devices (GMD?), to give it its full official name, is a Java app that can be downloaded and run on any Java-enabled handset. The previous version was browser-based and pretty basic.
It’s an interesting change of approach for Google, who has near-exclusively focused on browser-based applications to access their services (except for Google Local).
GMD isn’t the only Java-driven email client. Flurry was pointed out to us by Cristian Streng. It’s had close to 1 million downloads from getjar.com alone and is used in over 200 countries.
Clearly not wanting it to get used too heavily, Google has officially only made the application downloadable in the US, where until recently people didn’t really use their phones for anything except making calls. While they’ve been doing that, the rest of the world have used their mobiles for everything from gaming to text messages.
Gmail Mobile app Mobile access Only
Flurry
2 November, 2006
Google Buys JotSpot Wiki Company: The Why
Google has bought Palo Alto, CA-based Wiki/collaborative working company, JotSpot for an undisclosed amount.
With this move Google continues its habit of buying companies that produce high-quality, hosted Web-based application, before the rest of the market realises that they should be getting involved with it. JotSpot was founded in 2004 by Excite.com co-founders Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer.
JotSpot is a king amoung Wikis with a very easy to use AJAX-driven interface, providing incredibly smooth editing. A large leap from where most Wikis are, which are clumsy text command driven beasts that require the mastering of strange syntax’s to get working.
JotSpot was built by some of the best known names in the AJAX business, including Digital-Lifestyles chum Alex Russell, one of the people behind the increasingly popular Dojo toolkit.
With the release of JotSpot 2.6 back in May this year, making “editing is as fluid and natural as reading,” by using AJAX components wrapped into a Dojo widget.
Wikis provide the ability for many people to edit information on Web pages, and generally for the editing to be carried out by anyone. The philosophy behind the Wiki is the sharing of a collective knowledge. The best known example is Wikipedia, where anyone can start a page on Wikipedia about any subject with the knowledge that they have on that subject, this can then later be added to and amended by those who also have supplementary information on it.
Not Just Wikis – JotSpot Tracker
JotSpot isn’t just about Wikis, it’s about sharing information live on the Internet. Released at the end of last year (Dec 2005), JotSpot Tracker give users real-time editing of spreadsheets on the Internet, without the need for Excel.
Watching the video they made available when they integrated it into Salesforce, will give you some idea of the power the idea, and how components like this will make Google the online working company that Microsoft is trying to be with its Windows Live product.
JotSpot
1 November, 2006
Google Goes Solar Powered
Google is converting its Californian headquarters to run partly on solar power, creating the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States.
The Internet search giant has said that its jumbo-sized solar project will eventually deliver nearly a third of the power at its 1-million-square-foot campus in Mountain View, near San Francisco.
Kitting out the campus will require the installation of more than 9,200 solar panels on high-tech offices known as the “Googleplex.”
Expected to be up and running by next Spring, the panels should be able to generate about 1.6 megawatts of electricity – enough power to supply about 1,000 homes.
Google haven’t disclosed the costs of the project, but it’s unlikely to cause much of a dent in the pockets of a company reputed to have nearly $10 billion in the corporate coffers.
With about a trillion hard drives purring away and Borg-like billions of PCs busily indexing this interweb thing, we imagine Google’s energy costs must be sky high, but David Radcliffe, Google’s vice president of real estate, reckoned that anticipated savings from future energy bills should pay back the solar project’s costs in five to 10 years.
“We hope corporate America is paying attention. We want to see a lot of copycats” of this project, he commented.
Nice one, Google.
Googleplex
19 October, 2006
Jawed Karim: The Third YouTube Founder
There’s bound to be lots of these stories floating around the Valley, as companies started getting bought for large sums of money. It’s going to be the equivalent of being/claiming to be the fifth Beatle.
We feel it’s more likely that this one is true as it’s covered by the New York Times.
Jawed Karim was the third founder of YouTube beyond Chen and Hurley we’re told. He was with them at PayPal, before it was sold to eBay, then at the very start of YouTube, throwing in
“They would often meet late at night for brainstorming sessions,” he continues, “Mr. Karim said he pitched the idea of a video-sharing Web site to the group.”
Beyond the early stages, Karim decided to not take a full time role there but returned to studying instead, for this he reduced his equity holding. After the sale, he’s still a very rich man.
Living what he was building, “Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life.”
If you’re a struggling entrepreneur reading this, there’s a very interesting section that Karim filmed in April 2005. Fellow founder Chen talked about “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the YouTube site. Clearly there are fallow times before growth.
It’s also amusing to see his own site where he’s listed his latest programs – “YouTube, My new company.”
The first piece of video ever put on YouTube.
via NYT
16 October, 2006
Writely and Spreadsheets Combined By Google
docs.google.com is the new destination for Google’s Web-based Writely word processor and their companion spreadsheet.
Given both of the apps are Web-based, anyone with a Web browser can use these apps, no matter where they are. It’s not surprising that Google also offers extensive searching within the documents that are created.
Just how long the Writely name will survive, now it’s being referred to as Google Docs?
Google bought Writely back in March and got to work with bringing it into Google-dom.
Back in June, Google let it be known that they’d matched Writely with a spreadsheet, causing waves of discussion as to them treading on Microsoft’s toes.
One of the nifty features is the ability to collaborate with other people in your Google address book and choose to share the documents in an area created with anyone on the Web. Once created, the authors can attach tags to the content to locate them again.
This is great for Google, not just because they are knocking one on the chin for Microsoft, but because they’re giving people tools to generate content … for them to search on Google. Pretty cyclical init.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
12 October, 2006
Yes, Google Buying YouTube: YouGleTube? GoogleTube?
As we\\’d previously as conjecture, Google has announced that it will be buying YouTube. The price is slightly above the rumours at $1.65Bn (€1.31Bn, £0.88Bn). It\\’s an all stock deal, with no money changing hands.
YouTube has been a fast-growing phenomenon that only started in February 2005, a mere 19 months ago.
Formed by some of the people who were in another similarly sale-price company, PayPal, which went for $1.5Bn to eBay, including Roelof Botha the former CFO of PayPal, who fortunately became a partner at VC company, Sequoia Capital partner. The other two were Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Not much has been heard about them, so it\\’s worthwhile watching the Charlie Rose interview with them.
History (short)
In the early days, many people couldn\\’t understand how they would survive long-term given the speed that they were burning through money.
Back in November last year, long before their explosion to playing 100m videos a day, YouTube was shifting 8 terabytes a day. That kind of bandwidth is very expensive.
The founders have a fair few quid in their pockets after the PayPal sale, but in November 2005 they raised $3.5m from Sequoia Capital, which was followed up in April 2006 by further funding of $8m was also supplied by Sequoia.
See how Chad and Steve break the news to their users.
Given the sale price (don\\’t forget $1.65Bn), the return for the investors is tremendous. As the company is closely-held, ie it\\’s shares aren\\’t publicly available, we don\\’t know how much was put in by the funders, but taken at face value, the $13.5m that was put in by Sequoia returned upto 100 times their investment. Not bad for 19 months.
Copyright issues
There\\’s been much controversy within media companies as they\\’ve objected to their content being uploaded to YouTube. Given that video has been uploaded at the rate of 65,000 a day, the only way that YouTube has been able to stay on top of new copyrighted material is by removing it when complaints have objected.
Google Video has been less concerned with similar pieces of video, probably due to their financial muscle and less need to feel threatened by the media companies legal departments. Expect a long list of deals like Warner Music\\’s
Of course, most of the material on YouTube is people making their own videos and uploading it, a few of which have become stars on the service and a couple mega-stars being signed by Hollywood agents.
For the latest (brief) views on the deal of Hurley and Chen have just hit Reuters.
10 October, 2006
Google CEO Joins Apple’s Board Of Directors
In a Star Trek-like melding of minds, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is joining Apple Computer’s board of directors, setting tongues wagging that some kind of alliance between the technology giants could be looming.
The subsequent statements by both companies suggest that a veritable flurry of back-slapping and advanced mutual fawning took place, with Eric Schmidt effusing, “Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire.”
“I’m really looking forward to working with Steve (Jobs) and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing,” he gushed.
Not to be outdone, Apple co-founder and chief executive officer Steve Jobs was ready to share the love, “Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apples board of directors.”
“Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric’s insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead,” he continued, as the room filled with dust from several hours of hearty back patting.
The addition of Schmidt to Apple now brings the total number of board members to eight, and these include Steve Jobs, Al Gore, former vice president of the United States and the head honchos of Intuit, J. Crew and Genentech.
Google book search expands
Elsewhere, Google have expanded their controversial book search service to allow users to download full PDF copies of public domain books, which can now be printed out.
Previously, surfers could only read books on the Google Book Search site, but not download or print them.
Google Books
30 August, 2006
Google Music Trends in GTalk
When upgrading their Instant messaging (IM) and VoIP software released earlier this week, Google has taken the opportunity to introduce a new feature – Music Trends.
The idea of letting people know what music you are and have been listening to has been around for a long time, with bloggers using various plug-ins to show the information on their blogs.
Through Google Talk, Google have taken it to an even more immediate level. With the latest version of the software on their machines and switching on the option, people who are listed as your friends within GTalk can see the music that you’re listening to at that moment, displayed on the status line.
It currently works with four pieces of music playing software iTunes; Winamp; Windows Media Player and Yahoo Music Engine, with is anticipated that more will be supported soon.
So what? you may say. Google say it’s an interesting way to discover new music, which we’re sure has nothing to do with one of the other features of GTalk, file transfer – “cool tune, man, can you IM it over?” Surely not. Would be a great way to get people buying music, through a long rurmoured Google Music-buying site though wouldn’t it?
Google are also grabbing all of the information of which tracks are being played and compiling them in to a chart of top songs, broken down into genre and country (only USA currently).
We can just hear the clatter of keyboards as memos shoot around record companies insisting that all of the employees load up the software, and play the latest boy band that they’re trying to promote.
Background on google Music Trends
Google Talk
18 August, 2006