Is Google Vulnerable in Advertising?

Steve Rubel just twittered an article from today’s International Herald Tribune entitled “Google shows vulnerability in Advertising.” It’s almost a completely ridiculous article, but for the small weaknesses that Google does have in its ad platform. Of course, because the Time Magazine, Digg and Facebook havedecided to go with other ad partners other than Google, it isn’t necessarily spelling the beginning of the end for the giant.

In June, Vivek Shah of Time magazine awarded a three-year, $100 million contract to Quigo Technologies, a venture capital-backed New York company that will handle ad space on more than 15 sites, including CNNMoney.com and People.com after spending six months assessing whether Google, Yahoo or Microsoft could most effectively attract advertisers to the publisher’s Web sites.

The article in the IHT focuses on an alleged weakness that the Google AdSense system supposedly possesses – the inability to target your ad towards a single site. Granted, the system is set up on a bidding system, but there is the capability built in to not only put text advertisements on a preferred site (albeit at a CPD, elevated rate), but also video ads, one of the hot new areas of advertisement that is supposedly (at least according to IHT) being ignored by Google.

What is the big problem with Google then? Why are big sites like Digg and Facebook going with Microsoft right now? Essentially, it comes down to two things, in my analysis: targeting and subsidy.

I doubt that in any of their cases, Google is offering publishers big lucrative deals to switch the entire site’s ad platform to Google. Microsoft clearly is, in a way that most likely doesn’t make sense for Microsoft long term. This can be interpreted as a strength or a weakness for Google, depending on perspective and preferred business strategy.

The other thing: targeting. I know from my own personal experience that while Google’s targeted ads on search are generally spot on, the targeted ads for content are usually so far off the mark (although in recent months they’ve gotten better), that I ended up removing Google AdSense from my site completely. My entire ad inventory for the site is now handled by the ad agency Project Wonderful. So far, they’ve pleased me far more than Google. When traffic spikes occur, of course, my income doesn’t similarly spike, but they’re good for a predictable and reliable income stream above what AdSense was able to provide for my level of traffic at the blog.

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gPhone: 30 pre-Beta Tests Underway

Hey Rizzn-ites and gPhone Hounds,

Last week I picked up a stray bit from a LiveJournaler about there being 30 rumored pre-beta gPhones wandering around in Mountain View California. Blogger Michael Bazeley recounts an experience he had in an Emeryville Apple store several days ago:

So I’m standing in the Emeryville Apple store today trying to troubleshoot a problem with a sales rep when a young woman bolts up to us saying she wants an iPhone. Like, now. After some back-and-forthing about the particulars, she says she’s a Google employee and she was going to wait for a demo of the gPhone, but it turns out Google’s only letting 30 people test it internally and she’s not one of them. So she’s going with the iPhone instead.

At which point, the Apple rep and I exchange glances and he says “gPhone? So it’s real, huh?” And the Google gal realizes she’s probably said too much and changes the subject.

There you go.

By the way, if you’re interested in carrier information, price, and design, check out this post.

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gPhone: Belaboring the Point on the NYT Article

Hey Rizzn-ites,

I posted a bit yesterday about the NYT piece on the gPhone. The coverage of the NYT analysis has been spun as wrong as it can possibly be, with the grand take-a-way being that there is no gPhone coming. The original article was a bit off in the first place. I actually got an email from Miguel Helft this morning, responding to my analysis of what he said.

I’m puzzled that you call this a hit piece. Really? A story that lays out the facts, as I known them, and strategy behind Google’s mobile ambitions and plans. In fact, most readers would probably come away with the notion that loosening carrier control and more competition for are good things. No?

As for quoting Google enemies, the one and only source I quoted who is in that camp is Scott Cleland, and I very clearly disclosed his point of view.

In fact, the one CEO of a carrier I quoted was Vodafone, by some metrics the largest mobile operator in the world, and a Google ally, since they provide easy access to Google services (unlike US carriers).

The problem is, Miguel, that very few facts were reported. The leading items were your unqualified (by any sourcing) analysis, and the quotes from those that would be decidedly out of the Google camp. Karsten Weide? Ex-Yahoo. Dan Olschwang? Potential Google mobile competitor. Arun Sarin? T-Mobile competitor (gPhone carrier).

Throughout the article, Miguel and all the quoted sources seemed mystified by the hype. As I stated yesterday, the gPhone promise is what the iPhone used to be, but without the threat of bricking.

I looked a bit further into Scott Cleland, since I was pretty sure I’d heard the name before, but couldn’t place it. He writes Precursors Blog, and talked a bit about the gPhone yesterday. Like Miguel’s piece, most of his analysis lacks cited sources, and completely downplays any credence to the hype surrounding it whatsoever. According to Scott, all the hype revolves around “their one-letter sub-branding conventions, their cultures of extreme secrecy about their plans, and their similar “Midas touch” public relations successes.”

Again, though, what would you expect from shill for the anti-net neutrality crowd, and someone who argues that “…[t]rue competition best serves consumers, not government-managed competition where the Government pre-determines market outcomes with preemptive open access of net neutrality regulation” when speaking of the nation-wide megalopolies of AT&T and the cable companies. Competition indeed.

Update 9:48 AM CST (10/10/2007): Scoble linked Nicholas Carr’s blog post this morning, who drew more or less the exact same conclusion I did.

/rizzn

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Google + Jaiku

digg_url = ‘http://www.rizzn.com/2007/10/google-jaiku.asp’;
I just found out via C.C. Chapman on Twitter, but it would appear that Jaiku has been purchased by Google!

This from the Jaiku FAQ today:

Jaiku is joining Google. While it’s too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now.

But fear not, all our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition.

Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

I guess Leo Laporte was right to bet on Jaiku back when he made the switch. I’ll have to take a second look at the service, since it’ll likely be pitched at me within the next couple months in the form of Google’s new social networking initiative (yeah, bet on that!).

@sugree had an interesting observation: zingku+jaiku = google phone. It’s a thought, and it is clearly related to the gPhone. Don’t think it’s the totality of it though, by a longshot.

Registration to Jaiku is currently closed, but you can request an invitation from the Jaiku site.

/rizzn

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gPhone: In Defense of Google

Hey Rizzn-ites,

Well, if you’re like me, you woke up this morning with an inbox full of emails and a Google reader that pointed to mostly links to the New York Times article on the gPhone. Instead of tapping out thirty or forty replies to emails on my comment on the story, I’m simply going to post here, and refer all the bozos who wrote me back to this article.

You can hear me talk about this today on RizWords, daily politics and technology (subscribe for free to listen).

Everyone in the new media seems to be taking the New York Times article as if it were gospel, on not a poorly written re-hashing of everything else Crunchgear, Information Week, DigiTimes and I have written previously. Very little primary source research work was done for the article, and everything mentioned as a ‘fact’ about the gPhone, I’ve mentioned previously (to little fanfare) on my blog. The only difference is that the New York Times didn’t attribute me as a source, nor did the even bother to contact me and ask me where I got my facts from.

That’s right. I’m saying plagiarism. If not from me, then from the blogosphere in general. That they’ve not checked me out or asked me about anything (or that anyone but the Boston Globe has contacted me from the MSM) to try to get a couple of the rumors they’re reporting as fact correct completely floors me.

Here are the first four paragraphs of the NYT article, translated and condensed down to a sentence a piece:

Everyone is saying there’s a gPhone coming. The gPhone isn’t going to be better than the iPhone. I’ve figured out all of Google’s mobile strategy, magically, and without any help. Here it is: they want to advertise on mobile phones.

The problem here is it’s all the way down to paragraph five when the author starts talking to someone who might have a clue as to what technology is, Karsten Weide. Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at his bio shows us that he has very little experience in what it is that Google actually does. He’s an ex-Yahoo Germany project manager – the closest he ever came to knowing Google strategy was working at a branch of a competitor of Google.

The article then continues to cite: an anonymous (non-Google) executive, Dan Olschwang of JumpTap (a mobile phone version of Google), Arun Sarin of Vodafone, and Scott Cleland (telecommunications industry analyst who recently testified before the Senate against Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick). All of these folks were either in direct competition with Google or were anti-Google.

Only in the last three sentences are any positive words used (by the article or by quoted sources) in reference to Google.

Essentially, the NYT piece is just a poorly veiled hit piece on Google, essentially stating that the gPhone is extraneous, and that you can already get to Google.com with a mobile phone, so why the hype about a gPhone?

I’ll tell you why the hype. The Apple iPhone was this incredible piece of technology released to the largest launch in recent memory for a mobile device. What we had was a device we could develop for and look at as a platform for real forward, user-controlled advancement. And then Apple bricked it.

Now, with the gPhone, we’re looking at the same thing, but without an Apple-ish propensity for monopoly, and closed systems. Google and the gPhone is the only device coming out on the horizon that looks like it both has the power to inspire the masses as well as the open and robust platform that developers can use and work on. That’s the bottom line, and that’s the big picture that the New York Times missed.

For an article that got it right, see TechCrunch today.

For a good chronology, see SearchEngineLand.

I’ve got more to say, but you’ll have to tune into RizWords today to get it.

/rizzn

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