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| Google's prospects from a Google user and independent investor |
GWA is back - update - 9/23/2005 04:54:00 PM
I posted four hours ago that the GWA beta was back. Well, it seems to be up and down. At noon, you could download the current version. Now, you can't. The GWA Google Group has posts observing the same thing. Just so you know I'm not hallucinating, here are the before-and-after screen shots.
None of this should confuse the fundamental issue: that Google Web Accelerator is much more than it appears. It's not just a convenient utility to save a few seconds surfing the web. It's part of a much larger, more strategic plan for Google to position itself at the center of the internet, and to serve high-bandwidth content to low-capacity devices. There's no way Google would keep investing in this product and risking the inevitable backlash if it was anything less. Before (12:28 pm):
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Google Web Accelerator -- Risen from the Dead - 9/23/2005 12:27:39 PM
GWA is back. You can download the current version or read the faq.
I've posted numerous times that GWA is still very much alive, even though the beta was abruptly pulled last May after widespread reports of privacy and security issues. InsideGoogle has a good rundown of the concerns with the product. Buygoogle has maintained that GWA is not just a nifty tool to save a few seconds, or a nefarious device for Google to monitor your clickstream. GWA is a Big Deal, part of a larger Google initiative to position itself at the center of a new internet architecture. A new architecture is needed for the order-of-magnitude increase in traffic required for media -- and GWA's caching could preposition data at the edge of the network, near the user, instead of shipping petabytes across continents. Refer also to Cringely's speculation on GWA (his article, my critique ), where he also recognizes the revolutionary potential here. It's more than just a clever doo-dad -- it may be a core part of Google's larger strategy to extend beyond search to become the new internet. By the way, in addition to staging data close to the user, what better way to enable thin devices like TVs, handhelds, cell phones -- than to have content server close to that device. GWA could be a nail in the coffin of the fat client. At the shareholders' meeting just after GWA was originally released, Eric Schmidt unequivocally declared his intention to address all information, all devices, all nations: Larry and Sergey founded the company with a simple but brilliant mission: organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful...the world's information, not just the U.S.; information, not just the Web; 'universally' means for everyone, everywhere; accessible means on every device; and useful means you can actually use it... just from this you can see how we expect the company to go forward. We define ourselves as not just the Web, not just Web search, but information, and solving unique and very very large problems.That Google would proceed with GWA in the face of such controversy demonstrates that it is critical to their strategy. Can you feel the Googlequake coming? |
Google TV Job Posting - Cached - 9/23/2005 07:05:00 AM
I've speculated for many months (as have others) that Google would jump into the TV market. I called it (obviously) "Google TV." This is the first time I've seen the term "Google TV" directly from Google.
Hours after this job was posted on Google's site, it was taken down. Here's the original link, and I've reproduced the original posting here, since the link is now broken. (I used Google Desktop to retrieve the cached page that I originally viewed.) Product Manager, GoogleTV - Mountain View
(From Adam Lasnik via InsideGoogle.) |
Google -- The Winner Takes All - 9/21/2005 10:09:00 PM
Tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (sub req'd) exposes Microsoft's struggle to unseat Google in search. There have been other reports of a paper written for Bill Gates' think week on the Google threat, but this is the first time its contents have been released publicly.
The threat: The paper, written by several MSN executives, was titled "Google -- The Winner Takes All (And Not Just Search...)." It made the case that "Google threatens Microsoft's position on the Internet, and could potentially lock Microsoft out of its existing distribution channels and reduce the value of Windows," according to a copy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It stated that MSN had failed "to produce better and more innovative products than Google" and was engaged in "an expensive game of catchup." Buying market dominance:
AOL talks are "stalled":
Losing ground:
Replacing Yahoo with MSN Search hurt results: There is other evidence that many consumers don't view MSN's new search engine as an improvement over Yahoo's. Microsoft dropped to No. 5 after the search technology switch, compared with No. 3 before the switch ... the percentage of users who felt MSN's search results weren't relevant to what they were looking for rose significantly, jumping to 27% from 17% for general search tasks and to 37% from 29% for searches related to specific geographical locations, those people say. Microsoft tries to silence critical analysts. Conflict of interest?
Can Microsoft make up for a very late start, a continuing brain drain, and a need to protect their fat-client dominance? Will rearranging executive chairs, bribing computer manufacturers or silencing critics make up for years of little innovation? Stranger things have happened, because we all know that the superior technology doesn't always win in the marketplace. |
Googlequake - 9/19/2005 10:05:00 PM
It's a lot of fun to think big, and try to guess Google's next move. While I don't have any special clairvoyant abilities, that hasn't stopped me from making wild guesses.
Without getting distracted by unfounded rumor, it's important for the Google investor to judge Google's ability to extend their dominance of search and web advertising into new domains, because this will mean the difference between a great company at $110 per share, and a world-changing enterprise at $1,100 per share. Google continues to rock Wall Street with pristine financial results, which is important. But more importantly, Google is changing the worlds of technology and media, and these changes have yet to be completely factored into the share price. More observers are now sensing foreshocks of a Googlequake:
Update Sept 20 10:31 A.M.: Google Wifi is more than just rumor. CNN reports that a beta VPN client for "Google Wifi" is now available, as well as a FAQ. Om Malik, the author of the GoogleNet article, has an update today, and InsideGoogle complains that about how this rhymes with the Google Web Accelerator -- of course it does, since GWA is a fundamental part of the architecture for the Google Grid. It's a Big Deal, remember? |
Max Levchin on All Nighters - 9/19/2005 09:15:00 PM
Cringely has an engaging and insightful interview with Max Levchin who founded Paypal. Levchin's take on what separates the winners from the losers is:
If you can go fast, no one will ever catch up.This seems to be Google's approach -- deliver new functionality as a blistering pace and run rings around your bureaucratic and slothful competition. Levchin says there's no substitute for putting in frequent all-nighters for a cause you believe in (and that will make you millions). More from Levchin: Can you strike the fear of God into your competitors by releasing every two weeks the features that takes them three months to write? And by the time they're done copying the features that you built last week, you've got three more months on them? It's really all about execution.The full interview is 60 minutes, and worth every minute. But if you want to skip to this quote, go to minute 56 or so. |
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