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There's no delete button on the Web
Games with a purpose
Google's secret weapon
It's not an Excel killer, it's the Google Grid
Vonage train wreck realized
Vonage IPO trainwreck
Google and the market for TV ads
Will new entrants bust the online ad market?
Google and the Paradox of Choice
Microsoft adCenter is broken

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Microsoft adCenter is broken - 5/04/2006 10:31:00 PM

I signed up for a Microsoft adCenter account yesterday to give it a test drive. No time for a full review, so here are some highlights.

Seems like a complete rip-off of Google AdWords, from the UI right down to the name
Kind of irritating that they charge five bucks just to set up an account, maybe it's a low hurdle to keep the riff raff out?
I don't know how long it takes to get the ads to run, as 24 hours later my innocuous ads for pro camera equipment were still "pending approval" - when I first used Google AdWords two years ago, I was getting traffic from google.com within ten minutes
There are a couple neat-looking tools, like the charts that show search volumes by gender, psychographic segment, geography, "wealth index," etc. The vast majority of data points are in the "unclassified" column, and I don't know that I'd use this kind of targeting for my ads -- but I don't think Google has anything this fine-grained.
The user interface is faster and more responsive than AdWords, but it's maddeningly confusing. There's no place that I could find to upload keywords, and once I've laboriously typed in 80 keyword or phrases, I've got to go one-by-one to set broad, phrase or exact match. And once the keywords are in, how the heck do you edit them without deleting and reentering?
Most maddening of all, when setting up a second campaign, the keyword selection tool completely broke -- all keywords lost, the window looks funky, IE says there's an error on the page, and all navigation broke. Closed the browser, started a new session, logged back in, and it's still broken.

I can excuse some hiccups when a brand new product is launched. But if the adCenter functionality and UI is any indicator of ad performance, Microsoft has a loooong way to go to come close to Google or even Yahoo. Microsoft should cut its losses and partner up with Yahoo, and they'll be several years ahead of where they are today.

Maybe Microsoft should copy Google on one more thing and name it, "adCenter Beta."

Update 5/5/06 4:03 PM: I'm no longer getting errors when adding keywords, and was able to create a second campaign. But the first campaign I created 48 hours ago is still showing as "pending," and is not showing ads on any Microsoft site yet.

Update 5/7/06 3:46 PM: None of the ads for either of my campaigns is running yet. It's now been nearly *four days* and the campaigns are still showing in "pending" status. There's nothing controversial about the ads or keywords, and the landing pages exist. Does every ad need human review?

Update 5/9/06 9:08 PM: Ads in both campaigns finally started running about 36 hours ago, as far as I can tell. It's probably too early for a fair comparison, but I do have one ad that is identical to one I'm running with Google AdWords. For that ad, Google is delivering about 6 times the number of impressions that Microsoft is in a 24-hour period, but again it's probably too early for a fair comparison.

Google PC and a billion bucks to Dell - 5/03/2006 05:20:00 PM

Maybe Google's gonna go for it and challenge Microsoft on their home turf, the desktop PC. CNET thinks so.

Until last week, Google was able to pretend that Microsoft wasn't their biggest threat. That charade ended when Microsoft said they would make a $2 billion down payment on a big mortgage to kill Google (giving Microsoft stock a $32 billion black eye), and Google gave themselves a PR fat lip by complaining to the Feds about Microsoft's anti-competitive nature and getting unfairly accused of hypocrisy.

Now the gloves are off and the arms race has begun. Microsoft and Amazon teamed up on search and possibly advertising, and the thought of a "Yahoosoft" mashup has sparked talk of consolidation in the information industry.

The thought of Microsoft multiplying 90% of the world's desktops by the user base of Amazon, plus the search and advertising savvy of Yahoo, raised to the power of 2 billion bucks, has spooked investors. Google shares are down 10% since announcing surprisingly strong first quarter results on April 20.

Since there's no more pretending that Microsoft and Google aren't each other's Public Enemy Number One, there's no reason for Google not to go for the jugular -- the desktop. It's clear that Microsoft will use their dominance of PC operating systems to try to crush Google in online services, while Google has a lot of benefits to offer the desktop user, and a lot of experience designing cheap, reliable, network-attached systems.

There's been occasional speculation about a Google PC for some time now, culminating at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. But at the show, Larry Page just toyed with the audience, hinting around by showing off the MIT Media Lab's $100 hand-crank laptop and releasing Google Pack (yawn), along with an upgrade of Google Video - but saying nothing explicit about a Google PC. At the time, a spokesperson said that Google had no interest in building consumer hardware, preferring to work instead with their hardware partners.

Putting together the puzzle pieces, we find:

Microsoft threat calls for a desktop strategy
Today's complex, unreliable PCs keep users from accessing Google
The cost of today's PCs keeps them out of reach for many people
Rumors of a Gdrive or Google Grid for network storage were confirmed in the leaked presentation slides
Cost and complexity could be drastically reduced with open-source software and network storage
Google already has many of the applications that would be needed (Desktop, Picasa, Gmail, Calendar, Writely, Maps, Blogger, Sketchup)
Google's Wi-Fi ambitions could open up network access for millions, driving usage of a cheap, wireless Google PC

The final piece of the puzzle is the hardware partner to produce these cheap boxes. Was I the only one surprised to hear that Google was paying Dell a billion dollars to install the free Google Toolbar and Google Desktop on its machines?

I hope Google is getting more for its billion dollars than that - could Dell be producing a $249, stripped down, reliable, network-attached, no spyware, no Microsoft, Google PC? If so, it would be a perfect Mother's Day present for my mom.

Microsoft dances with Yahoo? - 5/03/2006 02:00:22 AM

The Wall Street Journal's venerable Heard on the Street column speculates (subscription required) that Microsoft and Yahoo could do a big deal together.

The article says Microsoft could sell MSN to Yahoo, though it seems terribly unlikely that Microsoft would spin off their online services, the new heart of Microsoft's strategy. Maybe Microsoft could buy a stake in Yahoo, giving it access to Yahoo's ad system in exchange for cash and traffic from Vista and IE7 default search. Or Microsoft could do an outright acquisition, which is also unlikely because it would be a huge deal when Microsoft's stock price is already devalued.

If this happens, looks like eBay is out in the cold, and Amazon's still a question mark (though they did just dump Google search for Microsoft Live).

The article did nail the two big issues -- technology and users. Yahoo has a big user base and adequate search and ad technology, while Microsoft potentially has many users in Vista and IE7, but badly lagging technology.

Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer says he's changed his tune from " developers developers developers developers developers" to " advertisers advertisers advertisers advertisers advertisers." Seems to me Microsoft is in a bad place because they *didn't* invest in R&D until too late. Trying to recruit advertisers without an ad system or traffic seems a bit bass-ackwards.

That's why it's an arms race, and consolidation is coming .

Could censorship hurt Google's stock price? - 5/03/2006 12:32:00 AM

Conventional wisdom holds that Google compromised their principles so they could make a ship load of money in China. But tomorrow's Wall Street Journal has a good opinion piece on Google's censorship problem (subscription required) that argues that Google's stock price could be at risk alongside it's Don't Be Evil ethic.

Looks like I'm not the only one who will use Google's shareholder meeting on May 11 to protest the fact that Google, the company that wants to "organize the world's information," has compromised its principles and built a sophisticated censorship system. Amnesty International plans a media campaign to coincide with the shareholder meeting to raise awareness of this issue.

It's not just about being a "do-gooder," but Google's censorship could hurt its brand, and its stock price:

Shareholders should take heed, and not just because it's morally repugnant to collaborate with repression. In the short term, it's obviously good business to be in China, but there are longer-term consequences that should be considered.

Tech companies say they have no choice ...

American tech companies say they are simply complying with the laws of the land to avoid getting kicked out.

... but that's an illogical argument and a rationalization.

But they could resist more forcefully, as they do when protesting China's failure to protect intellectual property. They are willing to cave on human rights for a simple and understandable reason: They feel they can't afford not to be in China.

Should Google get credit for "agonizing" over their decision, when they ultimately caved?

Google says it agonized over launching a censored, local search engine early this year. But the company decided that offering is better than its older offshore service, which was slower than services of Chinese competitors and vulnerable to wholesale government shutdowns.

For Google, this issue is bigger than China. Google has destroyed user trust and tarnished the Google brand.

There also is the risk to tech companies' reputations. Yahoo and Google have faced a PR backlash, including an unflattering congressional hearing that has helped take the shine off of Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto. There's a reason companies respond to political pressure on human-rights issues, as many did during the Apartheid era in South Africa: To protect their most important bottom-line asset -- their brand.

As Google demonstrated when it stood up to the US DoJ, resistance isn't futile.

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