Alert Blog Reviews

When the world looks at areas where the pure numbers are pretty staggering it’s the sheer size and potential of the Chinese market. Let’s face it there are a lot of Chinese folks. So it would only be natural that Google would like a piece of that pie. What is not normal though is the fact that Google is second fiddle by a considerable margin to Baidu, which is acting like the Chinese version of Google in its homeland. CNNMoney.com reports that Baidu is pretty much putting it to Google. As one should expect though it is probably not wise to count Google out on this one. At first glance one might readily declare “game over” in the China online search war. Beijing-based Baidu (BIDU) dominates: According to Jennifer Li, Baidu’s chief financial officer, Baidu’s market share for search in China was about 77% in the third quarter, up from 75.6% in the second quarter. Google (GOOG), she says, lost share in China, dropping to 17% in the third quarter, from about 19% in the second quarter. So what’s the cause of this disparity? Apparently it’s not Google’s handling of the Chinese language. In fact, they receive pretty good marks on this one. What is likely the biggest contributor that can be seen (meaning there might be, just maybe a little bit, of Chinese government stuff going on here but that is PURE speculation on my part) is something that even Google can’t overcome: time. Google came to the Chinese marketing in 2006 while Baidu has been at it since 2000. That’s a lot of time to get a head start. What might be interesting to watch is the battle that is developing as Baidu makes a play in the growing mobile market. Google has fared well there but Baidu is making some serious waves in that pool. And Baidu is trying to extend its search dominance on mobile phones, an area where Google has done well in China, thanks to a search deal with China Mobile, the nation’s largest carrier. In October Baidu announced a deal to provide mobile search to customers of China Unicom’s (CHU) 3G services, and it also is testing a mobile app that features Baidu’s some most popular online tools, including a message board service. This market will be interesting to watch for sure because the political side of opportunity is one that the world watches very closely. Remember all the Internet ‘issues’ around the Beijing Olympics of 2008? Missteps by anyone outside of the Chinese market are likely to happen and it will likely keep foreign competition at a serious disadvantage. Once again, this is just me thinking out loud based on what has happened in the past. Baidu is saying that Google is on their radar and not being overlooked. But no one, least of all Baidu executives, assumes Google is content with its position in China today. “We don’t underestimate their technology or their ability,” says Baidu CFO Li. As for Google’s plan of attack? Maybe it looks a lot like the ne that it has for Apple elsewhere. Google’s ambitions in China go well beyond traditional online advertising and search. The company is widely believed to be looking for multiple ways to introduce its Android mobile operating platform in China, and recent reports suggest it may look to open an Android application marketplace in China. Google most certainly has its work cut out for it. How it fares in China may very well tell a lot about what the company is made of since it is one of the few places where it will need to fight from behind rather than defend from the top.

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Google Still A Distant Second To Baidu in China

As expected it looks like this week may be a bit light in the news department. That’s fine. Everyone needs a break from time to time. So as I am looking around this morning I come across an op-ed piece in the New York Times that is written by Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology company. From what I can gather, Mr. Raff is upset that his site was banned from Google’s index. There is no explanation as to why this happened so I am not going to assume anything although an article from eConsultancy looks at his plight and we get some insight as to why Google is so ‘mean’ to him. As a result, Mr. Raff contends that Google simply is too powerful and that the government should be considering a ‘search neutrality’ platform that falls in line with the ‘net neutrality’ platform. Here is a bit of his concern: Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance. I had to shake my head that this was actually put in print but I kept reading. I bumped into more ‘complaints’. Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning. I guess my question is “What is a company supposed to do in that situation”? Why should anyone in the free market be obligated to being relegated to a ‘public service’ status just because they do something better than most? I admit that it seems a bit creepy at times to see just how far reaching Google is with regard to services. I also believe that as they get bigger there are likely to be many vulnerabilities that will be discovered and exploited as the free market has seen in the past with seemingly invincible powers like IBM and Microsoft. It just happens. There’s a lot more to this op-whine piece that I am surprised the Times even allowed to see the light of day. Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books. Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented. Ask Cisco if they ‘invented’ everything they own. The folks who make Flip cameras are thrilled that Cisco likes to buy good ideas. Interestingly enough, Mr. Raff actually shows that Google PROVIDES market opportunity for the little guy. There are small companies out there that make good things that Google could buy thus making the companies that were innovative enough to be recognized successful beyond what was likely to happen on their own. Maybe Mr. Raff needs to think about making something worthy of being purchased by Google rather than worming his way into the media to complain about his issues. I do have a solution for Mr. Raff. If there is this need for an impartial search engine (which is a ridiculous concept because in order for anything to be ‘ranked’ in numerical order there needs to be some guidelines thus implied ‘partiality’) that is based solely on merit (Whose definition of merit? Someone has to be judge and jury here, right?) and relevance (as defined by whom?) why not let the government build its own search engine? Why put this constraint on the private sector? Our current situation here in the US is that the government wants to be knee deep in everything so why not let them create the engine ‘for the people and by the people’ then let the people decide? Are there any Googlers out there who would like to address this kind of thinking? As for Marketing Pilgrim readers how do you really feel about Google’s place in the market? Is there any validity to this argument? Is Google’s dominance something to be concerned about or just accepted? Is there a real threat of this becoming a Google world? What if that did happen? Is there any validity to the concept of ’search neutrality’? Weigh in please. I have a better idea. Would someone please make some news so we can move on to other things?

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Search Neutrality?

Earlier this month, Google revealed it was filing suit against Pacific WebWorks (and other yet-to-be-named parties) for infringing on its trademark. Pacific WebWorks was among the companies running a “Google Work from Home” scam, advertising a way to make money off Google, to be learned through an inexpensive kit (and hidden, exorbitant recurring fee—which always enhances my learning experience). Pacific WebWorks was also using Google’s logo and representing its kit and other services as endorsed by the search giant. Pacific WebWorks issued a statement yesterday saying that they had reached an “agreement in principle” to settle and would be complying with Google’s request for expedited discovery. So either they think they’re innocent or they’re ready to sweep this all under the rug as fast as possible. So, if they’re agreed and moving toward a settlement, why do we need discovery? Discovery is the phase of the trial where each of the parties share pertinent documents—so perhaps Google is demanding this to find the other companies it believes are running the scams. Google said earlier this month that, “upon information and belief,” the other scammers were materially connected with Pacific WebWorks. Does this mean that the Google work from home scams will stop? Maybe in this iteration—but the whole thing is just a play on an old theme. Read any classifieds section and you’ll see more of the same. Hopefully scammers will think twice about using Google’s name and pretending to have its endorsement, but this scam will probably never go away completely. What do you think? Will the case really be over that quickly? via

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Google Work at Home Scammer Settling Suit

Would the last person to leave Yahoo, please turn off all the lights? You may think I’m mocking the gradual decline of the tech company, but I’m not. Not this time. Apparently, in a measure of frugality, Yahoo is sending home all but its most essential employees for the Christmas break. According to AP : It’s the first time that Yahoo has required most of its 13,200 employees to use vacation time or unpaid leave during the holidays. Only employees performing essential duties will be working from Dec. 25 through Jan. 1. You can expect more spam in your search results, viagra offers in your Yahoo mail, and porn on Flickr during this time. OK, maybe not that last one.

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Yahoo’s Employees Home for the Holidays

OK, I have learned my lesson. I am going to tell you right out of the gate that when I read this piece of information about Twitter turning a profit in 2009 I was a bit skeptical. Now, the second part of this is that the source, BusinessWeek, is well, BusinessWeek so I tend to pay attention a bit more. Well, the times they are a changin’ for sure because the distinction between the venerable BusinessWeek and the rest of the Internet space may be less noticeable than before. As I went through the article I read the following In October, Twitter said it had struck multiyear arrangements that make users’ short blog postings available on Google.com and on Bing, which is run by Microsoft. Those agreements carry sufficient value to help Twitter achieve a small profit for 2009, say two people familiar with the company’s finances , who asked to remain anonymous because Twitter’s books are not a matter of public record. I added the italics because I now immediately place this story in the category of rumor. I suspect that if Twitter wants people to know that it turned a profit, no matter how big or small, they will let us know. Do I think they actually did turn a profit? I honestly don’t know because I don’t do their accounting and I haven’t spoken to ‘sources’ who think that leaking corporate data is cool. Now, of course, let’s not discount the possibility that Twitter allowed the leaks but now we are getting into silly territory. What this looks like though is that BusinessWeek is starting to sound more like the tech blogs and new world media that it has fought against. Verify facts with the company being covered? Nope. Two anonymous insiders will do because the story is “hot”. Oh boy. The one thing that is certain is that the biggest revenue generator (maybe only?) are the deals that were struck with Google and Microsoft for the Twitter feeds to be indexed in the search engines. These are rumored to be in the $25 million range with $15 million from Google and $10 million from Microsoft. If these numbers are indeed accurate I have to wonder what the $5 million difference is since the two companies are essentially getting the same data. Your speculation is welcome in the comments section here, as always. Another part of the ‘information’ that was ‘leaked’ to BW was the fact that Twitter has been cutting expenses and has now been left with people being the bulk of the expense to run the service. The company used to pay a lot of money to telecommunications companies for distributing billions of text messages over wireless networks. Twitter users can send and receive messages over both its Web service and text messages. Now that Twitter has become so popular, it has gained bargaining power with telecom companies and has managed to renegotiate so many deals with carriers that the company pays far less for the services. With 105 employees and estimates placing the needed money to run the operation at $25 million per year either those 105 people are making some nice coin or they have deals that are starting to look like being a pre-IPO Google employee. Either way, good for them. So as always is the tendency when looking at Twitter we must try to figure out just what will happen in the future to make more money through the widely used service. The BusinessWeek article tells us Over the last year, however, executives have started to talk about the various ways the company has been exploring to generate revenue. In addition to the search deals, Twitter plans an advertising program for early next year. The company also will charge for commercial Twitter accounts that would let businesses analyze tweet traffic. Get ready for 2010 to be a big year for Twitter as the world watches how they integrate advertising into the Tweet stream. Also, if you are a company you better make a little budget room for whatever commercial account services become available. Nothing was ‘leaked’ about how much that would cost so your guess is as good as ours or BusinessWeek’s or some anonymous guesser source.

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Twitter Profitable in 2009?

Admit it. How many of you read that title and thought that your SEO career was about to come tumbling down? Yeah, I’m mean like that! Anyway, while I have you hear, can you tell me what you think of this: The "Guru" product is not showing for everyone, and apparently if you click the link it takes you…no where actually. Any guesses what it may be? A return of Google Answers perhaps?

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Why Being a Google Guru is a Dead End

It seems that Google likes to roll out new tools to help webmasters without really saying why. So, when Google launches a new tool that helps you determine if your web page is too wide or long for most browser sizes, you have to wonder: will the dimensions of your web site become the next variable added to Google’s algorithm? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, when you consider that the speed of your site will soon be a factor in determining your Google ranking. Whether I’m reaching here–or close to home–I don’t know. What I do know is that Google wants YOU to be aware of how many Google users don’t get to see all of your web content at first glance. Browser Size is cute, ugly, and useful. It’s best to just show you: As you can see, Trackur.com fits within the entire web browser of only 20% of all users, but our call to action gets seen by 90-95%–without any scrolling needed. You’d think that the tool would have cleaner lines, but I suspect the “kids crayon” interface is designed to not look too sinister and official–so you don’t suspect it will become part of Google’s algorithm. Go and check your own web site and let me know how you fair. PS. Keep in mind that if you use a floating width/margin, you should re-size your own browser to lose the white space either side of your main content.

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Size Does Matter! Google Says Small & Narrow is Best!