John Bracken

Last week I threw in my 2 cents on Google News, Reader and Transit. This week I’ve played with some other new G apps, with disappointing results.

We learned today that Google 411 is being featured on billboards, perhaps in rural areas in particular. I used Goog 411 twice this weekend, the first time was successful, the second time not so much. I called looking for the closest branch of a national store, the number I was given brought me to a home answering machine; the address Google gave us wrong. fBatting .500 is grand in baseball, but not in directory assistance- -I would have been better off paying my $1.50 to get an accurate result from 411.

I did some preventive shopping for winter gear last week and was happy to activate Google Checkout to pay for it. Who do I trust more, the one site (well, not quite) that I use several times a day, or some store with which I have no prior relationship? I was so comfortable that I was happy to use my gmail account instead of the spam mail I use for other purchases. I did so only after clicking noting that I did not want Google sharing my email address with the store. So what happened? Within 24 hours I had spam sent to me from the store. In the course of complaining to the store, I was kindly told that “placing an order through Google checkout can be rather ?tricky?.” I’m not sure what that means, but it doesn’t increase my trust in Checkout.

Lastly, I was excited to finally get to touch Google’s ppt app Presentation. It looks fun, and the templates sure beat those in PowerPoint, but it didn’t quite handle an importation of a ppt document, cutting off the bottom of some slides. A shame, I would have like to have used it for a presentation this week.

I’ll keep experimenting with all three apps, but this 0 for 3 by Google dampens my enthusiasm for the rumored 3G Google phone.

The Economist’s recent meditation on Google prompted me to reflect on my use of the Google toolbox and some of the curiosities I’ve noticed. First, Google Blog Search is featuring lots of spam lately. Second, Google News, which has become my default blackberry app, is enamored of local TV sites, particularly for sports. Recently I’ve found myself in San Diego, Houston and Kansas City. G News says it pulls from 4,500 sources, I wonder how many are local TV sites.

I have not complaints with Google Reader, although I am looking forward to upcoming features such as feed recommendations and more tools for sharing. [Update: I failed to mentioned GR's search function, which debuted last week. I've found it a helpful workaround the BlogSearch spam problem I mentioned earlier: what's better than limiting a search to the trusted sources to which I subscribe?] Philip Lenssen has details on what’s coming, and on Reader’s figures.

I’m glad to see Google Transit, with public transport trip planning and maps. I can’t wait for Chicago to be added, so I no longer have to visit that awful Chicago Transit Agency site. And today comes news of Google’s social media, Facebook NewsFeed-inspired prooject Makamaka (or is it Mochamocha?).

Lastly, I am spending insufficient time with Google Earth, which may prove to the company’s more important app of all.

Takeaways from the aforementioned Economist piece, Who’s Afraid of Google?:

Ironically, there is something rather cloudlike about the multiple complaints surrounding Google. The issues are best parted into two cumuli: a set of “public” arguments about how to regulate Google; and a set of “private” ones for Google’s managers, to do with the strategy the firm needs to get through the coming storm. On both counts, Google—contrary to its own propaganda—is much better judged as being just like any other “evil” money-grabbing company.

That is because, from the public point of view, the main contribution of all companies to society comes from making profits, not giving things away. Google is a good example of this. Its “goodness” stems less from all that guff about corporate altruism than from Adam Smith’s invisible hand….

One obvious strategy is to allay concerns over Google’s trustworthiness by becoming more transparent and opening up more of its processes and plans to scrutiny. But it also needs a deeper change of heart. Pretending that, just because your founders are nice young men and you give away lots of services, society has no right to question your motives no longer seems sensible. Google is a capitalist tool—and a useful one. Better, surely, to face the coming storm on that foundation, than on a trite slogan that could be your undoing.

Mary Hodder reports from last month’s Future of Online Advertising conference  and a presentation by Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. (Here’s a pdf of Rashtchy’s paper, The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium.) The figure that caught my eye in Mary’s post was: “5 years ago, 3 percent of online activity was at social sites, and now 31 percent is.” Highlights in the report include these search observations:

• Search is the new portal
• Search is becoming a branding tool
• Google’s dominance is increasing
• Local search remains a looming opportunity
• New search technologies are likely to expand the field by broadening search applications

Among the risks that Rashtchy identifies:

•Government regulation and oversight
•The continued maintenance of Internet infrastructure including backbone speed, capacity, and security

Last week, the Beachwood Reporter referred to one of our local papers as the Chicago Obama-Times for its all-Obama all the time coverage. (As case in point, on Monday, it posted mp3s of his two MLK Day speeches.) In the aftermath of the big pre-announcement, I decided to check the Beachwood’s assertion. According to Google News, the Sun Times has mentioned Obama 93 times so far this year. By comparison, President Bush has been mentioned 162 times and Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher 40 times.

Notably, the story counts from the Sun Times internal search engine differ from those supplied by Google. According to the Sun Times, it has run 40 stories mentioning Obama, 53 on “Bush” and 5 on “Urlacher.” Why the discrepancies– and whose count do you trust more, the Sun Times’ or Google’s?

This site is proof positive that Google over values blogs. Check it out: do a Google search for "Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes." For some goofy reason, the second site listed is this site, Media Sitrep itself. I humbly submit that this site is not the second most relevant site discussing el dia sin inmigrantes. De todas maneras, bien venidos y disfrute. 

I find this column from Lee Gomes in the WSJ much more cogent than all the “are blogs dying” thoughts that seemed to bloom in February. Gomes actually identfies an Internet weakness, the web’s economic structure:

My beef, actually, is with the search engines and the economics of the modern Web. Google, for example, says its mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The way that’s written, one thinks perhaps of a satellite orbiting high above the earth, capturing all its information but interfering with nothing.

In fact, search engines are more like a TV camera crew let loose in the middle of a crowd of rowdy fans after a game. Seeing the camera, everyone acts boorishly and jostles to get in front. The act of observing something changes it.

Which is what search engines are causing to happen to much of the world’s “information.” Legitimate information, like articles from the WHO, risks being crowded out by junky, spammy imitations. Nothing very useful about that.

The MobileHerald has a photo of Sony Ericosson’s K800i, to be priced at US$250. (UPDATE: I don’t see a camera, odd., As Damaged Gears points out in the comments, the camera is a 3.2 mp doozy)

From Pocket-Lint:

“We are seeing exponential growth in blogging and consumers are turning more and more often to the Internet as a means of sharing information or images in personal blogs�?, said Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sales and Marketing, Sony Ericsson.

The K800i, scheduled for June, will also do search. (Google Search has also made deals with Vodafone and Motorola.)

Leading up to Thursday’s Google analysts’ meeting, the WSJ quotes CFO George Reyes:

“We’re going to have to find other ways to monetize the business,” Mr. Reyes told attendees of a Merrill Lynch investor conference… Mr. Reyes said the new products Google has been introducing at a furious pace recently will produce “meaningful” revenue contributions in the future. The mobile and local arenas, in particular, offer “a lot of opportunity,” he said.

Google will continue to invest heavily in the quality of its search engine and new products, he added, and this will continue to drive a “virtuous circle” whereby product strength causes rising traffic, which attracts more advertisers and generates higher revenue.

“There’s been a huge acceleration in the level of innovation in the company,” he said. “It’s all about risk taking.”

Ads from businesses that serve local markets and typically advertise in yellow pages are also an important market, and the company is looking for ways to tap it, including with tests of so-called click-to-call telephone ads.

Business Week has this quote from Larry Brilliant, now of Google.org:

“In 10 years, I’d like people to say Google changed the world less for its search engine than for the way in which it changed philanthropy to make the world a better place.”

Updated: Wall Street Journal says he will boost their public health work, and that he was the “result of a lengthy and high-profile search.” I wonder who else was in the mix?

Garett Rogers actually read Google’s Q4 report (the one casuing such consternation in the markets) and finds that Google does not plan to add more funds to Google.org, the Google foundation:

“Google does not expect to make further donations to the Google Foundation for the foreseeable future.” It sounds like the $90 million that Google donated to the Google Foundation in the fourth quarter will be the last.

If this is true– if Google really does plan no further additions to the Google Foundation– then that is too bad for philanthropy– I was looking forward to see them injecting some innovation into the field.