Sometimes the nicest of people, when faced with the pressure of competition, make evil stupid decisions. That’s pretty much what happened to Google when it realized that Facebook was about to eat its lunch with regards to social data on the web — so it started doing dumb things, like building Google Buzz, Wave and most recently rolling out “Search Plus Your World” which to the rest of the world just looks like “Search Plus Google+.” → Read More
Google has more than 40 core products, and hundreds depending on how you count them. Even with over 30,000 employees, that’s a lot to support. In the name of refocusing, today the company announcedthat Picnik, Sky Map, Urchin, Needlebase, Google Message Continuity, and the Social Graph API are all headed for the deadpool, open source, or absorption into more central divisions. → Read More
Google appears to have made some changes to its account creation process. Whereas before, all it took was an email address of any kind and some basic demographic data, now you are required to create both a Gmail account and a presence on Google+. This doesn’t strike me as a user-friendly change. → Read More
Next week a class-action civil lawsuit will be heard in San Jose to determine if Google, Apple, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit conspired to eliminate competition for skilled labor. In anticipation of the hearing, TechCrunch has obtained evidence from the Department of Justice’s investigation in 2010 which was made public this evening for the first time. It appears to support the plaintiff’s case that the defendant companies tried to suppress employee compensation by entering into “no poach” agreements. → Read More
Google has just released its Q4 2011 results, and they didn’t live up to Wall Street’s expectations.
Wall Street’s consensus for the quarter was $10.49 in non-GAAP earnings per share and $8.40 billion in revenue. Google missed on both counts, with EPS of $9.50 and net revenue of $8.13 billion.
Google shares are down around 10% in after-hours trading. → Read More
Google generally gets in hot water when it is thought to be abusing its pole position in the search industry. But it’s no use denying that while some moves skirt the edges of abusing monopoly, others are more than welcome. During natural disasters, for instance, Google has provided helpful links and resources for people who want to donate or volunteer. And their logo doodles pay homage to personages and events many people would otherwise have overlooked.
Today must rank among the best applications of their choice placement: a link on the Google homepage and thousands of shares have produced a mind-blowing 4.5 million signatures on their anti-SOPA petition. → Read More
So I tend to think of news in this industry as falling into two basic categories 1) Boring as fuck 2) So hyper-dramatic I feel like I need to take a ton of anti-anxiety medication just to read Techmeme.
While tons of crap posts this week have fallen into the former category, a few have fallen into the latter, mostly MG Siegler’s work surrounding Google’s failed efforts at, well, anything. All of MG’s posts have been, to borrow a phrase, “very well done” — Mostly because they lean into the drama. → Read More
If Twitter continued to sell its firehose to Google, fewer searches would occur on Twitter’s internal search engine where the microblog platform can serve its own ads. That’s why sources familiar with the negotiations tell me Twitter wouldn’t renew the data access deal at any price, or at least set a ludicrously high price to sink the deal. Cash and increased visibility on Google Search was more valuable to Twitter in 2009 when it was still trying to gain serious traction. But by July 2011 Twitter was more established and ready to try monetizing without Google. A firehose deal would have impeded this, so it’s understandable why Twitter walked away. → Read More
Google, what were you thinking?, asks Kenyan startup Mocality, which operates the country’s largest online business directory. Mocality is accusing Google of knowingly engaging in fraudulent behavior to undermine their business and grow theirs, after careful monitoring of Internet traffic and a successful sting operation turned up some very interesting results. → Read More
Google has just announced that it’s named Diane B. Greene, a cofounder and longtime CEO of VMware, to its Board of Directors.
Greene is also on Intuit’s Board of Directors, where she serves on the Audit and Risk Committee and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee as well.
Greene was formerly President and CEO of VMware from 1998 through 2008, leading it to a $625 million acquisition by EMC in early 2004, and, in 2007, an IPO on the NYSE. → Read More
Microsoft this morning announced that it has signed a patent licensing agreement with Android device manufacturer LG, its eleventh deal of the kind.
Microsoft says effectively 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the United States today are covered under its patent portfolio, not mentioning the fact that they’re also suing Motorola Mobility and NOOK maker Barnes & Noble over their Android devices.
Continuing a tradition that we hope will stand the test of time, Microsoft’s head of communications, Frank Shaw, took to Twitter to taunt Google. → Read More
With the deep inclusion of Google+ into Search, Google is tempting fate. We’ve been over this. A lot. And this story is going to continue for some time to come. It sure looks like Google is almost asking for an inquiry into potentially anti-competitive practices (and it’s coming). Which is insane. So the next logical question is why? Why is Google risking so much to do this?
My colleague Eric had a very interesting theory earlier. Maybe Google’s real motive is to get the government to also look into Facebook’s often-unfair practices with regard to their network ahead of their IPO. If social and not search is indeed the future, call this pre-subversion. And if there’s any shred of truth to this theory, more power to Google — it’s rather genius (though still extremely risky).
But the more likely answer as to why Google is doing Search+ is much simpler. At a high level, they believe social elements are going to be an extremely important part of search going forward. Given that the two biggest players in social, Facebook and Twitter, don’t give them full access to their data (Twitter used to but the relationship ended, Facebook never did), Google is doing the only thing they can in their minds to still get the data they need: bolster Google+. → Read More
There has been a great quantity of vitriol corroding the social web over the last few days, a reaction to Google’s decision to optionally integrate Google+ features into their search. The complaint, as I understand it, is that some searches bring up Google+ results before they bring up results the complainants feel are more relevant.
Here’s the thing. Google certainly has an agenda here. But it’s not a destructive agenda, it’s merely Google-centric. Twitter made a Twitter-centric decision when they reduced their search profile last year, and Facebook has made Facebook-centric decisions almost exclusively since its creation.
Google is a datavore. All it wants to do is collect data, organize it, and then deliver it to people, peppered with ads and the occasional sales commission. Viewed from this perspective, the new social search is simple — innocuous. The biggest crime Google has committed is giving it such a cumbrous name. → Read More
Last year, in its first year, the Google Science Fair became the largest online science fair in the world with over 7,500 entries from more than 90 countries. Google Science Fair, which is in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, is open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. Today, Google is announcing the second annual Science Fair, with an emphasis on making the contest even more global.
Similar to last year, contestants can build and submit a project (via photos and videos), a hypothesis, as well as written observations online using Google Sites Either individually or in teams of three. This year however, Google will be accepting submissions in 13 languages (compared to English-only last year). → Read More
There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search+ (what we’re now calling Google Search Plus Your World). The Electronic Privacy Information Center recommends the FTC look at Search+ for possible privacy or antitrust concerns. Meanwhile, Twitter’s General Counsel Alexander Macgillivray provides apparently damning evidence for why Search+ unfairly skews search results towards Google+ content instead of the most relevant results. → Read More
Google, Google, Google … What’s amazing is that you still haven’t learned how to market yourself socially, after all these years ; Lesson 1) You can’t just strong arm people into using your product .
Seriously, you’ve got to, like, you know, earn traction by making something people want and not, like, use your search muscle to make sure people hit up your social stuff. It might “work,” sure. But don’t for a minute think that we all can’t see through that shit for just what it is.
→ Read More
I love it when tech companies start acting like bickering exes. This morning Google announced that it was gasp going to start mixing its chocolate Google+ results into your peanut butter normal search results, optionally of course. Twitter wasn’t happy with this because Twitter and Google were totally dating for a year and nine months until they broke up last July. → Read More
What most alarms me about today’s “Google Search Plus Your World” announcement is how it will distort name searches. When I Google someone’s name, I’m typically looking for a Wikipedia entry, their Twitter account, a personal website, or an author page on their blog. Today, Google Search handles this well, often returning these as the top results. But *thanks* to Search Plus Your World, soon I’ll see Google+ profiles more prominently even though they’re rarely what I’m looking for. → Read More
This morning, Google began rolling out a major change to its core search engine that intertwines results from Google+ (and Picasa) with the ‘normal’ algorithmically-generated results we’ve come to expect. There have been plenty of critiques of the news, including John Battelle’s discussion on how this isn’t actually integrating ‘Your World’, as Google calls it, but rather just its own social network.
And now there’s another critic that’s coming out swinging: Twitter.
Earlier today the company’s General Counsel Alex Macgillivray, who was a top attorney at Google prior to making the jump to Twitter, called it “A bad day for the Internet”, and stated that some of his former colleagues were likely upset by the decision to “warp” Google’s results. And now Twitter itself has followed up with a statement denouncing the feature — and rather relying on the wishy-washy PR speak big companies are fond of, it’s very direct.
Here’s the full statement: → Read More
Since the launch of Google+, Google has been putting a lot of muscle behind promoting and integrating the service into its core products. Fire up a new Android 4.0 device, and you’ll be prompted to create a Google+ account if you haven’t already. They’ve given it TV ads, not to mention a priceless promotion on its homepage.
And today, Google is launching an update to its core search engine at Google.com that continues this trend — and then some. They’re calling it ‘Search plus Your World’.
The short version is that Google search results are going to be automatically personalized (to a greater degree than they were already) for each user, with signals drawn from your Google+ Circles being used to highlight things your friends — or you, yourself — have shared. → Read More
