Give Me Back My Google

This site automatically strips out a ton of affiliate spam from Google. The results are quite revealing.

How does affiliate spam make it into Google in the first place? Well, not everyone thinks it's spam. Via Matt Haughey.

• Posted by John Battelle at 05:56 AM
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Google Goes Solar

Check out the BB coverage, cool!

• Posted by John Battelle at 06:13 PM
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Inside the GDrive Platypus --Almost

Philipp has yet another Google GDrive teaser-- this is the most revealing yet. He's accessed "Google’s internal Gdrive client, named “Platypus", but notes that from the look of things it's intended to remain an internal system for Google employees to store and share files... (though, many more G products have been tested as internal projects before public exposure).

Says Philipp:
Google’s Platypus help, which I’ve mirrored here in its Windows and Linux version, says:
"We encourage you to keep all of your files with us, including your Office documents, photos, and personal notes, except for sensitive data (including electronic protected health information) and other files inconsistent with the internal user agreement."
...As one can expect, I can’t get past the login screen after installing Gdrive on my local machine. If I’d be able to do so, I could synchronize and share files with other Googlers who also installed Gdrive, and also access files with a web browser.
He's also uploaded the configuration files, for those who want to play around.

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 04:16 PM
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Meanwhile, Yahoo Does A Lot of Video

This deal (Lost Remote) shows that while Google is getting the YouTubian glory, Yahoo is still paying attention to things that, in the end, will also matter quite a bit. From the release:

CBS Television Stations, a division of CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS) (NYSE:CBS.A), and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced an exclusive video syndication agreement in which local news video from 16 of CBS’s owned stations will be made available on Yahoo! to the Internet’s largest news audience. The relationship, which begins tomorrow, marks the first video agreement between a network-owned television station group and an Internet news provider. CBS and Yahoo will share revenue from advertising sold adjacent to CBS Stations’ content on the site.

Yahoo has moved a lot of chips to Local, and in time I expect that bet to payoff, at least in the marketplace - it remains to be seen if Yahoo wins the table.

(BTW, CBS also pushes feeds of its local videos into Google Maps. And that might be how we get our local news at some point. At some point....)

• Posted by John Battelle at 02:08 PM
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How To Win in China

Google Blogoscoped notes the difference between Wikipedia, which is blocked in China (save some Chinese pages) and the new competitor from Baidu, which is monitored by the government, and, Philipp says, most likely to grow market share, just as Baidu's main service has. If Google or others want to beat Baidu in China, they'll have to join them more vigorously, it seems.

• Posted by John Battelle at 02:04 PM
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Why Web 2.0 Is About to Shift the Enterprise

What? Battelle writing about the enterprise? Well, don't get used to it. But I do have to say, this example from Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun, is really, really instructive about how Big Business can learn from Web 2.0. He started with a question in an earlier post - whither the datacenter?, in short. Big companies and the entrenched CXOs within them change slowly, and only when pushed, shoved, and forced by trends too big to ignore. I think Jonathan has found an example of such a trend in this anecdote from his latest entry:

I was talking to the CIO of a large financial institution last week. He told me he was in the midst of building out two new datacenters, spending $250,000,000 (yes, a quarter of a billon) on one, more than that on the other. He was beyond frustrated (as I'm sure was his CFO).

I asked him how long it was going to take, he said nearly three years. Years.

And then Dave Douglas reminded me that two to three years is longer than it took for YouTube to incorporate, build out their infrastructure, scale their business to serve the entire planet - and get sold.

Companies are really spending a quarter BILLION dollars on datacenter implementations that take three YEARS to execute? My God. On what planet?

I know, I know, sometimes YouTube goes down, and if you are running the NYSE, that ain't an option. But man, one might hope you could figure out a way to failsafe with less than $250,000,000.....

• Posted by John Battelle at 02:02 PM
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Searchmob Roundup

John Battelle's Posse (John will surely be delighted to know he has a posse, but does anyone know what this is about?)

Endelman's Walmart Mess

The Web According to Ballmer

Split-screen Preview of Google Search (this is pretty cool)

5 Firefox Extensions for Your Search

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 01:30 PM
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Web 2: What Would You Ask The Majors?

Esteemed members of the Searchblog community:

The Web 2 conference is coming up in three short weeks, and I have one hell of a job to do: I am interviewing quite an assortment of Internet leaders on stage, in front of nearly 1,200 people, for three days straight (I'll be aided here and there by Tim O'Reilly, thankfully). The program of course has all sorts of other elements - presentations, panels, debates, and the like. But one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 has been the one-on-one interviews, and this year, we have one hell of a lineup.

In the course of three days, among scores of others who will give presentations and speak on panels, we'll be interviewing on stage:

Eric Schmidt - CEO Google
Arthur Sulzberger - CEO/Chair The New York Times Co
Barry Diller - CEO IAC
Jack Ma - CEO Alibaba (including Yahoo China)
Niklas Zennström - CEO Skype (his first ever interview on US soil since the settlement)
Jeff Bezos - CEO Amazon
Bruce Chizen - CEO Adobe
Ross Levinsohn - CEO Fox Interactive (Myspace/Newscorp)
Jonathan Miller - CEO AOL
Ray Ozzie - Chief Software Architect, Microsoft
Roger McNamee and Ram Shriram- Venture investors (Elevation Partners and Board member, Google)
Eric Nicoli - Chairman, EMI
David Filo - Founder, Yahoo

Crikey. I need your help.

Now, I know that the event is sold out, and therefore not everyone can come, and many of you wouldn't spend the dough (it ain't cheap) to come even if you could spare the time.

Nevertheless, we plan to make the sessions available on the web as soon as we are able, in a format that will make them quite accessible. And with nearly 100 press and bloggers in attendance, your questions will certainly get coverage in real time. So, if you have any interest at all, I beg you to help me question these leaders while we got 'em on the spot. I promise to report back to you once all is said and done.

Over the next few days (I'm traveling so it might be sporadic...) I'll be posting one entry per interview, and asking for your comments on the post - what do you want to hear from these leaders?

I've already started with Eric, I posted my request here late last month - please add your thoughts; clearly we need to ask about YouTube....

Next up will be Arthur of the Times, then Barry Diller, and so on.

Thanks for your feedback, it means a lot to me to hear what you want asked of these folks. And I am truly honored to be part of these dialogs. Onwards....

• Posted by John Battelle at 09:35 PM
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Oh For $30 million in Google Stock, Circa 2003

The Times does the Friendster tick tock. Biggest ouch:

Mr. Abrams spurned Google’s advances and charted his own course. In retrospect, he should have taken the $30 million. If Google had paid him in stock, Mr. Abrams would easily be worth $1 billion today, according to one person close to Google.

• Posted by John Battelle at 01:00 PM
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Is Yahoo Up For Grabs? Fred Speculates

When a stock price declines, speculation increases that a company might be vulnerable to an acquisition. Yahoo's been beaten up lately, and Fred Wilson takes his readers through an exercise in who might be tempted to buy Yahoo. His speculation is that were anyone to move, the most logical suitor would be Microsoft.

Microsoft can afford Yahoo! and a combined MSN/Yahoo! would certainly be a stronger competitive player against Google, something that is clearly on Ballmer's mind right now. That seems the most likely deal to me.

It's surprising that Yahoo! finds themselves in this place. They made the right move to get into search with the Overture deal and are the only other viable competitor in search right now. Microsoft may get there, but they aren't yet. But Yahoo!'s user and page growth is slowing and their monetization efforts are slowing too. And the market doesn't like slowing.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:55 AM
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Sour Grapes: Time To SueTube?

Surprise: Time Warner is rattling copyright sabers (BoingBoing) over Google's acquisition of YouTube. Let's pull back and take a look at this, shall we? Time Warner not only owns a shitload of content that is now playing on YouTube, it also owns AOL, and with it the self-inflicted wounds which came from buying AOL, or rather, buying into the idea of AOL back when it had its mid-life crisis of confidence about its own ability to execute in that wooly digital world, that late 90s coke binge where it seemed everyone in California was poised to kick Time Warner's collective ass. Thank God, it turned out to be wrong....for a few years, anyway.

But now, the problem is back, and it's much more serious, at least, it's serious if you're committed to your old ways of doing business. And for those who are afraid of the future, its name is Google. Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons is in a tought spot - he knows that disparaging dismissals of the upstarts will no longer suffice. But damned if he won't "fire a shot across the bow" in any case.

From the Guardian coverage:

Dick Parsons, the chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, fired a shot across the bows of Google, saying his group would pursue its copyright complaints against the video sharing site YouTube.com.

Be careful, Dick, for a shot across the bow may bring a broadside from the other side. And the gorgeous fact of it is this: The other side isn't Google. It's everyone who uses Google (and now, YouTube.) Huh. Worth a pause, a drink, and a think.

Update: Apparently more companies are rattling sabers. From the Journal:

...lawyers for the group of media companies, which includes News Corp., General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and Viacom Inc., have concluded that YouTube could be liable to copyright penalties of $150,000 per unauthorized video, people familiar the matter say. Viacom believes that pirated versions of video clips from its cable channels -- including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon -- are watched 80,000 times a day via YouTube. At that rate, potential penalties could run into the billions of dollars.

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:23 PM
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Searchmob Roundup

Yahoo! Launches Internet Time Capsule

Is Amazon Throwing in the Towel on A9?

Shopping Feed Standards

Centric Software Unveils New Product Intelligence

GenieKnows.com Launches Vertical Search

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 11:45 AM
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"Google is the dominating chip stack"

That's a quote in this rather bleak piece on Yahoo in today's Times. The context? Google owns the table in the poker game that is online media. How about this excerpt from Saul's piece:

“Yahoo has lost the favor it enjoyed a year or two ago,” said David Cohen, a senior vice president of Universal McCann, a media buying agency of the Interpublic Group. He said his clients were reducing the share of their budgets they allocate to Yahoo in favor of newer sites, like MySpace, and sites developed by big media companies like Viacom.

“There are more players in town, and the others are closing the gap relative to the things Yahoo is good at,” Mr. Cohen said.

But the problems at Yahoo go beyond advertising. From video programming to social networking — areas of interest to users and advertisers alike — the company is losing its initiative. And each time a product fails in the market or is late, Yahoo loses some ability to do more deals and hire more talented employees. The shares are down 38 percent this year, sending some employees out the door in search of better shots at stock market wealth.

Google, in the meantime, is taking advantage of Yahoo’s problems to cement crucial deals that could make its rival’s recovery even more difficult.

Ouch. More when I can say more. But I have to say this: Fortunes rise, and fortunes fall. Yahoo's been here before. Google? Not so much. I've seen go go go - Apple in the mid 80s, Microsoft in the early 90s, Netscape in the mid 90s....and Google is on an extraordinary run - go go go for going on four years now. But that's hardly a dynasty...yet.

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:17 PM
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It's Not Friday But...

Does anyone find this ad (it's everywhere, for a mortgage broker) mesmerizing? It's a popunder, and I hate popunders. But there something in the way this couple moves....

That reminds me. I think all ads on the web should have permalinks so we can refer to them historically. Why not?!

Update: Jonathan at FM has found a site that has some of these ads!

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:47 AM
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Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Man. Google is such a cool name. This is such a lame one:

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word-processing and spreadsheet product that makes it easier for people to create, manage, and share documents and spreadsheets online. Google Docs & Spreadsheets integrates Writely and Google Spreadsheets into a single, easy-to-use product that takes an innovative approach to a very specific problem in the productivity-software space: enabling people to manage and collaborate on the documents and spreadsheets they rely on in their personal and professional lives, no matter where they are or when they need to access them.

With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google is taking a set of important tasks and offering an online solution to completing them individually or with a broader group. With a Google Account, a compatible web browser, and an Internet connection, users will now easily be able to:

-- Create documents and spreadsheets, and then manage and access them in a single, secure location
-- Easily collaborate with others, online and in real time
-- Export to and import from a wide variety of file formats
-- Share them with others as view-only
-- Publish them to a blog or as an HTML page

Simply put, Google Docs & Spreadsheets is focused on providing users with an innovative and efficient way to create and share information on the Web.

But not a lame idea, certainly. I can't wait for my visit to Microsoft later this month!

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:23 AM
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The Google - YouTube Deal- coverage roundup

While CNet heralds a triumph for social computing (and asks marketers to face the music and get comfortable with UGC videos), CNN Money augurs "the beginning of the end?"

Dalka points to a few good, unanswered questions on the deal: Will the unprecedented operational independence Google's giving YouTube provide enough distance to partially protect the buyer from copyright infringement lawsuits? And, will the users (now at over 20 million) stay if Google has to clean house?

Forever Geek discovers the zen in the new alliance: an alignment of cultures willing to fight against the copyright overlords, a similar knack for accumulating prized industry data, and the brand name.

A VC highlights, from an earlier post, how this startup landed the biggest acquisition offer Google has ever made--and in transit "kicked Google's ass (and everyone else's too)."

TechCrunch posted the original scoop on the rumor-- ahead of most major media outlets, including the NYT, as the blogosphere was quick to note.

Mark Cuban plays a singular devil's advocate in the dissent, on a count of the landslide of copyright violation suits to come. And in that prediction, of course, he's no lone cassandra. Copyright suit magnet? asks the Journal.

Business Week discusses YouTube's maneuvers to fend against suits, including a new 'copyright fingerprint' tag it will implement to allow owners of copyrighted materials to take part in the viral-sharing decision and subsequent ad revenue.

On the other side of the fence... Robert Scoble asks, what if was Microsoft that bought YouTube? In all fairness, Yahoo News runs an AP article entitled "Google eclipses rivals with YouTube." (now that is editorial restraint.)

The YouTube co-founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, have their celebratory clip joking, "The king of search and the king of video have gotten together--- we're going to have it our way."

But it's fair to say a YouTube user has created a more professional clip: a droll vid on what users can expect from the Google-YouTube honeymoon.

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 08:54 PM
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A Brief Interview with EFF's Fred von Lohmann on YouTube, Copyright, Google, and More

My first go to guy on all things DMCA, copyright, and digital law and policy is the EFF's Fred von Lohmann. I started an email interview with him prior to the GooTube deal, and it only seems more salient now. Read on for Fred's insights:

Is YouTube on safe legal ground, given all the recent press and buzz around copyright?

Well, virtually no one in the Internet industry is on "safe" legal ground. As any copyright lawyer will tell you, the legal standards governing all Internet businesses are still more uncertain than we'd like. Just witness all the litigation that companies like Google and eBay are involved with.

Of course, when most people think about potential legal liability for YouTube, they are thinking about potential copyright risks. And although nothing in the Internet legal realm is entirely certain, YouTube looks to be on relatively firm legal ground. Unlike some more aggressive companies (like the old Napster), YouTube has the benefit of a set of special "safe harbors" created for online service providers as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If your activities fall within the safe harbors, as defined in Section 512 of the Copyright Act, you can't be liable for money damages for copyright infringement based on those activities. There is a different safe harbor for each of the following activities: providing network access (e.g., your ISP), caching, storing material on behalf of uses (e.g., web hosting), and providing information location tools (e.g., search engines and linking).

One of those DMCA safe harbors was designed to protect providers of hosting services. When it was passed, Congress had big web hosting services in mind, but the rules work just as well for video hosting services (like YouTube), blog hosting (like Blogger), and music lockering (like MP3Tunes). There are a number of requirements that a hosting provider must meet, but the most important one is the implementation of a "notice-and-takedown" policy. YouTube has such a policy in place, allowing copyright owners to notify it of infringing videos and taking them down promptly upon receiving such a notice. Other requirements include implementing a policy of terminating "repeat infringers," which YouTube also has, and registering a "copyright agent" with the Copyright Office, which YouTube has done.

The outer boundaries of the DMCA safe harbors are still being hammered out in court (porn vendor Perfect 10 has been leading the charge on behalf of copyright owners on this legal front). And it's not just YouTube that is interested in these legal fights -- because any legal precedents undermining the safe harbor would put Google, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, eBay and others at risk--the biggest Internet players have a stake in the outcome.

But so far, so good for YouTube. It looks like YouTube is working hard to keep its boat in sheltered copyright waters.

Given what you just told me, why, do you think, the major media companies - potential acquirers of YouTube - are still wary of the company, as reported in many quarters (I reported as much on my blog)? Is it simply: "I don't want to be the test case for the DMCA?"

YouTube, like so many Internet pioneers before it, is in the disruptive innovation business, and thus sure to upset many incumbent players. So, despite the fact that YouTube is on reasonably firm legal footing, many media company suitors are probably going to be cautious here. They'll be wringing their hands, worried that maybe YouTube has gone "too far," will end up the legal "javelin catcher" out front, and the market will belong to a second-comer (see, e.g., ReplayTV and TiVo). And many incumbent media players are not eager to alienate their comrades (sometimes known as "competitors," but more frequently known as "deal partners" ) over some new upstart with an uncertain future. Remember what happened to Bertelsman when it invested in Napster?

In this regard, YouTube is nothing new -- disruptive innovators are never popular with the popular kids. Just think back on Sony in the days of the Betamax, or Diamond with its category-creating Rio MP3 player. Or, for that matter, Google today, attacked from all sides for disrupting comfy old markets (books, advertising, etc).

Let's talk about some of that disruption. Where do you come down on the Google books issue?

I'm a big supporter of Google's Library Project -- I predict its legacy will outlive that of Google's search products. I haven't bothered writing out my views because they have already been more eloquently put by others.

On the general topic, I couldn't have put it better than Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu:
http://www.slate.com/id/2128094/

On the copyright law details, Jonathan Band has done a better job than I could:
http://www.policybandwidth.com/doc/googleprint.pdf

And finally, on the importance of this effort to culture, I have nothing to add to the eloquent remarks of the President of the University of Michigan:
http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/downloads/coleman.pdf

Now that we know who bought YouTube… do you think Google is going to get sued in any case?

YouTube has already been sued (by LA New Service), so Google is essentially buying that lawsuit. But I don't think that's a problem -- frankly, precedent set against YouTube will likely exert strong influence over the entire video hosting industry. So, in essence, Google is just getting more direct control over a lawsuit that is important for its existing and future business. And when it comes to lawsuits, Google has top-drawer talent (both in-house and in outside law firms), strategic vision, and a stellar track record. Google's executives (like AOL's and Yahoo's before them) understand that shaping the legal precedents is a critical part of their business.

And it's important to consider who are the people suing YouTube. I've thought for some time that the first lawsuits against YouTube (and other video hosting services) will be from small copyright owners (like LA News Service), not from major media companies. That's good news for YouTube (and Google). Small timers tend to lack the resources to bring top-drawer legal talent to bear in these fights. As a result, they often lose, creating useful precedents for the Google's of the world. In fact, Google has already been successful in securing good precedents against unsophisticated opponents who thought that they could squeeze a quick settlement out of Google (Field v. Google, Parker v. Google). What the small-timers don't appreciate is that Google would much rather spend money on setting a good precedent than on settling.

So I think the YouTube acquisition may well represent a legal opportunity for Google (and the Internet industry generally), rather than a vulnerability. After all, litigation to define the copyright rules for new online services is inevitable -- better to choose your battles and plan for them, rather than fleeing the fight and letting some other company create bad precedents that will haunt you later.

Thanks Fred!!!

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:35 PM
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Nexidia: Cool Video Search Stuff

Gary gives us a pause from YT madness....from his coverage:

Nexidia is a multimedia search company out of Georgia that creates a searchable corpus (words and phrases) but does it unlike other products that provide transcript (every word spoken) search.

Nexidia takes words and phrases and breaks them down into phonetic sounds (phonemes) and then indexes them. ....
About 40 phonemes exist in every language with about 400 in all spoken languages. ...To this point, it’s been difficult to demo Nexidia technology since there haven’t been any public demo sites. Most of their business is with private companies (recording call center chats, for example) and the government.

However, as of today, we have a publicly accessible demo to take a look at with Nexidia. It comes from Channel 11 (WXIA) in Atlanta and allows you to keyword search all of their news programming (no sports) plus some exclusive web footage. Look for the search box in the middle of the page. Of course, don’t forget that this is a beta release.

• Posted by John Battelle at 06:37 PM
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Two Kings: YouTube's Chad and Steve Talk On YouTube

• Posted by John Battelle at 06:22 PM
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Hyping The Hype Machine (And No, It's Not YouTube)

My pal John Heilemann has penned a B2 piece this week on the Hype Machine, which I have to admit I had heard of but not checked out. It's a very cool music site, a sort of structured search hack which takes as its inputs discussions and songs on popular music blogs, and gives as its outputs songs that are buzzworthy. There's a there there, and I'll give ten to one the fellow behind it (Anthony Volodkin, at left) is fielding job offers a la delicious right about now....

• Posted by John Battelle at 01:30 PM
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First Blush on GooTube - Conference Call

The markets like it - GOOG is up $8.50.

I'm listening to the conference call. Chad Hurley is talking about the integration of Google search into YouTube and also is talking about how YT is focused on helping media companies to monetize their content.

Why YouTube when you had Google VIdeo? Eric said Google Video was doing well, but YouTube was a clear winner in the social networking side of video...

Why stock, not cash? David Drummond of Google: So as to make it tax free for the shareholders.

How large are YouTube's costs? No comment save Eric: "they have been thrifty."

Monetizing YouTube: In the near term and mid term what is it coming from, search or video? Eric: We don't give guidance. We've come up with 20-30 places where Google tech can help. Most people believe this is just the beginning of the Internet video revolution.

What did you use to value this acquisition? We typically don't go into that. David: We modeled it this on a "synergistic model".

What role did copyright play in this acquisition and what steps are you taking there? YT: From the beginning we've always respected rights holders' rights. We now have the resources (at YT) to continue that. David: The YT vision and commitment to enforcing copyrights - relying on the safe harbor of the DMCA - is similar to ours.

What integration might be expected in the short term? Sergey: we care very much about search - we want to include YT's videos in that - and also we will work on the advertising solutions. There is a great deal more experimentation and trials to be done. Google Video doesn't go away ever (Eric).

Datamining: Sergey: We have no intention to do that.

Will you keep the brand separate: Eric: Yes. It has great value.

This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet. ...it's a natural next step. (End of call)

I am mixed on this. I think it's wise to frame this as "the companies will stay separate" kind of acquisition, even if in the end that's not the intent. But this marks Google's first significant "out of brand" acquisition, the company's first true brand-management challenge. I'm not counting Blogger in here because, well, it wasn't this big. More to come...

• Posted by John Battelle at 02:08 PM
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Searchmob Roundup

Done Deal - Google Buys YouTube

Walmart.com to Launch Digital Movie Downloads

Megalite Launches New Version

Subservient Chicken--Coming to an XBox Near You

Chris Seline's Searchles: Social Search Beyond the Limits of Collective Wisdom

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 02:05 PM
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And It's Done - Google YouTube

The Journal reports:

Google Inc. agreed to buy closely-held YouTube Inc. in an all-stock deal worth about $1.65 billion, a transaction that will unite the popular video-sharing site with Google's online advertising system.

Under the terms of the deal, which was expected, YouTube will at least initially retain a significant measure of independence, keeping its brand and offices. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, Calif., and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. The companies said they expect to close the transaction in the fourth quarter.

More when....etc.

• Posted by John Battelle at 01:42 PM
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Google Continues Distribution Play: Music Videos

From Reuters:

Internet search leader Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Monday said it signed distribution deals with Sony BMG and Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to offer music videos.

Deals with two of the top global music labels follow on the heels of similar deals Universal Music Group signed with top online video service YouTube on Monday.

Meanwhile, we all await the landing, or fizzzling, of hurricane GooTube.

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:20 AM
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Another Reason YouTube Is Like Google....

It has to deal with making judgements about what is right and wrong. See this piece from the Times:

YouTube users can flag any video as containing pornography, mature content or graphic violence, depicting illegal acts or being racially or ethnically offensive. A video is removed — as Ms. Malkin’s was on Sept. 28 — only if a review by the company’s customer support department agrees that it is inappropriate, or that the video is on its face in violation of the site’s terms of use.

But the incident raised some questions about the fine line YouTube’s administrators walk when they decide to respond to users’ complaints about contributions to the site — a mechanism that is fraught with the potential for vindictive shenanigans.

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:54 PM
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Too Much Money, Not Enough (Good) Companies

So says Sevin Rosen, which VentureBeat discovers will return the money it raised to investors. Is this a sign? From the story:

...in a letter sent to its investors Friday, a copy of which was obtained by VentureBeat, the firm made a surprising about-face. It told the investors it had decided there is “too much money,” “too many deals funded in almost every conceivable space,” and a “terribly weak exit environment.” Moreover, it sees no changes in the foreseeable future.

The story was broken by the Times (covered here by Stowe) and used as a peg to wonder aloud: is VC model working anymore?

• Posted by John Battelle at 04:47 PM
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The GooTube Rumours Get Another Round

This Google YouTube story is a true marvel of unsubstantiation. While the Journal said last week it had one (off the record) source, and TechCrunch gave it about a 40% chance based on its own anonymous sourcing, the UK papers, apparently trying to get ahead of a possible announcement Monday, are truly outdoing themselves.

The Times UK sources it thusly: "Google is expected early this week to announce a $1.6 billion (£850m) deal to acquire YouTube." In other words, there is no source.

Sky News posts it this way: "Online search engine giant Google is expected to agree a £850m deal to buy video sharing website YouTube." Yup, no source either. Oh wait, save for this gem: "The Sunday Times has suggested the site's owners would welcome financial help to support the cost of hosting the ever-growing number of clips - reported to be £800,000 each month."

While this may well happen, I have to ask, since when have stories with passive sourcing - ie, "is expected to" - passed for journalism?

• Posted by John Battelle at 04:39 PM
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Is Google Axing Click to Call? Nope, But Whoever Runs Blog Security Might Have His Head On The Block...

Google seemed to be cancelling its click to call program, given an oddly worded blog post that appeared earlier today. The post has been removed, but as TechCrunch notes, it seems the Google Blog was hacked....

• Posted by John Battelle at 04:28 PM
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Reader Greg Says...

• Posted by John Battelle at 08:46 PM
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What If The Government Regulated Data Collection Practices?

TechDirt points to a piece at The Technology Liberation Front about legislation considered in my home state of California:

...the California Initiative For Internet Privacy (CIFIP) is turning up the heat on Google and other search engine provides with threats of legislative campaigns or a push for a ballot initiative regulating data collection.

When it comes to the contentious issue of data retention, search companies are basically damned if they do and damned if they don't. That is, if they DO collect / retain search terms and records, the privacy zealots go crazy and run to Rep. Ed Markey (or, in this case, California legislators) and ask for new laws strictly limiting what can be collected / retained.

On the other hand, if they DO NOT collect / retain any of this info, then the "law and order" / "we must protect the children" crowd in Congress and state AG offices start breathing fire down their necks and demand *mandatory* data preservation / retention, potentially for lengthy periods of time (and for quite a bit of information).

• Posted by John Battelle at 06:40 PM
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Forbes Rounds Up Zeitgeist, YouTube Implications

Google holds a semi annual confab for its partners called Zeitgeist. The press is not invited, but a lof of folks I know end up going. The consensus from them is that the event has turned into a pretty traditional "make your clients happy" event. In other words, Google's acting like every other company in the world that sells advertising for a living.

Forbes rounds it up here. From it:

Schmidt said that more than 1,000 people will ultimately work on Google’s efforts in radio advertising, which will someday sell radio ads over a modified version of its current Adwords placement service. “We’re trying to get a simplified Adwords interface where the advertiser gets multiple channels,” Schmidt said. The idea: Let a marketer allocate an ad budget across multiple platforms, either in an automated manner or by targeting times and regions.

The initiative to put ads in newspapers, ongoing since January, now has almost 100 newspapers, Schmidt said. Television advertising, he added, is still a long way off, but is planned.

And note this kicker to the piece:

One area Google won’t be moving into, the three said, is actual content creation. That's a refrain the company has to constantly repeat in the face of concern by publishers and other media types who worry about the company's ambitions. “We see ourselves as the best way to get to content,” said Schmidt.

“…and monetize it,” Page added.

This is why I think Google and YouTube make sense: no one else can position themselves in this way to Big Media. Other Big Media companies will sue the shit out of whoever buys YouTube. But Google has one hell of a legal team, and it's entire business is based on the DMCA safe harbor. "We're not here to compete with you guys for content creation," Google says, "we're here to partner with you!"

• Posted by John Battelle at 06:28 PM
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Who's Saving The Web?

Gary has a list of sites that are archiving the web. Cool...

• Posted by John Battelle at 04:11 PM
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Brin: Stop the Madness!

Nice piece by LA Times' Chris Gaither on Brin's latest call to engineeers at the 'plex: Stop throwing so much pasta against the wall, I can't take it!

This may come from Sergey's inability to spend any more time in the Japanese shaking chair (see link for why).

From the piece:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In another sign of Google Inc.'s growth from start-up to corporate behemoth, the company's top executives said Thursday that they had begun telling engineers to stop launching so many new services and instead focus on making existing ones work together better.

The shift is a major departure from Google's previous strategy of launching new services rapid-fire and highlights the 8-year-old company's struggle to stay focused during swift growth.

Co-founder Sergey Brin is leading a companywide initiative called "Features, not products." He said the campaign started this summer when Google executives realized that myriad product releases were confusing their users.

"It's worse than that," said Brin, Google's president of technology. "It's that I was getting lost in the sheer volume of the products that we were releasing."

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:09 PM
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Google YouTube

Remember back in July when I said that the most logical candidate for acquiring YouTube was Google? Now the Journal agrees, or at least, has one source validating a rumor from TechCrunch....

Google Inc. is in talks to acquire online video site YouTube Inc. for roughly $1.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions are still at a sensitive stage and could well break off, this person says.

A spokeswoman for closely held YouTube could not be reached for comment. A Google spokesman said, "We don't comment on rumors and speculation." Rumors of such talks were reported earlier on the TechCrunch blog.

• Posted by John Battelle at 09:25 AM
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Predictions....

Remember my predictions for 2006? Well, this one is getting close to number 1....

From IWantMedia:

Nickelodeon Lets Youngsters Make Own Cartoons

Viacom's Nickelodeon is making available on its Web site technology that allows young fans to make cartoon mashups of different scenes from favorites like "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "Avatar." Fans can post their creations on their own Web sites and e-mail them to friends.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061004/tv_personal_cartoons.html

• Posted by John Battelle at 08:08 PM
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SearchMob Roundup

Google Video is no match for YouTube

Become.com’s Search and Shopping Solution Beats Google

Eventful and Microsoft Launch New Event Search Plugin for Windows Live Writer Blogging Software

Yahoo! Creeps Into Bed With Current TV

GOOGLE Debuts * Public Source Code * Search Engine

• Posted by John Battelle at 07:59 PM
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Friedman, Oil, Google, Dow Jones....

So I had an hour just now, an HOUR!!!, to do whatever I wanted to. And what did I do? I read my feeds. In one sitting. How nice it was. And here's the highlights:

Haaaaaaaaahahahahaahaha....(via Danny)

Fred rants at the Times for putting important voices like Friedman behind the paywall. I agree.

Barrons and many others cover charges being filed against the HP folks.

Google does new AJAX search API, Gadgets, updated Groups, and a ton of other stuff (another post is coming on that...)

SearchMash - a "secret" place for Google to try new things.

Yesterday the Dow Jones hit a historical high. As I said to my wife - time to start squirreling money away, and perhaps we should consider moving money from those mutual funds to cash.

By the way, and totally random, but can anyone explain why oil prices have dropped so dramatically lately? I mean, really, besides just saying "Karl Rove made it happen"?

The winners of Yahoo Hack Day are here....

Paul likes stealth market research on Google, read more here....

I can't keep up. Google Movies?!

1500 Diggs and still counting, and I wonder why...

Bebo on the rise in the UK...

It's Ask sponsored listings news!

• Posted by John Battelle at 05:26 PM
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Searchmob Roundup

Life After Microsoft: Robert Scoble

vFlyer Distributes and Extends Classified Ads

Retailers Play Dirty With Local Search

PrefPass: Helping Surfers Sidestep Site Registration

Can Google Even Get Search Right?

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 05:11 PM
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Qihoo

Yahoo! China (operated by Alibaba.com) filed a lawsuit against Sanjiwuxian, the owner of a Chinese search engine called Qihoo, on the grounds of unfair competition. According to the allegations, Qihoo's 320safe software was alerting users that Yahoo's toolbar was malware and prompting deintallation, simultaneously taking a cut at Yahoo toolbar's market share in China, which is considerable, and slandering the company's brand image.
(Ironically, a search for "Qihoo" in Google produces the spelling correction "Did you mean: Yahoo?".)

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 02:16 PM
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Google Literacy Project

Google launches The Literacy Project, a combination of its products framed to promote literacy and aid educators around the globe-- including Bollywood sing-along film Videos, educational Groups and academic Book Search. The project was unveiled at the world's largest book fair in Frankfurt, Germany today--in cooperation with UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning and Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign (LitCam).

Update: A reader made an interesting suggestion that this was dandy, but wouldn't it be better if Google allowed users to create their own custom pages per theme? I've asked Google and will post the reply here. But also note, some additional editorial choices, in coordination with UNESCO and LitCam, were weaved into the fabric of this project page--it looks like--beyond the work of algorithms certainly, but also with tools requiring discretion above what a typical user might be allowed.

Update Cont'd: Google replied that they are interested in expanding user control in this area, and would be back with more updates along this line. On the LitProject, they facilitated making more materials on literacy available and searchable online-- videos, in particular.

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 12:54 PM
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I Knew I Was Reading My Stuff Too Much

Eric Schmidt on blogs while speaking in England: "The average blog has one reader: the blogger". Damn, I'm caught out.

Update: Interesting response to Eric's talk here from Micah Sifry - Eric was giving a speech to the annual meeting of the conservative party in Britain, Micah covers all things digital democracy...

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:17 AM
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Comscore/Bear Stearns: Google Gains Again

From a report just issued by Bear:

Following the international market share loss in July, 2006 where Google lost 230bps of international search market share, Google's position rebounded nicely in August, 2006 by regaining 140bps to reach a 70.7% of market share according to comScore's release yesterday. The results were consistent with the results on the domestic platform reported earlier. We note that this follows a similar pattern in the corresponding months of 2005 where Google lost share in July 05 but regained share in August 05. We view this as a positive for the company as Google was able to demonstrate its commanding position in the search market, and reaffirms our view that the company should report a solid 3Q.

· Google's share gain came largely at the expense of Yahoo, who lost 180bps in August 2006 after consistent market share gains in the past three months. Yahoo's market share came in at 16.7%. MSN also lost share moderately to 7%, down from 7.2% in July. AOL gained share slightly and came in at 1.7% in August, up from 1.6% in July while Ask stayed flat at 2.2%.

More as I get it...

• Posted by John Battelle at 08:05 AM
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Searchmob Roundup

Wink 2.0 Launches, Social Network

Bessed Search Encourages User Comments, Url Submission in Results

Google's SearchMash.com Testing

Google Base Store Connector

Google Buying Banner Ads for Checkout

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 05:30 PM
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Adios, A9, and Let's Hope Alexa Doesn't Follow

Many have noted the apparent passing (at least in all but domain) of A9, a search site from Amazon that got me and a lot of others very excited when it debuted two years ago with then innovative features like roll your own search and search history. I recall the gleam in Udi Manber's eyes as he told me about it, and I believed him when he said he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted in search from Bezos and Amazon. But Manber is at Google now, and A9, apparently, is nearly dead. Too bad.

• Posted by John Battelle at 03:05 PM
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The Information Factories

This month's Wired has a long piece (not up, but will be soon) by George Gilder on the "information factories," the massive server farms that Google, Microsoft and others are building up in Oregon and in other places about the globe. I read it (and the rest of the magazine) on a trip to NY over the weekend, and found the piece singularly frustrating.

Gilder has always been a shiny eyed fetishist of the first order, and he keeps the breathless pace up with this piece, which does a good job of laying out they why of the plants (cheap power, "peta" processing efficiency, etc.), but fails utterly to even engage in the consequences of having the world's data stored in top secret high security locations owned by private companies with little if any transparency about how that data might be used. What about the social impact? Privacy, reconstruction of relationship of self to society, policy, data rights, etc.? Irrelevant in this blinkered paen to boundless techno utopianism. Even as I love blinkered paen to boundless techno utopianism, I'd expect more from Wired on an issue of this significance.

• Posted by John Battelle at 09:41 AM
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Searchmob Roundup

Gap Shoes to Launch Online

Google Reader-- Update in Labs

Ask Launches Storm Trackers and Enhances Weather Maps

Clusty Relaunches with Redesign and Cloud Creator

Investing in Keyword Research Tools

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 05:44 PM
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Conversational Ads

Cisco is trying something new in an ad campaign - they came up with a Wikia (the commercial version of Wikipedia) definition of "The Human Network", the catchline to their current campaign, and asked a bunch of authors to pen their own definitions. They also purchased advertising on those authors' sites. This was done in collaboration with FM, and I think it's a neat spin on what folks like Snap and Symantec have done. I contributed my own definition here. Obscure Jesuit priests? Yep, I did edit that piece in Wired so long ago....

(and thanks to Louis Rossetto for the inspiration!)

• Posted by John Battelle at 02:25 PM
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Investing in the First Google Lab

Google Inc. invests in a company landmark, the 18-by-12 foot garage in which Sergey Brin and Larry Page first developed the Google search engine. Google won't disclose the buying price for the house that incubated its corporation, now worth about $125 billion, but the AP reports that neighboring homes sell in the $1.1 to 1.3 million range.

• Posted by Melanie Colburn at 03:34 PM
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