A different spin (by citizen.anon)

Citizen.anon posted his opinion on the Net Neutrality issue (which got stirred up yesterday) on the NYT Bits section...

IT ROCKS...


Here is a different spin.

Imagine you’re a housing developer.

You buy a few thousand acres of land and build a few thousand houses, condos, and apartments. While you’re at it you connect all units together with super high bandwidth fiber-optic lines. And, then you offer an incentive to all web developers, software engineers, educational content authors, scientists, and a boat load of media consumers to move into your high-tech neighborhood and develop software, services, and content to deliver and interact with over your network.

Sweet! You’re network and services exceed EVERYTHING outside of that network, bandwidth and content alike. Now, you decide to start selling that content to people outside of your development. The only way to do this is to tie into someone else’s network… oooo, say AT&T. They’ve got their own little neighborhood, and well, it is kinda sucking compared to yours, but o well, they’ve got millions of suckers paying out the wazoo for inferior service… sorry I digress…

so AT&T and you come to an agreement, if YOU pay AT&T your people can deliver data over their lines… at the same time AT&T’s people are already paying THEM for those very same lines. hmmmm… and YOU are depending on AT&T to upgrade their lines to make it so their customers can become your customers to.

Except, AT&T looks at how much money you are making with your excellent services and say… hey, we can NEVER make that with JUST an infrastructure… you need to pay us a percentage based on types of data. Sounds like a great deal right. No… not really. So, why not just tell AT&T to go >>>> themselves and run a line, or wireless connection straight to your new customers.

citizen.anon

Only fools rush in

Most of you probably have read by now (its already 2 days old) the wsj article about Google not playing fair on the Net Neutrality front... The article was quickly put to shame by many respectable sources...

Larry Lessig: The made-up dramas of the Wall Street Journal
Save the Internet: Net Neutrality in the Front Seat
Public Knowledge
David Isenberg: Bogus WSJ Story on Net Neutrality
Wired: WSJ WTF?

..as well as Google’s Washington telecom counsel, Richard Whitt.


You know that this blog usually comments on certain people's attitude towards Google. One of them, a sworn Google-hater, is Henry Blodget who of course was the first to rush-in and launch an all-out attack on Google based on the wsj rantings...

The story usually goes like this: Henry writes a "Google-is-the-devil" post, and then I trash him... But sometimes, his own readers do my part of the story... just like today:


Jeff P said:

Henry, You obviously don't know the first thing about routers or routing protocols. Using your "definition" a company that purchases more bandwidth would not be adhering to net neutrality. Which is bunk. Without a hint of irony you call other people's ideas kneejerk when that is precisely what your entire article is. Please just admit it and don't post silly updates trying to defend your position as a matter of definitions. -Jeff
slobeck said:

This article isn't journalism. At best it's misinformed. But I suspect that this article and others like it are the result of carefully orchestrated leaks by the large ISP's designed to sway public opinion against net neutrality for the coming fight...

...The good news here is that Henry Blodget is getting PWNED on the Huffington Post. I'd do a little research on the reality of net neutrality before going off half cocked with an ignorant rant on neutrality. I'd be somewhat embarrassed if I were him.

ENOUGH SAID...
HENRY, FOR ONCE MORE..
YOU GOT

The ghost of Christmas

The Ghost of Netscape Past Is Google

A story by Joe Wilcox
of Microsoft-watch


(definitely NOT baloney...)

What's that smell?

Just as another day rolled by and no significant piece of anti-google-baloney was caught on my radars, Owen Thomas managed to outperform himself in writing garbage about Google, again...

Thomas wrote a post titled "Google's austerity campaign" (and I'm certainly NOT linking...) trying desperately to convince his readers that Google prety much sucks as an employer... All this started when The Wall Street Journal took a look at Google's attempt for cost cuts.



Its a long, boring post and some of his main points seem to be:

• ...Google is curtailing service at its cafeterias, reducing hours and restricting guests..

Wow! So, during the worst financial crisis of the past 80 years, "curtailing service at cafeterias" is... an employee's nightmare... RIGHT... and I thought MY working conditions were hellish...

• Google's employees no longer have free rein to pursue their own ideas. Google's engineers can spend 20 percent of time on side projects. That freedom remains, in theory, but the progress a lone engineer can make on a new website without hardware and additional personnel is limited...

So, your usual everyday-type-of-phd-engineer will NOT be content (again, during the shit the world is currently into...) with working on one of the planet's most technologically advanced company. This "lone" engineer (...) will experience hell-on-earth, because of "limited additional personnel"...

• Why should Google's founders care, really? They seem increasingly detached from Google's core business, preferring to spend time on rockets and electric sports cars rather than optimizing AdWords...

Spot-on on this one Owen... Its EXACTLY their CONTINUOUS FOCUS that's reflected on the AdWords success story, and that's why eggheads lose money when they put their money where their mouths are...

• They increasingly deal with a small core of early Google employees...

Realy? They DON'T talk to all 20.000 - 30.000 of them? Sounds like hell for these poor souls... (were you neglected as a child man?)

• The people hit hardest by this will be Google's flacks — and the servile journalists who so eagerly celebrated Google's lava-lamp culture. What stories will they tell now? How Google is cutting corners on the organic foie-gras hamburgers in its cafes?

No Owen... Google is cutting corners on foi-gras hamburgers ONLY for moochers like yourself... That is, freeloaders with no actual work there...


Finally, the post ends with a line that is just bread & butter for this blog..

• The billions gushing in from Google's search monopoly don't make for a good story....

Yeap... Pageviews are pageviews, billions are billions and Clowns write what they are told!

(and I bet it won't be long before this clown meets his new boss...)

Miguel's Food for Thought

While reading user comments on an article in The New York Times (Technology section) titled More on the ‘Is Google Evil?’ Debate, I stumbled upon the following post. It is written by a guy called Miguel, who claims to be an ex-employee of the company. It was the best (in my humble opinion) post out of 50...

As a former Google employee I believe that Google has the best interests of its users in mind. The “Don’t be evil” dictum is hackneyed by now and inherently leaves a lot to interpretation, as people will naturally define “evil” differently.

Google does care intensely about user privacy, and they seek to protect user information at every step of the product development cycle. The piece above does not cite, in my opinion, any compelling arguments that suggest otherwise. As for capitulating to the great firewall of China, I believe that some search results – and by some we’re talking about the *vast* majority of Google’s index – are better than none at all. Chinese users still reap massive benefits by having access to Google.

“Flooding your eyeballs” with ads is not Google’s main preoccupation. But advertising is the means by which they support their application development and ambitious goal of organizing the world’s information – just as it is for the majority of online publishers, portals, and social networks.

Paid subscription models for accessing news sites, for example, disappeared as content providers realized the value in offering their content for free and supporting it financially through advertising.

What Google excels at is making sure the advertising we are exposed to is relevant, useful, and valuable, ultimately improving user experience. (If I have to see ads, at least let them be of interest to me.) On the advertisers’ side, they reap the benefits of being able to see exactly what they’re getting out of their advertising budgets – something previously not possible until cost-per-click models like Google’s.

The result is that everyone benefits: content providers (from the hobby blogger to the New York Times), users (searching for everything from dentists to dining room tables), and advertisers (from small online retailers to Fortune 500 corporations).

Finally, the examples of corporate greed and exuberance outlined at the debate referenced in this article come off as petty jealousy. It was a wonderful thing not having to think about how I’d feed myself for four years. Indeed it’s what I miss the most. These seemingly extravagant benefits originated from a couple of gifted geeks who thought it would be cool to provide the people working hard for them with amazing benefits – nothing more. You’re not chained to your desk at Google. They’re lax about when you come and go because they hire people who are inherently self-motivated and there is a tremendous amount of trust afforded to employees.

Google’s ultimate focus is to create killer apps, as they’re called in industry speak, i.e., incredibly powerful and useful web driven applications that provide tremendous value to users. They just happened to stumble across arguably the most successful business model in a century. And now it seems they’re paying the price with ignorant, hasty, and envious judgments from the very users who can’t imagine a world without Google search.

— Miguel

If you can't beat them... WISH

Henry Blodget is a sad, sad man...

From time to time I have tried to show you how much he hates Google. His posts are always dripping with poison about this great company...

His motives are not very difficult to figure out: money... thats all, nothing cryptic there....

He has tried and tried and tried, but each time he posts about Google, the world just laughs at him...

At his latest post, Henry has now resorted to... wishing Googles founders as well as Eric Schmidt, would just... get bored and leave Google!


..having grown Google to $20 billion in revenue over seven years, Eric has certainly earned the right to take a break. We would also note that there are many other reasons why this might be a good time to exit stage left..(AND GIVE YOUR BELOVED YAHOO & M$ A BREATHER??)

• He might be getting bored (OF PROVING YOUR "EXPERT" ANANYLIS WRONG IN EVERY STEP OF THE WAY??)
  
• He might be deciding that taking Google from $20 billion to $50 billion will be a much different job (and less fun) than taking it from $0 to $20 billion. (YEAH, WORKING IN WASHINGTON SOUND LIKE A TON OF FUN...)
  
• He might be observing that the search product cycle is ending and Google has not yet found another product to drive the next wave of growth, which also might be less fun (especially if the company has to start firing people)... (THE GOOGLE SEARCH PRODUCT CYCLE IS JUST BEGINING, IT'S NOT EVEN A DECADE OLD.. AS FOR THE REST... YOU SAID IT YOURSELF...)
  
• Like Sergey and Larry, he might just be interested in doing something else--such as going into politics or solving the world's energy crisis. (I COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT NOVEL IDEAS & BUSINESS SENSE WOULD BE TOO HARD FOR YOU TO GRASP, BUT... THAT HARD??)
  

Life at Google had apparently been so easy for so long that the folks at the top had stopped thinking about how to kill their competitors and started thinking about how to solve the world's energy problems. Anytime that happens, the good times are likely coming to an end. (YEAH, THEY STOPPED THINKING... THAT'S WHY THEIR SEARCH SHARE JUST KEEPS ON GROWING EVERY MONTH...)

All of which is to say: We would not be surprised to see Eric (or, for that matter, Larry or Sergey) step down from an operating role at Google next year to pursue other interests...


Eric Schmidt already gave HIS answer:

Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Friday he would not serve as technology czar in Barack Obama's administration if he was asked.

"I love working at Google and I'm very happy to stay at Google, so the answer is no," Schmidt said in response to a question from CNBC host Jim Cramer in an appearance on his television show.

THERE'S ONLY ONE THING YOU REALY CAN DO HENRY...

A step closer to 80%

Dan Frommer, while commenting on Google's SearchWiki initiative today, wrote:
"Google (GOOG) is adding a feature to its search engine that could help it push closer to 80% market share: The ability to customize your search results"


I now KNOW FOR A FACT that Google has a much much easier job to do to achieve Dan's 80% target:

Henry Blodget, the disgrased stock analyst - banned from the securities industry - has proposed Yahoo's new CEO...

HIMSELF...

• Yahoo will buy our parent company, Silicon Alley Media, for, say, $100 million in stock. We already own some YHOO, and we're willing to put more money where our mouth is: Specifically, we're willing to bet our entire company on our YHOO turnaround plan.


• Yahoo will appoint us as acting CEO....

Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite

Clint Boulton, of Google Watch, wrote a post today, titled "Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome Represent Two-pronged Attack Vs. Microsoft"..

Now, I like Clints' blog, and I do admit that I read all his posts. He knows his google-stuff way better than some other pageview-hunting anti-google crusaders...

(...not that everything Clint writes passes through my anti-google-baloney detector of course...)

In his post today, Clint analyses how the browser-wars have developed lately, with Chrome's recent entry into the market as well as Firefox's 20% gain & I.E.'s declining market share...

I agree in general with most parts of his analysis, however..




"..because it would alienate a lot of hardcore open source lovers who despise Google the way they despised Microsoft when it was a bigger threat. Where the Web is concerned, Google is now the bigger threat..."




..if you truly believe that Google is now "the Web's biggest threat"... then my dear friend Clint... I suspect you got bigger problems at hand...

I See Dumb People

After his sad excuse of a boss ridiculed himself some 20 days ago...
After one of his colleagues raised his clenched fist high in the air and screamed "viva la revolution" just a couple of days ago...
After Googles Q3 results PROVED that WELL-TARGETED online marketing generates REVENUES for smart companies, especially when times get tough...


NICHOLAS THE CRUSADER STILL DOESN'T GET IT... He now quotes a Barclays analyst (wow! an analyst!!) who is running the same old story once more:

Google's fourth quarter revenues won't grow any over the third, says Barclays analyst Douglas Anmuth. His reasoning: Like everywhere else, people are spending less online, so advertisers won't want to spend as much as usual to bring shoppers to their site via Google's search ads.


NICHOLAS! PAY ATTENTION BOY!

a) People have less money = people choose more carefully WHERE they spend that money...
b) Choosing more carefully = doing research...
c) Doing research = searching ONLINE...
d) (do I really need to spell it out for you??)


A monkey should've understood it by now Nicholas.... A rather dumb monkey one would agree..

Clowns write what they're told

For the past couple of months I have come across some full-blown anti-google-baloney, targeted at Eric Schmidt, Googles CEO. Owen Thomas and Paul Boutin, of Valleywag, have been obsessed that Schmidt wanted and would be Americas new Chief Technology Officer under the new Obama administration.

Here are some examples of all this crap:

Thomas:
America's CTO does infomercial for Obama
America's CTO bows to the feds on Yahoo-Google deal

Boutin:
America's CTO gets a fighter jet
Google CEO auditions for America's CTO
America's CTO prepares for Google's layoffs


And then two days ago comes this development, by Reuters (Gabriel Madway): Google CEO on Obama tech czar job: No thanks

Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Friday he would not serve as technology czar in Barack Obama's administration if he was asked.

"I love working at Google and I'm very happy to stay at Google, so the answer is no," Schmidt said in response to a question from CNBC host Jim Cramer in an appearance on his television show.

The ONLY reason clowns like Owen & Paul are obsessed with Google and everything around it, is... PAGEVIEWS! Without these "articles", these self-appointed "journalists" and their likes, would probably be... well, zeros!!

They live on gossip, NOT NEWS...

Viva la Revolution

Dan Frommer just unleashed the hounds of hell upon himself..

He wrote this superb analysis titled: Steve Ballmer Pretends Not To Understand Google Android Pricing Strategy...

Dan writes:

• Google is an advertising company with a massive search market share.
  
• Google wants to help create a big market in mobile advertising someday.
  
• For that to happen, more people need to use the mobile Web.
  
• For that to happen, people need to be able to buy better cellphones with better Web browsers.
• Mobile phone makers and operators want to maximize their margins, while offering the best phones they can.
• Consumers want to buy the best phones they can for the money.
• With Android, Google could get more consumers using the mobile Web faster than Microsoft is with Windows Mobile.

Whats wrong with all the above you ask??

Well, Henry Blodget, his all-I-care-about-is-my-money boss (charged with securities fraud by the SEC and ... banned from the securities industry), would rather jump of a cliff than see ANYTHING positive written on his blog about Google...

One would naturaly assume that:

a) Dan has gone mad...
b) His boss has gone mad...
c) Dan won the lottery and is trying to get Henry to fire him! (we don't wanna hurt Henry, do we now?)


Hang in there Dan... We love you buddy...


(for those of you who do agree with Dan, here's another on-the-spot analysis on Android and its potential, by Om Malik's GigaOM)

The Happy Prisoner

I read Nick Carr's (whose book "The Big Switch" I highly recommend) post "The cost of First Click Free". In it, Nick writes about Googles First Click Free:

"First Click Free allows publishers that restrict access to their sites (to paying or registered customers) to give privileged access to visitors who arrive via a Google search. In essence, if you click on a Google search result you'll see the entire page of content (your first click is free) and you will only come up against the pay wall or registration screen if you try to look at a second page on the site."


Basically, this means that all those pages of content that we cannot access because of subscriptions we don't want to pay for, will now be partly (just a sneak peek) available, thanks to Google...


Nick argues, this is a a subtle form of lock-in:

"At the very least, First Click Free provides another boost to the web's centripetal force, as Google further strengthens the advantage that its dominance of search provides. Google doesn't like to think of itself as locking in users to its search engine, but if you get a privileged view of the web when you go through Google, isn't that, as Lenssen suggests, a subtle form of lock-in?"


What I fail to understand is this: how is this WORSE for me as a user? Stuff I COULD NOT have access to (cause there was no way I would ever pay up for) will now be partly accessible!

Its great for me as a user, as I have more information available...
Its great for the participating publishers, as they might generate more - subscription - sales through it...

...and NO-ONE FORCES me to either use Google or actually read all this new material...


So how is Google "locking me in"? Through a better user experience?

If the answer is "YES", then YEAH, I WANNA BE...

Yo Henry!

Well, Henry Blodget is persistent!!

After:
a) proving to us all why he does NOT work as an analyst anymore...

"In 2003, he was charged with securities fraud by the SEC and instead of fighting the allegations against him, decided to pay millions of dollars without admitting or denying the allegations. As part of the settlement, he was banned from the securities industry."

b) ridiculing himself for screaming all month long how Google was gonna miss its earnings...
c) obviously loosing his socks on "a rather nice trade"..


... the guy is now trying to convince his readers that Googles earnings just confirmed all his pathetic rantings about the company & its stock...

In a post titled "Google Stock Future: Dead Money", he really tries hard to come up with the following problems for Google:

• Decelerating revenue
• Maturing product cycle (search isn't new anymore, and Google has 70%+ global share)
  
• No new products ready to pick up growth slack
• Deteriorating economy

A three year old could put his "arguments" to shame, however Henry got ridiculed by his own readers!!!

Here's three examples:

pumper said:

very disagreed (especially on the dead money argument)

what's to be afraid? at this point, goog will never ever go down below 300, not with the rate at which they rack in cash. so the downside is completely protected.

& look at the positive side for potential mega upside:
1. recessionary environment is bad for grownup businesses but is even worse for startups, which can potentially delay google killer for another couple years due to this. (and make no mistake, search business requires massive amount of IT spendings which makes it even harder to enter)
2. maturing product cycle (or the business model itself) only means even higher FCF margin from here.
3. goog apps racks in almost 500M last 3Qs and it's obviously ready to eat msft's lunch (potential market ~10B). isn't this trend very obvious to everyone already?
4. android will bring in new type of targeted ad gradually accepted by most users. chrome will be new internet platform a few years from now (rest assure this one is strategically important, not just another goog fad that Eric will let go).

so the bottom line: we see a clear bottom at $300ish but numerous potentials for huge upside for years to come... so which way are you placing your bet & what other stocks at current environment can give you even more assurance?

and finally, one big problem w/ "No new products ready to pick up growth slack" argument. we are not talking about aapl/msft/hpq here... internet search is itself a trend (& necessity) not a choice. so in fact, as long as goog keeps staying on top of their own game, they will just grow & racking in piles of cashes for a very very long time --- no newer & flasher products needed to drive growth, which is like what aapl has been struggling to do lately.

Jim Cramer 2.0 said:

Now correct me if i'm wrong. Does dead money mean you money won't grow?
If so, why say that in the title and then at the end say it's a good long term buy.
What's up with that shit bro?
Or am I wrong?

David said:
Strongly disagree.

This is not an analysis of GOOG's results but a totally biased opinion (to which, of course you're entitled) that could be applied to virtually any stock, in any circumstances.

jonathan franklin said:

Totally wrong.
Google is an advertising company that gives away so many free products that few people notice that in 5 years it will be among the world´s biggest advertising company.
"No New Products" says Henry B. That´s only because we cant´s see the future. Besides Google has the cash to buy up great new ideas, i.e. YouTube.
So if they cant create new products, they buy them, remember Google Earth.....who else on earth coudl buy KeyHole sat photos and then give away the service first then build up a secondary biz on apps for Google Earth.


Thanx guys...

Yo Henry, why don't you quit trying to convince us you are an analysts, and try solving:

Booyakacha egghead!

Henry Blodget tries... He really does... He SWEARS he does!


Lately he put everything he's got into trying to convince the "google-free" world that Google was going to miss its estimates...

"The good news: Google has a better chance of surprising on the upside this quarter than last quarter, because expectations are so low. In fact, Wall Street analysts are openly calling for a miss. With Google's stock down to $315, this could lead to a nice short-term trade.

That said, even if the company clears a low bar, any hint that the tanking global economy is starting to bite the company (and how can it not?) will likely keep a lid on the stock over the next few months. Also, Street estimates for 2009 are still too high, in our opinion, and need to come down. It's hard to see how the stock rallies sustainably in the face of that."

Well...

What "could lead to a nice short-term trade"...

...suddenly changed to "Stock popped nicely in aftermarket"

Booyakacha egghead!

Ohh, and on an end note, let me give you another example of why should NEVER listen to this idiot...

"We don't expect a sustained rally in the stock, however until revenue growth stabilizes (i.e., stops decelerating). Anyone's guess when that will be, especially with Google having no new products in the pipeline."


No new products??

Android?
TV ads?
Banner ads (Doubleclick)?
OpenSocial?

Egghead? Still with us??

I PISS on Vista

Its been almost a week since I posted anything, and for that I do apologize... One fine evening, I booted my Vista-running HP, and behold...

"missing or corrupt" blah blah blah..

To cut a (very) long story short:

a) Vista does not work anymore... it apparently killed my hard drive while dying...
b) H.P. is... "unable to help you Sir, but thanx for calling us... (oh, and regarding that 3 year warranty you bought for 250 dollars... WE CAN'T HELP YOU SUCKER!!!!)

So, I am forced to stay away from posting on the everyday anti-google-baloney... At least until I get a working copy of gOS (give me 2-3 days), OR until the new MacBooks arrive here...

Once again, sorry people..

Farewell to a Crusader

This is a difficult day for me...
"winload.exe is missing or corrupt"
WTF? Vista should be BANNED from all computers ASAP...

But, thankfully, gOS came to the rescue, so here I am posting to you guys...

Today's post is... well strange. Over the past 2-3 weeks, which is the time that this blog is alive, I have commented on a number of people for their hatred & negative obsession about everything related to Google. Maybe they truly do hate the big G, or maybe (and I believe this is the case) they 'create' this hate because it just attracts more readers to their posts and articles, thus generating more revenue for them and their greedy bosses...

But while this kind of 'journalism' is fine for as long as everything around you is all roses, it is just not enough when the shit hits the fan...

Today, Nicholas Carlson (and 18 other people) of Valleywag, got fired. Nicholas was my favorite Crusader. Nearly all of his posts related to Google were dripping venom. It was almost like this guy was suffering from the worst kind of paranoia for the company... Everyone at Google was out to get him together with the rest of the free world!

While I honestly can't say that I will miss Nicholas' articles (quite the contrary...), I can't say I find pleasure in knowing someone (anyone) has lost his job. I can only hope and wish that Nicholas will soon manage to find another job, and cross my fingers that it won't have anything to do with Google.



On a more baloney-note, today was business as usual for Blodget, who once again pointed us all to the fact that Googles stock price is dropping NOT mainly because of a GLOBAL MARKET MELTDOWN, but because of well.... more important stuff... (!)


Oh, I almost forgot: he can't really understand (seriously, HIS own words: "Apple Stock Hammered...Why?" ) why is Apple's stock price falling like a rock too... Well, I sure as hell can understand his frustration...

DUDE, BEING GREEDY IS ONE THING...
PLAYING (?) DUMB IS ANOTHER! MAKE A CHOICE...

Amazing Stuff

I thought that today's anti-google-baloney would be difficult... Lots of stuff written out there, and its a hard job trying to identify the best (or rather... worst) of them...

But worry not, Mr. Arrington came to my rescue!

You know he loves bashing everything Google, right? And most of all Android, and its G1?

Well, his latest breathrough just hit my screen...

Apparently, a guy called Ulf Washbusch, who WAS up until recently a Product Marketing Manager for Google Mobile, is... trashing his ex-employer... and in particular the G1..


WOW! Michael! You just hit the jackpot! An ex-employee being nasty about the people who (probably) booted him??? AMAZING STUFF!


Apparently, Ulf has joined MySpace to run their mobile product operations... (good luck with this one!). Well, even Ballmer himself would immediately spot a not-so-nice-farewell from Google, through Ulfs ironies regarding the G1:

"it’s now available in Zune-brown along with white and black and the silly ‘with Google’ description on the back"


Whats next Michael, an interview with a...

?

Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage

Clint Boulton, of Google Watch, posted "Did Google Sabotage Ringside Networks?" today. In this post, Clint examines (commenting on a previous post on the same story by Om Malik) some what Ringsides co-founder Bob Bickel had to say, on Ringsides closing...

In a few words, Bickel implies that Google (or rather a non-evil company...) offered to buy his company, then after 2-3 months changed its mind withdrawing the offer, which led to the closing...

"After dragging out the process for most of the summer, the non-evil company decided that they really did not want to acquire the company after all. Recommendation: always beware of wolves dressed as Grandma, they may be more like Microsoft than they admit."

By that time Ringside had used up all of our seed money. And by backing away from our Series A offers, we kind of burned the VCs. Even better, our development had stalled because of our desires to build stuff aligned with our new direction in the non-evil company."

Clints opinion on Bickels 'accusations' is this:

"It's possible Google is working on a similar piece of software and viewed Ringside as a threat. In which case, Google could have pretended to want SocialPass and led Ringside and its crew down the primrose path (thank you, "Ferris Bueller"), only to pull out and leave Ringside in the lurch...

We may never know what happened between Ringside and the non-evil company, but the demise of the company reminds us that nothing -- not even among philanthropic-seeming social software players -- is sacred in the cutthroat Web economy."


philanthropic-seeming social software players?? WHAT???


Lets see if I got this correctly...

You create a company.... You develop the next 'hot' product... All engines are firing away... You got your seed money sorted for now... Your developers barely sleep anymore...

And then, a big company comes and offers to buy you! (Yeah! Payday is near!)

So what happens then? You sit through the negotiations, trying to get as much as you can... Right??

WHILE doing this, do you:

STOP DEVELOPING YOUR PRODUCT?
JUST BURN THE REST OF YOUR SEED MONEY?
SIMPLY PRAY THAT NOTHING BAD HAPPENS WITH THE NEGOTIATIONS? (i.e. these dorks agree paying me the mother-load...)

HELL NO!

I am sorry for Bickel, but it seems to me that this is exactly what he did... Google, and any other company OR INDIVIDUAL in the world as a matter of fact, has the right to cancel any OFFER it has put on a negotiating table, for whatever reason it believes is right...

Bickel, or anyone else in his position, on the other hand, should have kept his focus on HIS product, HIS money, and HIS company...

Its a game of business, not a philanthropic charity Clint...

More thinkers wanted

Finally... As more days pass from the G1 presentation, it seems that more and more writers realise the hidden value and potential of the Android, and excellent articles get published...

Rachel Hinman just published Can T-Mobile Become the Heroic Mobile Carrier We Need?

The article is not about the Android, but about T-Mobile and its chance to capitalize on Android... I couldn't agree more on her points... Spot-on... I can only hope that even more writers understand the true potential not only for T-Mobile, but for all the mobile industry... Sadly, all they care about is money, their stocks, and so on...

Once again, Rachel is simply spot-on in this article..

Don't play dumb, thats their job

Some people are dumb... We can't really do much about it...

And then there are these other people... You hear or read what they have to say, you scratch your head and you ask yourself... ARE THEY FOR REAL? ARE THEY JUST PLAIN DUMB OR JUST PRETENDING TO BE DUMB, OR WHAT??

Yesterday the stock market suffered its biggest one day drop in more than 20 years... (Not counting the Black Monday of 87, it was the worst one-day drop in 60 years... )

The bears were devouring anything in their way... Nothing and no-one stood ground.... Fundamental analysis couldn't be applied to anything but wiping ones' own ass... No sector of the economy was spared of the massacre, and tech suffered a lot...

Dan Frommer, from SAI, even posted some numbers showing how this was a MARKET meltdown (not that you needed any help to realise it of course...)

• Akamai (AKAM) dropped $1.50, or 9.2%
• Amazon (AMZN) dropped $7.35, or 10.4%
• Apple (AAPL) dropped $22.98, or 17.9%, after two downgrades
• Cisco (CSCO) dropped $2.03, or 8.5%
• Dell (DELL) dropped $1.59, or 9.4%
• eBay (EBAY) dropped $2.62, or 11.6%
• Google (GOOG) dropped $50.04, or 11.6%, to $381 -- its first trip below $400 in two years
• HP (HPQ) dropped $1.59, or 9.4%
• IBM (IBM) dropped $4.96, or 4.2%
• Intel (INTC) dropped $1.93, or 10.0%
• Microsoft (MSFT) dropped $2.39, or 8.7%
• Oracle (ORCL) dropped $1.85, or 9.0%
• Yahoo (YHOO) dropped $2.04, or 10.8%

YET HENRY BLODGET SAT DOWN, FLIPPED-OPEN HIS LAPTOP, SCRATCHED HIS HEAD, AND TRIED TO CONVINCE THE WORLD THAT THE DROP ON GOOGLE'S STOCK HAPPENED BECAUSE OF STUFF LIKE:

• current free cash flow...
• valuation...
• estimates...
• lower-than-expected revenue growth...
• non-sustainable upward course..

"Google's stock is finally getting to the level where there should be good downside valuation support. If the company's business really falls apart, the stock could drop below $300, but we don't see that happening. We do think the stock could drop below $350, though."

And he posted this on the day that the NASDAQ dropped almost 10%

Henry Blodget is not dumb. You can't do the stuff he does when you are dumb... no fucking way...

Why then is he acting this way? Why are his blogs trashing Google in any way he can think?

The answer is simple if you...
OPEN YOUR EYES

Enough Said (innovation - developer community - great services)

Well, while watching the stock market crash & burn today, I decided that perhaps this isn't the best day to point to the usual anti-google-baloney stuff... Even crusaders need a day-off...

Instead, I'll point your attention to some very good articles about Android...

Up to now, in most of our previous blog posts, we have tried to highlight how Android is NOT a G-phone, but a software platform. We tried to spot all those articles and authors who totally missed the point..

The articles mentioned in this post are not about the 'how-much-is-it-gonna-sell' or 'why-doesn't-it-have-a-camera' or 'my-iPhone-is-prettier-than-your-G1' type of articles...

They examine the various ways that Android - as a software platform - will drive innovation, help expand the developer community, and provide great services for the end-user...


The first article, Visa to Bank on Google Android by Google Watch, examines Visa's announced mobile apps for Android. The most interesting part reads:

"The Visa mobile apps will also leverage Google's location-based technology to find local merchants where customers can redeem Visa offers and find ATMs that accept Visa. Visa is also developing a payment application that will let Visa consumers make mobile payments in retail stores, or on the go, over wireless networks."


The second article, Funambol Announces Open Source Mobile Sync App for Android by the AndroidGuys, shows how fast Android can (by its open-source nature) provide - through a healthy developer community - all the 'missing ingredients' that where spotted (on day-one) on the platforms first device...

"One of the bigger complaints to come out of Tuesday’s Android/G1 unveiling was the lack of desktop and PIM sync. When asked whether or not the G1 would support MS Exchange, the answer was along the lines of , “Well, no. We’re gonna leave that up to developers and third party guys.“ "

The day after the G1 was announced, Funambol issued a press release for their Google Android Push Email and PIM Client. Thinking in terms of Apple’s MobileMe, they’ve created a free, open source application that syncs and share contacts popular desktop apps such as MS Outlook and webmail such as Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL. On top of that, you can use it sync between mobile devices too."


The third article, Motorola Building Up 350-Person Android Team. Nokia Also Sniffing Around by Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, comes as an answer to all those people who STILL insist that the G1 by T-Mobile is the "Gphone"...

"Motorola already has 50 people on its Android team and is growing that to 350...That is a huge commitment that shows how big a bet Motorola is making on Android...

This same source has also seen people from Nokia and Verizon at a recent Android developer conference....

Neither Nokia nor Verizon are official members of the Open Handset Alliance.... Nokia may have an Android team sniffing around, which is smart even if it is for nothing other than to gain competitive intelligence....

...if Android takes off, Nokia could decide to hedge its bets and launch its own Android phone."


Finally, the fourth and last article, HTC Dream is the Amiga for Android, again by the AndroidGuys, will make anyone over 30 smile and think about Androids' true nature...

"I see the HTC Dream being the Amiga of mobile phones... I say this as the G1 is really geared as a platform for programmers to hack away on and to create applications for future generations of Android phones...

This open innovation is what differentiates Android from Amiga...

That’s why the G1 is really the Geek Phone for programmers to use as a breadboard to openly innovate for future generations of Android phones to become the mobile supercomputer phones for businesses and consumers in general..."

Enough said I think...

Crusaders come in twos

Damn! They strike again... NOT!


Remember when our favourite anti-google crusader Nicholas, launched his 'nuclear strike analysis' on Google TV ads? It was the article when he so cleverly stated that:

"Last we heard from sources on Madison Avenue, Google's TV advertising business was a joke. Only 200 clients had signed up for it in almost a year. "


Are you asking yourself what happened? Why are we on to Nicholas again?

Before we get to that, let us tell you something about crusaders... The thing about them, is that they don't always come alone... Sometimes (if you are lucky enough) you can get two!!

Nicholas got a fair amount of help, when his colleague Owen Thomas decided that he too must join the anti-google-crusade... In his article - Why Google TV ads are doomed to failure - he bravely stated:

"Google's hoping to extract information from its television data, deriving some insights from channel-switching habits. But the information — do viewers care about the ads or not? — likely isn't there. Absent that, Google's systems have no way to refine themselves over time. All Google can promise, then, are cheaper rates for undesirable time slots — or, possibly, implementing technology that forces viewers to watch ads. No wonder TV executives are turning up their noses. Like the typical engineer, Google thinks it can do their job for them."


Well whatdaya know!

Google expands its television ad platform with Bloomberg TV

MG Siegler, of VentureBeat, has obviously something they don't... Patience & a brain...

"The reason Google ads are attractive to those in the television industry is that Google has developed a technology that lets advertisers know which ads are being watched at any given moment. A product that is more attractive to advertisers means a product that is more attractive to the content producers.

If something like this were to catch on, it could revolutionize the television advertising industry. The TV ads run through Google only cost money to advertisers when impressions are being made, just as Google’s online AdSense ads only charge per impressions made or click-throughs, as CNET notes.

Such a move could make television ad buys much more efficient for advertisers.

Also, as more content from the Internet makes its way to television, we could start to see a merging of the advertising landscapes for both industries. It’s smart for Google to have its hands in both pots."

Tough days for crusaders it seems...

Trevor Fellows, head of advertising sales at Bloomberg, even described what kind of viewers are going to be watching them Google ads:

"The BLOOMBERG TELEVISION audience is the wealthiest and most powerful in cable television...

As high net worth viewers are extremely difficult to quantify using traditional methods, we believe that involvement with Google TV Ads from an early stage will help us and our advertisers learn more about our audience.”

Don't you just hate it, when your "expert" analysis is...
AS ALWAYS DEAD WRONG?

(now, what on earth was I thinking when I pasted this drawing? Any ideas??)