Google Should Sell Web Data In 2008

2007 was probably the year when Google announced a lot of new innovations and Google started improving search. Few changes to Google's ad system were also done which is Google's main money-maker. But one thing which is not good for any company is relying too much on one thing to make the bucks like Google does with Adsense & Adwords. Thus, Google really needs other sources of revenue.

Internet market research is a good business these days. A few companies are already making it big like Alexa, Comscore, Compete, Inc, Nielsen//NetRatings, Hitwise, and Quantcast.  And as online advertising increases, marketers would want to know more about the users. I think with the kind of data Google owns about web users, it could easily sell this as marketing data. Some people would argue that Google already gives some idea about the users through adwords, but that data is mostly from external sources. Data from gmail, orkut, analytics, adsense and other Google services would be more comprehensive and that would mean very accurate data. Accurate also in the sense that Adsense ads are shown everywhere on the net and users could be tracked easily across different sites. This would mean that no one will question the accuracy of the results shown through Google's vast data.

With Google acquiring DoubleClick and FTC clearing all the paperwork, it seems Google will know a lot about everyone. Thus in 2008, I think Google will find another revenue stream by providing data for Internet market research.

Another Ad Program To Monetize Your Blog

As much as I hate, blogging about blogging, this post is very much going to be that. I have a few friends who also have blogs and they monetize their blogs in different ways. This post may be useful to them, since I haven't heard much info around, about this new Ad Publisher Network called "ShoppingAds".

ShoppingAds comes from the same team thats behind AuctionAds. But the vital difference between the two products is that ShoppingAds is based on CPC and CTR, which means as a publisher you get paid for clicks and impressions. AuctionAds is basically an eBay Affiliate and it helps show auctions as ads onm your website.

Just recently I read here, how CPC ads earn 50 times more than Affiliate (CPA). So may be the guys at AuctionAds have understood what the publishers are looking for and they are testing this new CPC & CTR ad programme. ShoppingAds.com is currently undergoing a private beta, which shows that they are still trying to understand where the money can come from. Patrick Gavin, president of AuctionAds recently mentioned that the click-through rates for CPC ads have double in the last few days and this means they are beginning to realize the success in this kindof advertising.

ShoppingAds is currently showing ads from Amazon, Dealtime and other big online retailers. It should be interesting to see if after the not-so-successful AuctionAds, will the guys at MediaWhiz make a winner!!

Only time will tell, but the business of ads is as much technical as its marketing. Along with marketing you require good technology to monitor users, calculate revenue and target ads!!

Does The Web Deserve Version 3.0 ??

Yesterday, I was reading about the "Official Definition Of web 3.0", and I thought what a wannabe. I couldn't stop thinking does the web even deserve the version 2.0, forget about 3.0!

Many people would say that the world of the internet has drastically changed in the last couple of years, specially after the dotcom bubble burst that it deserves the newer version. Things like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and other free CMS systems have made it easier for anyone to have a web presence. Then came AJAX and people thought it was some new language (it actually isn't) for the web. Then we had YouTube, Flickr and host of other media websites. And then came a lot of social networking websites. And then you have bookmarking and websharing like Digg, Delicious, Technorati and the rest!! According to the media, the internet had changed. The marketing and show organizers wanted something new to camp around... and they called it the Web 2.0

Analyzing the Web 2.0 Moniker
Google will tell us the different existing definitions to Web 2.0 here. You can call it "participatory web" like Bart Decrem or "as a platform" mentioned by Tim O'Reilly. Yes, today most of the activity on the internet is participatory. Social networking, Blogging is the big hit thing on the internet, but then we need to ask ourselves if none of this was being done earlier?? Coming to the idea of "network as a platform". Such definitions have varied and wide implications and wasn't Sun Microsystems saying that in the '80s??

Few other characteristics of web 2.0 discussed by the media were:
1.) Data as the driving force (Database web application have existed for a long time)
2.) Distributed Independent Developers (Collaborated efforts in software development has existed since the beginning of the internet)
3.) Lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication (Haven't tech magazines and newspapers doing this for eternity??)

Comparison To Other Popular Projects
Who decides the version change?? May be the CTO or Project Manager or the team decides. There are generally some milestones to be completed before a project gets a new version.

Linux is one big old project. There have been a lot of changes since Linus released it in 1991. Quite a few changes in the Filesystem, Process, Memory management... but we are still after significant changes at v2.6.xx. There are many more examples that come to mind. After changes to some million lines or significant percentage change to code, they get new version names like MS Office, Windows, Python.

On the other hand, the internet or web hasn't really changed drastically. If I remember my first days on the internet in 1995, I used to have mailing lists and BBS where I would write some content and other users would share the same. So the "participatory web" was still alive that time. Data sharing was active when the first university networks joined the internet. Like I mentioned earlier, OSS and lightweight models existed long time before the Web 2.0 name was created. To make a gross comparison: HTML is written the same way we used to in the earlier days!!

Still not convinced and want Web 3.0

If you still aren't convinced and want Web 3.0, then be my guest!! How about giving you the definition for Web 4.0??

Definition of Web 4.0: You speak to it and it speaks back. It does all your household work. It can transport you physically from anywhere in the world to a given place in seconds. Web 4.0 is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. Web 4.0 can even... (oops I remembered this is "G" website)

Has Google Slowed Down ?

Google has been the leader in internet innovation from the day it was formed. Even the worst critics (can you believe it??) of Google would agree that the internet would not be the same without Google. Infact "google" became the synonym for search in dictionaries. People have written manuscripts on Google. Enough articles in newspapers, magazines and journals to fill an entire building. "The Google Story", is one of the bestseller entrepreneur books on the shelf. According to Fortune magazine, Google is the #1 company to work for. Google is known for a lot of other things, and I really don't wanna write another epic on the big 'G'

But as the years go by, and the company grows big, and it buys a lot of other companies, Google has today become titanic of sorts. It has the best of everything!! Now what next?? That's the question in everyone's mind! Google grew so fast, that today we have to ask if it can grow and innovate even further and at the same rate?

Analysis through Google Labs:

In my last post, I looked into Google Labs for their transliteration software. A thing of notice here was that the number of projects that google is showing off has decreased. In 2006, Google has 9 projects, where as till now in 2007 Google has just 1 project. This may be completely incorrect analysis because google has a lot more products now that are out of beta, and new innovation is being done in those and hence don't find mention on the Labs webpage. Also, Google has Labs from different places like Google Labs India. Innovations in Blogger, YouTube, Analytics, Orkut etc, which were google buys are not shown in Google Labs. Even Google's biggest money-making machines, Adsense & AdWords have seen increased revenue and innovation which are not reflected in Labs.

Analysis through Google Trends:

So how do we compare? Lets look at another Google software called Google Trends. A picture speaks a thousand words, so here are the images comparing Google all-time and Google last 12 months: (click to see a larger version or go here and type your own trend)

A pretty steep slope for Google in all-time and decreased in the last 12 months. May be even Google Trends is an incorrect data source for analysis. I mean, who would search for Google on Google right?? You just use the great services from Google and enjoy life, right?

In reality, there could be various ways to look into the data I have presented and its may be a very incomplete picture of the whole thing. But then, as Google grows older obviously the innovations will decrease. I think even Google realizes this and hence they are buying so many companies to remain fresh and innovative.

Intel Interactive Ads Are Fun

A lot of us have adBlock installed on our computers because we think ads are good and waste out bandwidth. But there's always a rose among the thorns, and Intel's Interactive Ads are something of that sorts. I have been looking at Intel's ads (not those stupid T.V ads) that are seen on different hardware sites. I have to say the ad makers have really done an amazing job with these ads!! If you haven't seen these interactive ads, then you really don't know what I'm talking of. May be a screenshot will help, but then playing with the real thing is something fun!!

The fun part of the ads are that they are interactive and in the screenshot you can see how that "agent" has caught my mouse (broke it, stamped it :(( when I tried to get close to the guarded Intel laptop. Other similar Intel ad campaigns that were present earlier had dogs in them, which would angrily bite the mouse if you brought it any closer to the Intel machines!! :-) I have seen a few interactive ads on the internet, but none of those were from big companies and nor were they as perfect graphically as these intel ads.

If you want to play with these ads, look at tech sites like theInquirer.net , tomshardware.com , Newegg.com. Really an awesome job from the designers of these ads!! May be in the future we'll see many more interactive ads from other companies as well!!

Note: Remove the adBlocks if you wanna see those ads