Google washes even whiter!
Search giant Google is taking bids from advertising firms for what is expected to be a multi million deal, according to Advertising Age (paid registration required).
Google declined to comment on the story (the company has kept a low PR profile ever since its IPO), so on a cautionary note: this whole story could be just wrong. On the other hand you can expect Advertising Age’s sources to be executives with advertising firms who have been bidding on the contract.
Why does Google need to work on its brand recognition? Being the dominant search party, the consumer market should be accounted for. That leaves the advertising market. Apparently Google feels that the word on its Adsense programme hasn’t gone out enough and that it is missing out on some markets.
Btw, it took the blogosphere almost a month to pick up this story. I bet this wouldn’t have been the case if the publication had opened up its archives.
November 30, 2004 at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Email slowly dies – in Taiwan at least
Two-thirds of high school and college students in the Taiwanese province of Gyeonggi claim that they “rarely use or don't use e-mail at all," according to a report by Chosun.
Although lack of email security (think spam and the insecurity about the sender's identity) plays a part, SMS or instant messaging offers instant gratification, making it a more exiting means of communication than email.
"The new generation hate agonizing and waiting and tend to express their feelings immediately," Chungbuk University computer education professor Lee Ok-hwa told Chosun. "The decline of email is a natural outcome reflecting such characteristics of the new generation."
I can't wait for the first pundit to stand up, ignore all cultural differnces and predict the death of email based on this study.
November 29, 2004 at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A Silicon Valley full of CTOs
Take the outsourcing trend to the extreme and the West ends up with nations full of CEOs and investors. Because labour in Asia and Eastern Europe will be so much cheaper, the West will just be too expensive to do anything but heading up companies.
The same faith awaits Silicon Valley, argues John Hennessy, president and professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University in an interview in Business Week.
The future role for Silicon Valley will be to create elite groups of technologists who control the overall strategy and provide the core intellectual property. "...at some point you need the whiteboard in the room. Now the question is: At some point can you partition that task? (...) You see a lot of examples where the core technology group is still in the Valley, but, (…) you can imagine taking some portion of that task and performing it elsewhere."
The success of Silicon Valley as the beating heart of high tech is generally attributed to the fact that it combines critical mass in key areas like venture capital funding, a highly skilled workforce and a large concentration of technology companies. But if Hennessy is right and Silicon Valley wants to survive, it has to become even better at what it does.
November 29, 2004 at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hyperion goes green
If Silicon Valley wasn’t already known as a paradise for political leftists and tree huggers, this certainly won’t hurt.
Software company Hyperion on Monday unveiled a programme that offers employees $5,000 towards the purchase of a fuel efficient vehicle that achieves a fuel economy of at least 45 miles per gallon (19.1 kilometre per litre). The company’s head quarters are located in the Silicon Valley town of Santa Clara.
“One of the most important steps an individual can take to improve the quality of our air is to drive a vehicle that goes further on a gallon or litre of gas. One of the most important steps a company can take is to help them,” CEO Godfrey Sullivan said in a press release.
The state of California is considering to promote the use of fuel efficient vehicles by giving them access to (less congested) carpool lanes regardless of the number of passengers.
Hyperion CEO and current Mercedes driver Sullivan is leading the way and has already ordered a Toyota Prius, he told Cnet
If Silicon Valley wasn’t already know as a paradise for political leftists and tree huggers, this certainly won’t hurt. Software company Hyperion on Monday “>unveiled a programme that offers employees $5,000 towards the purchase of a fuel efficient vehicle that achieve a fuel economy of at least 45 miles per gallon (19.1 kilometre per litre).
The company’s head quarters are located in the Silicon Valley town of Santa Clara. The state of California is itself considering to promote the use of fuel efficient vehicles by giving them access to (less congested) carpool lanes regardless of the number of passengers.
Hyperion CEO and current Mercedes driver Godfrey Sullivan is leading the way and has already ordered a Toyota Prius, he told Cnet
November 29, 2004 at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Will $9.75m make you shut up?
When Microsoft convinced the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) to pull out of the European Commission’s anti trust case, the software company send the lobby group a thank you card with a check for $19.75 million.
The settlement was announced 8 November. As part of the deal, CCIA promised to drop its support for the case that is currently before the European Commission, as well as refrain from seeking review by the U.S. Supreme Court in its challenge to an earlier legal settlement between Microsoft and the US government.
Although the money was supposed to offset some of the CCIA’s legal costs, The Financial Times last week reported that $9.75m will actually be transferred to CCIA president Ed Black. In addition to the bonus, Black will receive a salary of $500,000 a year for the next 3 years.
The bonus has sparked renewed criticism about the deal that earlier caused Nokia to quit the anti-Microsoft lobby group. Remaining CCIA members include Microsoft (former) arch enemies Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Yahoo.
Time heals all wounds, and a little money has certainly helped in speeding up the healing process.
November 29, 2004 at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Valley view (moblog test)
looking north towards San Mateo - Oracle's HQ is behind the hill on the right
November 29, 2004 at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Nanotech? Nothing to see here folks, move on
Nanotechnology and real world applications go together like profits and eToys.com, claims Donald Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital, one of the largest and oldest venture capital investment firms in Silicon Valley.
It’s too early to start even thinking about what nanotech can do, he told Cnet in an interview. "If there is an application for nanotechnology, it's going to be the later part of our lifetimes. You have this huge amount of press coverage and no market problem that needs solving."
Since it’s Valentine, you should pay attention. After all, the guy struck gold with investments in companies like Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Electronic Arts and Oracle. And much like his successes, his failures are large too. Sequoia backed both eToys.com and Webvan, some of the most famous (and costly) screw ups of the internet boom.
Instead of investing you lifetime savings in nanotech, you’d better focus applications solving today’s problems. With the surge of broadband usage by consumers, we are finally to deliver on the vision of the internet that was painted five years ago, Valentine said. "To me it’s an issue of patience."
November 29, 2004 at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
When news goes open source
Aiming to do to news reporting what Linux did to Sun Microsystems, the Wikimedia Foundation has put up a demo of their new Wikinews service. The service plans to offer news in the same collaborative way by which the WikiPedia encyclopaedia is created.
A process of peer review will create accurate news reporting. Just like with development of open source software, the concept of "many eyeballs" should safeguard against mistakes and shady ethics.
The service certainly has the potential to add to existing news reporting. With large events – take the current political turmoil in Ukraine – citizen reporters can directly tell the story from the streets, adding colour and flavour to the reports by the large press agencies.
Professional reporters however will raise a few eyebrows about the service’s lack of journalistic standards and safeguards. Although the process of peer review will correct mistakes, there is little to ensure those mistakes from showing up in the early stages of a story’s life.
"The incentive for behaviour in a wiki is to write in such a way that your writing can survive," Wiki co-founder Jimmy Wales told Wired News. "The only way it can survive is if your writing is acceptable to an extremely wide audience."
Last time I checked, writing news stories wasn’t a popularity contest but about accuracy, fact checking and informing readers. That’s why publications have publishers who worry about making money and journalists who focus on spending it.
November 29, 2004 at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Welcome to a new view on Silicon Valley
Starting today, we're offering a new take on Silicon Valley. Please let us know what you think!
November 29, 2004 at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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