Chasing the Long Tail of New Media
Sometimes even companies we love become too big for their britches. I guess that they get so used to having control of their environment and/or their market, they decide that they want to overreach and try to control things that they have no business trying to control.
The latest company guilty of trying to overreach: Google.
All they want to do now is control the English Language. Hey, let us know how that works out.
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It’s hard to imagine a world without YouTube — which is amazing when you consider that the site’s official launch was less than a year ago. In its brief existence YouTube has become an unstoppable force, hosting 65,000 new videos per day and 20 million users per month. YouTube’s mojo is so strong that masters of world domination, Google, finally gave up trying to compete and bought the company outright.
What makes YouTube so great? Videos, of course. By simplifying the process of uploading video content YouTube has become a repository for millions of videos. The site hosts a huge number of obscure video clips you never thought you’d see again, and in many cases clips you never thought you’d see in the first place.
I visit YouTube regularly to get my fix of weird Japanese television shows, rare music videos and live performances, vintage television commercials and movie trailers, and strange public access programming.
As you might have heard, Google went and acquired YouTube for a mere $1.65 billion. Time will tell if this was a brilliant business move or not. I believe Google’s acquisition is far more savvy than News Corps’ purchase of MySpace. MySpace is a mess and by the time anyone figures out how to make lots of money from the venture, the kids who give the site its buzz will be on to the next big thing.
But YouTube? There’s a different animal. Whether it’s $1.65 billion is debatable, but YouTube’s model — easily syndicated and shared content — gives the site a broader appeal. You don’t have to go to YouTube; it can come to you. Every time a little player is embedded in a website, YouTube’s brand is extended into the public consciousness. Google, being Google, will not be long in figuring out how to turn this into money. Simplest way is to leverage the sites who use AdSense and embed video.
[Read more…] about Google’s Bid For World Domination
One of the most persistent media rumors of early 2006 involved Google launching a digital music service to rival Apple’s iTunes. There was a point earlier this year when it seemed as if every analyst on Wall Street was predicting that Google would be launching GTunes any day now. iTunes was clearly doomed and its days would soon be numbered.
Far be it from me to say “I told you so”, but back in April I went on record with a list of reasons why Google Music won’t matter. Now comes word that Google is going to sit out the upcoming digital music war. Instead, they’ll be partnering with MTV to insert advertising into videos that will be available on the still dismal Google Video service. No matter how Google tries to spin it, the MTV deal is a huge letdown for anyone expecting the company to make its mark on the music industry.
I am a map geek. And I am a traffic geek. Back when I was doing my 45-mile (one way!) commute in the Bay Area, I would always check the Web obessively prior to leaving, listen to traffic reports while driving, even call the special TravInfo phone number. None of that was really effective, at least partially because there was no way to get an on-the-fly visual overview of what was going on once I actually hit the road. Not on my budget.
Until now, that is.
So, I’ve been doing this goofy thing at my other place. Given my readership, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who notices it, but that’s how these things go. I make yourself happy and that’s all that matters. In the process of this goofy thing, I’ve had to do a little bit of online research. Not much, nothing heavy — like today, I had to verify the correct title of a Jazz Butcher song.
I could have dragged myself across the room, shoved my feet into shoes, found the garage keys, and pulled the correct disk from the now-banished rack o’CDs — which would have required shuffling through a lot of music because I wasn’t even sure what era the song was recorded (there are multiple Jazz Butcher eras, you know). Or I could type “Jazz Butcher Lot 49” into my handy little search bar at the top of Firefox (love this feature, too!).
Yesterday Google released a video player for Mac OSX. On the surface that might not seem like big news. Google Video still looks like a picked-over flea market. Meanwhile, iTunes is on a roll – offering over 250 programs for download. Google is clearly playing catch up in the online video market – and not very well.
While Google has failed to make a dent with its video store, it may have better luck with its video DRM system. Yesterday’s release of the OSX video player wasn’t so much about supporting the Mac platform as it was about making the Google Video DRM system available cross-platform.
Hey kids, remember the Browser Wars? They took place wayyyyyy back in the mid-1990s when Microsoft realized that the Web as experienced via Netscape could steal the desktop right out from under their thumb. So they figured, “we gotta get us a piece of that action,” and launched Internet Explorer.
Which totally sucked for a couple of iterations, until IE 4, which was good enough to combine with their natural monopoly on the business user and eventually lead to Netscape’s downfall.
This all took a few years, and anybody working on the Web at that period had to do QA testing for about a dozen different Browser/Operating System combinations. My guess is that many were somewhat happy for MS to win the browser wars, even as they mourned a technology that essentially changed the world.
It’s no secret that Google is virtually printing money with its contextual advertising business. If you’ve read The Search you know that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were originally adamantly opposed to selling advertising alongside Google’s search results. It was only after Google developed a way to deliver advertising that was relevant to the context of a user’s search that Brin and Page embraced advertising as a business model.
With this in mind it’s kind of strange to notice that Google is currently running ads promoting the Da Vinci code on literally every results page, regardless of what is being searched for. Take a look at the bottom of the page, right below links to the ‘next results’.
Wall Street is buzzing again with rumors that Google will soon launch a digital music service to rival iTunes. While a showdown between Apple and Google would be the Wall Street equivalent of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, analysts seem to be so caught up in their visions of “enhanced revenue streams” and $500 share prices, that they’ve missed one essential point. Google Music just won’t matter much. Here’s why: