by Fiona on August 30, 2010
Okay, the latest news is that GOOGLE has bought social games start-up SocialDeck, the latest in a series of acquisitions that it is currently collecting so that it can compete against Facebook.
It’s on a not-so-secret mission to build an enormous social networking service.
Sorry to rain on the parade, fellas, but yer going to fail.
That’s right folks, you heard it here first, the Google entry into the social media world will be the latest addition to the growing list of Google flops and failures.
As much as I love Google (and truly I do), time and time again, Google falls into the trap of trying to be all things to all man – which is why it fails.
It’s getting to the point where Google simply cannot abide someone else having a decent brand profile on the Internet. Think I’m kidding? Here is some proof.
- Google Answers to take on Yahoo! Answers? The only answer Google got was a Fail.
- Google Video to take on YouTube? YouTube is now owned by Google. I guess it’s a case of buy ‘em when you can’t beat ‘em.
- Google Coupons to take on absolutely anyone else in the coupon business. Ever heard of Google coupons? There. I rest my case.
- Google Checkout to take on Paypal. (Amazing how quickly they changed their mind. eBay, that owns Paypal, and who is the single largest advertiser on Google, pulled its ads in protest.)
- Google Knol - a lukewarm attempt to rival Wikipedia. Never heard of it, mutters most of the planet…
- Google Docs to rival Microsoft Office. Ever in your entire life met anyone that uses it?
That’s not all of course, there was Google Wave that I covered recently, Google Print Ads where Google, bouyed by its success in online ads, tried crossing the frontier into traditional newspaper advertising and many more.
Now look anyone that knows me knows I’m an innovation enthusiast. When you’re an innovation enthusiast it’s par for the course that there will be successes and failures. The important thing is to get out there are keep innovating.
BUT the thing is Google isn’t innovating.
Google is copying to try to compete against everybody and anybody that has built a decent size brand on the Internet. You can’t ride on someone else’s coattails and win, its doomed from the start.
Google took on (and beat) Yahoo! for search and successfully built its search engine credentials – that’s its core business, that’s what its brand is recognised for and that’s its competence.
But it failed to copy and beat Yahoo’s fantastic “Answers” product; it’s failed to copy and beat YouTube; failed on Wikipedia; failed on Paypal; failed on Microsoft Office…
Starting to see the pattern here?
Look around, see who Google is currently attacking:
- Google Chrome to compete against Microsoft IE, Firefox, Safari and anyone else who has a browser (btw, I think there are good strategic reasons for Google to launch a browser).
- Google Books its attempt to send Amazon, one of my all-time favourite online brands, to the cleaners. (Lots of posts at this blog ab0ut Google books.)
- Google Android and Nexus One because Apple shouldn’t get all the glory with the iPhone.
- Google Music to take on Apple iTunes. (No chance, fellas.)
- And now this foray into social media to take on Facebook…
It’s gonna all end in tears.
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by Fiona on August 25, 2010
Imagine a system that enables a hardware manufacturer to take a flashless, undetectable photo of your face plus multiple photos of your surrounding location, record your voice regardless of whether you are making a phone call, monitor your internet usage and record your heartbeat and “vibration signature” – all without your consent.
If you’re thinking its all sounding a bit Big Brother, you’re right. In the process it tramples all over privacy legislation everywhere and has civil libertarians in meltdown.
Apple, one of my favourite brands in the world, has been accused of creating traitorware for trying to patent security software that tracks down people who jailbreak their iPhones and iPads and locks them out of their devices.
According to the patent application lodged by Apple, if these identifiers do not match the “authorised” user, the system then determines if there is “suspicious behaviour”.
Suspicious behaviour includes device hacking, jail-breaking or unlocking the electronic device, removing a SIM card from the electronic device, and moving at least a predetermined distance away from a synced device.
Since the U.S. Copyright Office declared last month that it’s legal to jailbreak your iPhone, lots of iPhone users have been doing just that – nearly 9 percent of them as of late July.
But jail-breaking your iPhone — tweaking it to run applications not approved by Apple — is serious business. That’s not just because jailbreaking can void your Apple warranty, but because it can put you at risk of data theft, malware or other significant problems.
Under the patent application, having done its surveillance of you, if Apple decides that you add up to unauthorised use because you’ve done something they don’t approve of, they will remotely lock or shut down the offending iPhone or iPad, making it unusable.
It’s been labelled by watchdog organisations as dangerous spyware and they’ve even invented a new word for it – “traitorware”.
US civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, has called the patent “downright creepy and invasive” and overkill for technology that is to track down a lost or stolen phone – something already possible with the “Mobile Me” app.
Watch this space. You can bet that Apple is.
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by Fiona on August 24, 2010
Back in July, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, announced that Facebook had reached a new milestone, 500 million active users of its platform.
It announced the launch of Facebook Stories and, as I covered off recently, the launch of Facebook Places.
There is no doubt that Facebook is making large leaps forward, turning cashflow positive for the first time in September 2009.
So with all these users – and now a positive cashflow position – investors speculate when will the IPO happen?
Facebook insists there’s no imminent public offering. But that won’t stop people from wanting to know – What is Facebook really worth?
Shares of Facebook already trade on two private exchanges, where a small market exists for investing in venture-backed companies but because trades aren’t made public, it’s hard to know the true value.
Bloomberg says they’re valued at $24.9 billion while others says its higher than $33 billion, pushing the value Facebook higher than eBay and Yahoo!
Regardless of its capitalisation, and how realistic or otherwise you think that it is, there is certainly investors scrambling to get a piece of the action prior to any IPO, expected to be the biggest technology IPO since Google in 2004.
Read more in the Financial Times.
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Okay, the latest news is that GOOGLE has bought social games start-up SocialDeck, the latest in a series of acquisitions that it is currently collecting so that it can compete against Facebook.
