My new Google Co-Op search engine
This week Google introduced a stunningly simple and powerful new service: anyone can now create their own custom search engine for personal or public use.
Each of us can choose the sites that we want to include in our own person Google search engine, and we can share in the advertising revenue that will come if other people use our engine.
“Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience, said it was the most significant launch that Google would announce in the final months of this year. By letting companies and individuals build their own specialised search engines, it will also create competition for the many new “vertical†search products that have recently been launched on the web, she added.” — Financial Times.
So here is my first version that I spent 10 minutes creating:
You can select all the sites that you want to include in your search or you can invite others to collaborate with you in selecting the sites.
When Google made AdSense available to publishers, it made it possible for many thousands of content web sites to generate advertising revenue in a very efficient way, without hiring a sales force. Now, these same web site publishers will have the ability to create customized search engines for their customers. This is a great move by Google. It will be another boon to publishers and entrepreneurs who take advantage of it.
Internet stock investors: Bambi on Google
Filed under: Advice for Startups, Business Models, High Tech Stocks, Investing, Search Engine News, Social Networking Watch, Video
If I were an active investor in internet stocks, I would read everything that Bambi Francisco has to say, especially about the large internet companies. She has amazing prescience. I’ve been reading her for columns for years. Today she has an excellent post at AlwaysOn.
She has so many connections and so often has the inside story; but it’s her analysis that I like the most. Something she can do because she has been covering the industry for so long. She’s the Mary Meeker of internet journalism. If Mary blogged, I’d read her religiously too. (Mary was the #1 rated investment banking analyst of internet stocks for several years running. She wrote a report two weeks ago about the future of online advertising and how Google will benefit from the purchase of YouTube.) On Oct. 13th, the Wall Street Journal said Meeker values Google at $500 per share.
So back to Bambi. In her post today, Bambi explains how revenue follows eyeballs–even now, even years after the bubble burst.
Audiences and ad dollars always meet. I recall years ago, when search was considered a commodity.
Companies like Inktomi moved into the caching business, while others — Yahoo (YHOO), Lycos, Excite, AltaVista, etc. –quickly morphed into portals or were buried in other entities. The ad dollars would flow abundantly to portals, and transaction fees to online retailers, so most believed. Back in 2000, nearly $3.8 billion went into display ads vs. $109 million in paid search in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
Last week Google’s stock went on a tear. It hit a 52-week high this week. The market cap today is $145 billion. Compare that with Yahoo’s $33 billion and eBay’s $44 billion.
Bambi told 8,000 investors last Wednesday that she had turned bullish on Google only after it bought YouTube, because now it would be a leader in the social networking and video space, which has huge traffic share online but a very small percentage of advertising revenue so far. Like search back in 2000.
Social networks are estimated to attract $280 million in ad dollars this year, according to eMarketer. Online video-sharing sites are estimated to attract about $385 million. EMarketer estimates that $15.9 billion will be spent in online advertisements in the U.S. this year. That means social networks and video-sharing sites only attract about 1.8% to 2.5% of total online ad spending.
Investors who paid attention to Mary Meeker’s report two weeks ago or Bambi Francisco’s comments last Wednesday might have gotten into Google before the recent run.
But more importantly, since I’m a firm believer in the Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger approach to investing (make only a few bets in your entire life after reading and studying all you can and getting to know the company as if you were its owner, and then stick with those bets over a long period of time), I would keep an eye on Google for the next 5-10 years. I believe it will be worth more than Microsoft within a few more years.
In May 2004 I predicted Google would be worth more than Microsoft within 10-15 years.
In February 2005 I updated my forecast and listed 7 reasons why it wouldn’t even take 10 years.
Today I would guess that it will take less than 5 years and perhaps even only 2-3 years before Google is worth more than Microsoft. Acquisitions may play a role; but more importantly, each project that Google has launched (and has often been criticized for because they don’t become #1 overnight with them) is maturing. The pace of innovation at Google still exceeds all the other internet companies combined.
For the last decade, PC owners have found hardware prices plummeting but the cost of Windows and Office staying rather steady. It isn’t uncommon to pay as much or more for software than for hardware when you purchase a new PC.
But with Google’s recent moves in the spreadsheet and word processing space (when are they going to offer a free Powerpoint killer?), it won’t be long before we can buy a $300-500 PC without any Microsoft software on it and be as productive or more productive than ever before.
I’m not necessarily down on Microsoft. It will reinvent itself. Think about it. IBM is still worth $137 billion. It’s just a totally different business than it was 20 years ago. Microsoft will find its place in the post-Windows world, but it just won’t be making all the rules like it has for the last 10-20 years.
How many of you can live without Microsoft products today? And how many can see the time coming soon when Google will provide the OS as well as the free software applications that you and your team need to succeed? (And it will all be monetized through their most-efficient advertising engine.)
What do you think? And does it matter or not?
Since I write primarily to entrepreneurs, I’m especially eager to hear what Google’s strategy and success means to you as you make investment and business plan decisions.
Google Click to Play Video Ads
Filed under: Internet Marketing Tactics, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Engine News
It’s hard to stay current as an internet marketer. There are new options and channels to test every week. I quiz my BYU students every week on all the MarketingVOX headlines for the week, and literally every week there are new ways to spend online advertising dollars. The question is, which new channels and tactics will be profitable, and which will be a waste of time?
That’s where Provo Labs Academy comes in. We encourage the sharing of marketing information among our 30 or so startup companies, including our own portfolio. Soon, we will expand our audience to include entrepreneurs and marketers from around the world.
But I haven’t found anyone yet who has tested Google’s Click to Play Video Ads, which were announced back in May.
I’m interested in knowing if any readers have run a test using this new service. You don’t actually get to play a video on Google’s own search results page, but you can have your videos played on other websites that are in the Google publisher network.
I’m also curious if anyone has found Google Site Targeting to be a successful tactic for very expensive keywords.
How do you select the sites that you want to advertise on? Do you check each one out to make sure they are displaying their AdSense ads above the fold? Do you check the sites to make sure they are appealing to your target demographic?
How has your cost per acquisition compared to Google Adwords for search as well as for site targeting?
Finally, what online message boards and forums do you belong to where real marketers are continually sharing actual data from campaigns with each other?
Google’s Incentive for Search Engine Marketers
I like Google’s Advertising Professional Program. By becoming a Qualified Professional, internet marketers who manage pay-per-click accounts for multiple clients can get $100 credits for each new client they set up — up to 60 per year.
This will certainly motivate search engine marketers to find more clients and get them set up with a pay-per-click campaign. Francisco Rebollo, the pay-per-click marketer who helps Provo Labs companies, is a Qualified Professional, and he has room for 1-2 more clients. If you are interested in his help, please send me an email and I’ll connect you with him. (Click on CONTACT ME on my blog home page. It still uses my old Yahoo email address, but it should get forwarded to me. My new address is PAUL AT provolabs.com. (I don’t use the @ sign because I don’t want to get spammed…)
Another Google program that cuts smaller companies in on the multi-billion advertising revenue stream that Google generates is the AdSense program. AdSense has helped hundreds of thousands of content sites who formerly had a very hard time generating revenue from their traffic.
Yahoo has its Publisher Network and MSN is apparently working on its ContentAds network for web site publishers.
Has anyone compared the results from AdSense with YPN and ContentAds? Please let me know what you’ve seen or heard.
Coming Soon…
Filed under: Advertising, Business Models, Disruptive Technology, Search Engine News
A million things have gotten in the way of my blogging during the last month. But I haven’t completely disappeared. I’m working on some lengthy and thoughtful posts about subscription business models, company culture, web site usability (and how overlooked it is), building community online, an update on Provo Labs incubator portfolio, and more. I have several in draft mode right now.
I almost finished one last night. But since I didn’t, and I know I won’t be able to work on it for a couple more days, I thought I’d at least write this lame “Coming Soon” post to let all of you know that I haven’t retired from blogging.
While I’m writing, I might as well mention the Google beta launch of a shareable spreadsheet application. Combined with their Writely word processor acquisition a few months back, this is one more step towards a Microsoft Office-less world, or, at least a step towards a free ad-supported software world. I think it is possible that Google will force Microsoft to shift their business model from software licensing to free ad-supported software, at least for their consumer and small business software. Otherwise, Google will just keep stealing customers away.
Big Databases on Your Site
Provo Labs will soon announce a distributed search engine system that will enable hundreds of web sites to “host” massive databases (like Wikipedia, Edgar filings, dictionaries, reference and travel data, legal data, images collections, and more) on their own sites, with just a few minutes of setup.
We believe this will enable web sites (such as universities, schools and libraries as well as consumer web sites) to keep their site visitors longer and attract more visitors as well. One of our approaches will also help web sites share revenue with us. So there are multiple benefits.
Our worldhistory.com search engine team has built a powerful data indexing system and search system. We will announce our first partner for our first distributed search database next week.
If you are interested in learning more about this new program, please email me at paul AT provolabs.com.
Google gets into word processing!
Filed under: Search Engine News, Software for Entrepreneurs
MercuryNews.com | 03/10/2006 | With word processing acquistion, Google edges onto Microsoft turf
I thought this was coming. I see no reason why Google won’t have a web version of all the Microsoft Office apps within the next year or so. We won’t need a desktop OS or Office Suite when Google offers all the functionality we need online. (And for free!)
It’s ridiculous to pay Microsoft as much software when you buy a new computer than you pay for the hardware.
I like this Google move a lot.
Demographic Targeting on Google and MSNGoogle Adds Demographic Targeting to
Filed under: Internet Marketing Tactics, Search Engine News
Google has added general demographic information to AdWords according to Media Buyer Planner. Demo targeting is the biggest thing that has happened in Search Engine Marketing in years.
Here’s the link:
Google Adds Demographic Targeting to AdWords
Microsoft’s new AdCenter is the biggest threat ever to Google’s massive and growing revenue stream. And some reports claim that with their individual demographic targeting, AdCenter is already providing better results for advertisers than Google.
Google counters with this ComScore Media Metrix demographic targeting, but that targets the general demographics of site users. While Microsoft has individual demographics on hundreds of millions of Hotmail and Passport users, and can therefore provide targeted search results to an individual.
This is the first Microsoft counter punch in Google’s 8 year history that actually hit.
Fun stuff to watch.
Unfortunately, AdCenter is still in beta. They opened a 3-hour window for advertisers to sign up. If you missed it, you have to be invited. So most of us will have to wait to try this out.
Peter Norvig from Google speaking at BYU twice tomorrow
Filed under: Search Engine News, Uncategorized, Utah Events
Peter Norvig, Google’s Search Quality Director, is speaking Thursday the 9th of March (2006) at the BYU Family History Tech conference at 8:15 am ($60 admission for the day) and Phil Windley says he’s doing a CS colloquium Thursday at 11:00 am. Don’t miss this rare opportunity.
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