Tag: google

For $3, I would have posted this earlier

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

The entire readership of this blog emailed me about the story that the Associated Press may try to charge a fee for their displaying their news content early.  (Thanks, Mom.)  At first, this seems dumb – trying to delay access to online content sound like trying to put toothpaste back in a tube – once it’s out, it gets everywhere.  But this is less about re-inventing content distribution than it is about recognizing what AP CEO Tom Curley calls an “enviable moment.”

A year ago, relevance meant the top result on a Google search – and doing whatever Google said you had to do to make that happen.  In general, that’s still true.  But since Microsoft is serious about making their Bing search engine a serious competitor to Google, that means that both Google and Bing must be more mindful of that their search results deliver content which is relevant.  If Bing’s news aggregator is posting AP stories before Google News, that’s one more reason for users to move over.

For the AP, it’s not a long-term business strategy – but it is a chance to take advantage of a brewing search war.

Work for Google – for FREE!

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Artists are bristling at Google’s invitation to help design skins for their Chrome browser, since Google is offering them the chance to work for free.  Critics are pointing to Google’s $1.4 billion profit margin in the first quarter of 2009 as evidence that they can afford to pay artists.

Google, of course, makes that profit from GMail, Google docs, Google Calendar, Blogger, YouTube, and a host of useful online tools that consumers have to pay for… right?  Actually, all of those are free services.  In fact, Google offers any web user an awful lot for free.

It’s not altruistic – Google does it for exposure, because the more you use their products the more they can advertise to you – and the more likely they can put an ad in front of your face.

Google, which started as a humble search engine, realized years ago that the availability of online tools meant the market would eventually set the price for certain things at $0.  Given a changing technological environment, Google changed their business model.

Good for the artists who have proclaimed that they don’t need Google for exposure – it means they are doing well enough that they don’t need to sacrifice salary for experience, the way an intern might.

The fact is, Google doesn’t need to pay for their services, either and will get their browser skin designed one way or another.  The big winners are artists seeking exposure who are willing  to sacrifice payment for their core services in exchange for a chance to be in front of more eyeballs – appropriately enough, the artists who think like Google.