Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

Google Allegedly in Virtual World Space, Building SecondLife Competitor

MarketingVox reports on rumours that Google is working on its own version of SecondLife. From the sound of things, they've been lining up teams in the worlds of "metaverses," 3-D model creation, and online gaming to rollout a virtual world with "speculation being that Google will use real-world data gathered from their existing enterprises to craft an alternate reality platform online."

Do you think it will run 3-D AdWords?

YouTube Plans to Share Ad Revenue with Uploaders

Chad Hurley at the World Economic Forum:

"In terms of paying users revenue against the content that they are uploading, we definitely are going to be moving in that direction," Hurley said in video recorded in Davos, by a YouTube user and posted on the site.

"We feel we are at a scale now that we will be able to do that and still have a true community around video."

From Reuters via Yahoo! News

I was concered about the precedent this would set in user-generated media...but goes to show how much of a novice I am on the user side. According to GearLive, YouTube's already lost contributers to Revver and MetaCafe, which are already paying for content.

Anyway, if anyone's going to figure out a reasonable way to pay content providers...well, I think Google might have some exeperience there.

While we're on branding...Coca Cola or Google?

Just posted about Madison Avenue leveraging online for brand-building. Here's an article on how online brands are gaining greater popularity.

While Coke has long been considered the greatest brand every, a recent poll (of Geeks?) put Google in the top spot. (Coke came in at number 9. It was beaten by, among others, MySpace and Ikea.)

Google retained its title as the world's most influential brand, and video-sharing site YouTube and online encyclopedia Wikipedia were catapulted into the top five at the No. 3 and 4 spots, according to the annual survey by online branding magazine brandchannel.com.

While brandchannel's survey is not uncontroversial as it asks 3,625 branding professionals and students [like I said, Geeks.] "Which brand had the most impact on our lives in 2006?," rather than measuring economic impact, the evidence of the result is everywhere...

Yes, I supposed Coke hasn't had the privilege of becoming a verb. (Nor has Google earned a spot at the deli counter.) And the fact is, you'll interact with your can of Coke for about 10 minutes, whereas you'll be on Google or MySpace all day long.

See the results at BrandChannel.

Google Wants Brands; Brands Don't Seem to Want Google (or at least, their agencies don't...)

In a nutshell, it's not that they don't WANT to work with Google, it's that Google doesn't necessarily play well with others technologically:

Read more from the ClickZ article.

Marketers complain that Google won't allow them to deliver ads using third party management firms such as DoubleClick and Atlas. These platforms and others like them have helped consolidate serving and reporting for display campaigns that can run on hundreds of individual sites....

As a result, he said, using Google for brand campaigns results is a waste of time and energy. "Google has built this closed loop world, which I think is only a short term prospect for them," he said. "They need to open it up."

Brand agencies haven't really warmed up to the idea of including Google in their campaigns at this point, and this technology issue is delaying the process. Google released a statement saying that while they allow third-party tracking, they don't offer third-party serving "at this time."

Sounds like they're ready to relinquish a little bit of control to gain a little bit of the Madison Avenue pie. As ClickZ points out, they've spent a good part of the last 12 months grooming themselves for this market -- including the lease of their posh Manhattan space -- so they're going to need to kow-tow to the agencies a bit if they're going to ultimately snag the branding business.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Working Together on SiteMaps.org

SiteMaps.org will do the impossible: Unite Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The big three have agreed to work together on the Google-created, XML-based protocol.

SiteMaps has seen great adoption by search engine optimzation professionals and webmasters alike, as the tool makes it easier for search engine spiders to index a site and tell how frequently it's updated.

The Big Three will encourage other search engines, as well as CMS vendors, to support the protocol.

From Computer Business Review.

Ask -- not Google or MSN -- Powers Lycos Search

That's right -- Lycos has selected the dark horse, IAC's Ask.com, to fuel its search. See the article on MediaPost today:

STRIKING A BLOW AGAINST TWO of its far bigger rivals, Ask.com will replace MSN and Google as the natural search and sponsored listings provider on Lycos. Previously, MSN Windows Live powered organic search results and Google supplied sponsored search listings.

By partnering with Lycos, which had 25.7 million unique visitors in September, Ask.com will be able to boost its brand and expand its paid listings business. Lycos generates about 125 million search queries per month, according to internal company numbers. 

Ask has made headlines since its February relaunch, becoming the fastest-growing search engine among users this year -- but still owning only 5% marketshare, next to Google's 44%. The new partnership will help fuel that growth, making Ask.com a much bigger contender in the space.

Google buys JotSpot

...we kinda thought Yahoo was going to make a bid for Jotspot, but I guess not! Meanwhile, DigitalGritters are happy because, from the email below, "We will no longer be billing customers for the use of the service."

Jotspot, for those unfamiliar with the service, is a wiki farm -- and probably the best wiki farm out there. Don't know what a wiki farm is? Here's a definitition.

Also from said email, here's what JotSpot (Googspot? Jotsle?) has to say about the aquisition:

Why is Google acquiring JotSpot?

Google shares JotSpot's vision for helping people collaborate, share and work together online. JotSpot's team and technology are a strong fit with existing Google products like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Groups.

What does this mean for JotSpot customers?

We believe that joining Google will accelerate our team's vision of offering users the best collaboration platform on the web. Google shares that vision and presents us with the world's best environment for delivering on it. We'll be taking advantage of Google's world-class systems infrastructure and operations expertise to ensure that access to your JotSpot is fast and reliable. We can't share any of our plans publicly just yet, but we can tell you that we're incredibly excited about the possibilities. We can't think of a better company to have been acquired by.

Does this mean wikis are now officially "mainstream?

Here's some news coverage on the acquisition.

Will Google be Bigger than Microsoft?

HipMojo predicts that Google could be bigger than Microsft by 2010.

Right now: Google is at $130 billion while MSFT is at $280 billion.  That’s less than 4 years to increase by $150 billion.  And yes, that assumes MSFT does not increase in value.  Is that realistic....

Today, MSFT has a market cap of $284 billion, and that includes a wallop of cash.

Tale of the tape: Google $287 billion; MSFT $284 billion

Pretty crazy, huh? Yet not unthinkable, considering how quickly Google innovates. There's something to be said for those massive beta launches; there's method to the madness there. Google's not afraid to make bold moves early on -- I mean, when did they launch Blogger? And how long did it take Microsoft to launch its own paid search, post-Overture? Microsoft may still own our desktops, but they're just not keeping up with Google in the Web space. And Google may just squeeze MS out of our offices, as well.

Thanks to Andy Beal for this one!

New! Customized Google Search for Your Site

Google launched Customized Search last night. From the Google Co-op site:

Build and customize your own search engine

• Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
• Place a search box and search results on your website.
• Customize the look and feel to match your website.
• Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.
• Make money from relevant ads in your search results.

The offering seems to incorporate the previously offered site-flavored search and the search box customizations, now under the Google Co-op umbrella, allowing publishers to build their own vertical search engine for use on web sites or blogs. From Yahoo! News (had to do it):

According to [Jennifer] Simpson [of the Yankee Group], the new tool will build Google's strength in vertical search, a sector of the search-engine market that, until now, has been primarily occupied by small companies specializing in creating search engines for specific topics.

"Smaller companies and niche search have been challenged in the past to find an audience without having to spend a lot," said Simpson. "This does that."

Comprehensive articles here and here, and of course, on Google's Blog.

Google Up, Yahoo Down

While Yahoo hangs its head over a 38% drop in revenue for Q3, Google reports more than a 70% increase over last year's revenues, exceeding analyst expections by a good $50 million. With $2.69 billion in reported revenue for the quarter, I think they're OK to cover the YouTube deal.