Tejas – You pronounce the J. It is NOT Tehas

Google Chrome came as total surprise to me.  But why not?  Makes sense from Google’s POV.  However, i think it is going to do more harm to FireFox than to IE.  Have i downloaded it?  Nope.  If i’m not going to download IE8 beta, why should i download Chrome Beta?  Plus Chrome has lot of features that IE 8 does (no, it’s not other way around).  Either way, great move by Google.

Today Google stock price drop drastically.  Silicon Valley Insider blog has pretty interesting insight:  “Wall Street Journal – The Justice Department has secretly hired one of the nation’s best-known litigators, former Walt Disney Co. Vice Chairman Sandy Litvack, for a possible court challenge to Google Inc.’s growing power in advertising.”  Really?  that’s interesting.

Oh another interesting thing is, Yahoo promoting Firefox on their homepage.  This was actually happening before Chrome came out.

Lot of people have written about the latest Microsoft ad (Bill G and Seinfield ad).  Yeah at first look, it didn’t make sense to me either.  What was the ad about anyways?  They did not talk about anything until the last 10 seconds, what was that about?  Just like outside, internally there was also lot of discussion about this ad.  Here’s my view:  we are used to seeing one thing or another being sold to us in every ad.  Be it, iPhone, car, food, whatever the case might be.  MSFT ad was different.  It didn’t want to sell anything, it is building up to a bigger story.  Hopefully 2nd ad will make more sense and add to the overall story.  Why does ad have to sell something, why can’t it be a story line?  Plus it served the purpose it intended to do:  to generate buzz (unfortunately, mostly it was negative).

Instead everyone jumps on a dislike the ad bandwagon, because it is NEW concept and more importantly it is by Microsoft, so just because couple of the blogs said, it is horrible.  Everyone says, yeah it must be.  We let other external factors cloud our judgement.  Basically, we do not have our own view of things or do not know what/how to think.

Yeah first ad did not make sense, so give it a chance.  Let’s see if the new upcoming ads will add to the story line and make more sense.

There has already been tons of posts about new search engine Cuil.com all over the web.  When you see 5+ pages of discussion on any topic on Webmasterworld, you know people are taking notice.  So from what i have read on Webmasterworld.com,  lot of reviews are negative and people are comparing it to Google’s product offerings.  Which i don’ think is fair.  Google was not perfect from day one.  Cuil results are respectable and new format is something to talk about.  Yes of course people are not going to like it because everyone’s used to 10 blue links.  But i think the way results are presented it is neat and my favorite part is “Explore By Category” and tab searches.

However, i do not wish to talk about Cuil.  What i do wish to talk about is, why is Cuil getting all the attention.  Numerous engines have come in the past, called “Google Killers” in the past, but of course none of them have survived or at least no one remembers them.  So why is Cuil getting all the media love or in other words, why has Cuil been able to generate buzz?  I can go back to one of my favorite books “Made to Stick” and get some concepts from them, but below are some of my thoughts:

1)  It is launched by former Google employees

2)  It’s index is 3 times larger than Google’s  (From Marketing class in college – compare yourself to bigger player in the market to make yourself seem bigger)

3)  It has good financial backing

4)  Google is only good/expert at one product:  Search.  It gets 98% of it’s revenue from Search.  So if someone new enters the marketplace with new way of doing search or at least showing search results, people will talk about a company that is challenging giant like Google whose stock price is $477.52 (as of today).

Plus i think people are tired of seeing only player dominate the search market place.  Challenge is who can provide better search results and dethrone the king.  And that’s exactly what Cuil does: it challenges the big G and that’s why it’s getting all these free publicity.  Key challenge now is to keep people coming back to Cuil after it’s 5 minutes of fame. 

Question they need to answer is:  Why should a normal searcher come back to Cuil.com after tomorrow?  Why would media want to keep talking about this new company in a month or so?

Overall, i like it.  Not bad to show results, they need to fix their images though.

Tejas

Wow, so Microsoft says – we raised the bid from $31/share to $33/share.  Yahoo still decides to be stubborn and says, nope, we are worth more.  So, here we are.  When i read the email on Sat night from Ballmer, i had mixed emotions.  I really had feeling that this deal will go through and it was just matter of time.  However, when i read the news, i was kinda of glad that Ballmer decided what he decided.  I heard him at the company meeting on Thursday and it was apparent on his face that he was stressed out but he made sense and he was talking logically.  The best part was:  “i know what Yahoo is worth” and “Yahoo is NOT the strategy, it is part of the online strategy”.  So we’ll see how market reacts tomorrow to this announcement. 

So what did we learn from all these? 

1)  Microsoft is darn serious about online advertising and search

2)  Yahoo is willing to be sold to a highest bidder and has given up on fighting Google

3)  Google will do everything possible to steal the show and make MSFT look bad  [However, i must say G is really smart. G and Y are working together to make Y's search inventory like an auction system]

There we have it.  This kind of stuff makes being in online advertising world exciting.  Now, i just wish FB would figure something about it’s revenue stream.  G only has one competition at this point and it’s FB.  If FB were to go public tomorrow, i would so buy it’s stock.  I regret not buying G’s stock when it went public.

Anyway, now the question becomes:  How will market react to this announcement?  Will Y’s stock price go down (i believe it will significantly) and what will happen to MSFT’s stock price?  I read somewhere that Yahoo is doing everything possible to to get a deal with Google done before market opens on Monday to reduce the drop in it’s stock price.

Exciting times

T

After hearing so much about Joost and how it will change the way we watch TV, I decided to sign up for it.  Couple of days ago i got email from Joost asking me to beta test it.  Well i tried it.

My first impression went something like this:  cooool.  this is nice.  Windows popped open went full screen and video was clear.  Nice interface, took me while to figure out the navigation, especially to find the power button.  I still haven’t found a minimize button.  Below are some screen shots:

As soon as it was launched, it played an ad for transformers:

Notice the navigation on all four sides of the screen.

Upon clicking on “My Channels”, see below.  I like the menu, pretty slick.

Channel Catalog allows you to choose category.  Whatever you feel like watching be it films, documentary, music, sports, etc.

I was able to find “News Radio” and while watching it i noticed this little box on my bottom right corner for “Army” (The sponsor).  Box disappeared after few seconds and just like on TV there was a 30 second ad from the sponsor – they have to make money somehow.  I did not find the ad that intrusive, it came and disappeared in few seconds.  As long they don’t show ads every few mins and interupt my viewing, i’m ok with seeing ads once in a while.  It would be really awesome if ads were relevant to whatever program was talking about, that should have great CTR.  Also, instead of showing ads randomly if Joost can display ads based on demography of people who are most likely to watch that program, advertisers should see higher return on their investments.

I saw lot of options for international viewers as well – but ads got to be more relevant.  This is Internet, should be able to at least guess the demographic of the consumer, also since programs are pre-recorded Joost must find a way to match advertiser with content of the program.

And then Joost crashes on me   It is in beta so it is completely acceptable, that’s why they call it Beta.

Upon re-launching it, Now if you click on “My Joost” there is a setting called “Widget Menu”- see below:

I think this is awesome.  This menu gives lot of options to the users, love the instant messaging and “blog this” capabilities, very nice.  And just like Windows sidebar you can move the widgets around on your screen.

One thing i don’t like is it’s obsession with going full screen, it’s kind of annoying.  Well, when i went into advanced settings i found great control features. And option that allowed me to uncheck “full screen” box.  I also noticed great security features that parents might find useful, such as entering pin.

Other thing that annoyed me quite a bit is it’s navigation, how do you bring it back again and how do you make it disappear?  Still can’t figure it out and not so user friendly.

So let’s do SWOT analysis:

Strengths:  good video quality, nice interface, web 2.0 feeling

Weaknesses:  Navigation, full screen, load time

Opportunities:  more quality programs or programs that consumers might enjoy watching, partner with TV networks to put their episodes on Joost, specifically for chatting feature allow user to access their AOL, MSN, yahoo buddy lists (now that’d be cool), show ads relevant to the program

Threats:  Lack of choice in programs, other IPTV providers, inability to convince big networks to put quality programs on Joost

I still can’t find minimize button.  If you want an invite to Joost, please let me know.

Overall:  Not bad, pretty cool.

Tejas

That’s right, May 24th will go down in history as a day when Facebook became a Man.  Today Facebook announced “Facebook Platform”, where it is giving amazing control to developers, and users where they will be able to add third party apps, and lot of other good stuff.

So here is what will happen next:

This confirms that Facebook is really smart, Yahoo is really regretting not buying Facebook when it had the chance.  So now Google and Microsoft will be fighting each other to buy these guys.  Let’s see how high they can go. 

But the real question is, does Facebook want to be bought out?  I

Here’s what I think:  i don’t think Facebook will be bought out by either one of the two giants.  It will go on its own.  It’s a great social networking site, way better than MySpace, clean interface, no junk, no spam, users love it, advertisers love the target audience that uses Facebook, what else do you need?  It now needs it own search engine or search engine that will provide it results (Go with Live.com ).

If FaceBook want to be bought out, Microsoft should do everything possible to buy them and not let this deal go to Google or anyone else for that matter.  Of course my opinions are biased.

Other news that shadowed Facebook announcement was MSN lost market share, not 0.5 but whole 1%, how in the world?  Acquisition of aQuantive will not bring up that market share.  Let’s see.

Tejas

I’m regular reader of Mark Cuban’s blog.  How many CEO’s you know has time to blog on regular basis, not that many.  Yesterday he posted a blog entry titled: “Donald – Need a Job?”.  That was sooo hilarious.  It’s amazing how this guy has so much guts and speaks his mind without worrying about what other people might think of him.  It is great.  Way to go Mark – You rock.

Wow, this is third post in 3 days

Tejas

What in the world is going on?  Everyone is buying they get their hands on and might I add paying way more than its worth.  Yes it is known fact that more eyeballs equals more advertising dollars, but buying everything you get your hand on, reminds lot of people of dot com era.  Recently, there is lot of buzz in the industry of online advertising bubble bursting.  Are critics just being overly cautious or are they right?

After acquisition of aQuantive for $6 Billion by Microsoft, news of Yahoo purchasing Bebo.com for $1 billion is in talks and Google going after Feedburner.  Let’s see who else is left in the market?  Facebook.com – now that’s the site i really like and i believe Yahoo was in talks with them few months ago but apparently it didn’t work out.  Main question would be, if Facebook were to be on sale, how much would it go for?  Easily in billions considering how three giants (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft) have open their wallets to everyone and anyone.  Craziness if you ask me.  First it was Google buying YouTube, then Microsoft buying portion of (80% i believe ) of CareerBuilder.com, Google buying DoubleClick, Yahoo buying Right Media, MySpace buying Photobucket, Microsoft buying aQuantive, and now talks of Yahoo buying Bebo.com and Google going after Feedburner – holy smokes. 

Like i was saying earlier, only player that remains to be bought out is Facebook.com – just came across an article on it TechCrunch.com.  I kinda agree and disagree with portions of the post on Techcrunch.  Yahoo is definitely out, so it comes down to Google and Microsoft.  Yes it does make sense for Google to buy it, but it ALSO makes sense for Microsoft to purchase it.  It will be MS’s entry into social networking, plus Microsoft already has existing banner advertisement deal with Facebook, why not take it to the next level and purchase the darn company.  I’m not quiet sure if Facebook going public makes lot of sense.

So let’s see who eats up Facebook.com and how far, G, Y, and M will go to purchase this hot property.

Tejas