Software
Andreessen: Software is eating the world – virtually and in the physical world; http://eicker.at/Software
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Acquires Motorola
Page/Google: I am so excited today to announce that we have agreed to acquire Motorola; http://eicker.at/GoogleMotorola
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Gerrit Eicker
Page/Google: “Since its launch in November 2007, Android has not only dramatically increased consumer choice but also improved the entire mobile experience for users. Today, more than 150 million Android devices have been activated worldwide – with over 550,000 devices now lit up every day – through a network of about 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries. Given Android’s phenomenal success, we are always looking for new ways to supercharge the Android ecosystem. That is why I am so excited today to announce that we have agreed to acquire Motorola. … Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. … This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. … The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences.”
Google: “Google Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies. – The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.”
BI: “Needless to say this is a gamechanger in the mobile world, as Google moves down the stack, and is no longer just an operating system provider meaning it competes directly with Apple as well as the various other handset makers who currently use Android. … Other handset makers, like RIMM and Nokia are both up pre-market on the news as the focus obviously turns to Microsoft: Is it now forced to buy one of them? Or does Microsoft benefit because the remaining handset makers (Samsung, etc.) now turn more towards Windows?”
TC: “Big question now is: how will HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Acer, Huawei, Lenovo and all other Android device makers respond to this news?”
TNW: “Analysts and industry experts have said Google needs to get into the handset business but nobody predicted this. Google has upped its game and is on a collision course with Apple, we can’t wait to see how it pans out.”
HuffPo: “In January 2011, Motorola announced that it would split into two companies: Motorola Solutions, which would manufacture tech products aimed at businesses; and Motorola Mobility, which would focus solely on handsets.”
HuffPo: “Motorola, the 82-year-old consumer electronics pioneer responsible for early televisions, cell phones and even the first broadcast from the moon, split into two companies … in a reflection of changing markets. – As separate companies – Mobility, targeting consumers, and Solutions, for professionals – the two will have simpler stories to tell investors and a nimbler approach to developing cutting-edge products such as tablet computers.”
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Gerrit Eicker
GigaOM: “[T]his … gives Google a chance to build very integrated devices that combine hardware and software well, something Apple products are known for. But it will, again, pit Google against its manufacturing partners. – Now, we’ll have to see how if this adds momentum to Android or saps it. Will it be worth it ultimately for Google to get more patent protection and its own hardware maker, or could this slow down the Android Express?”
GigaOM: “However, purchasing Motorola Mobility isn’t a magic bullet solution to Android’s ongoing patent woes. Apple and Microsoft decided to pursue legal action against Motorola despite its patent portfolio, so it obviously isn’t watertight. But whereas previously Google seemed to have little recourse beyond complaining publicly about the unfairness of the system, now it has some actual weight to throw around in court. … As far as ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ moves goes, this one by Google is a pretty bold one. It was beginning to look like Android was facing a long, slow death at the hands of licensing fees and patent litigation.”
TC: “During today’s conference call explaining the deal, Page noted that Motorola’s ‘strong patent portfolio’ will help Google defend Android against ‘Microsoft, Apple, and other companies.’ The first two questions on the call went right to the patent issue as well. With Android under attack on the patent front by Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and others, buying Motorola is very much a defensive move as well.”
Doc Searls: “At the very least, this is patent play. That’s why Larry talked about intellectual property. In mobile, Motorola (I’m guessing, but I’m sure I’m right) has a bigger patent portfolio than anybody else, going back to the dawn of the whole category. Oracle started a patent war a year ago by suing Google, and Google looked a bit weak in that first battle. So now, in buying Motorola, Google is building the biggest patent fort that it can. In that area alone, Google now holds more cards than anybody, especially its arch-rival, Apple.”
TNW: “This is a massive twist and major turn in the patent battle, and Google has well and truly upped the game. – It is sad to see innovative companies resort to patent acquisition tactics to get one-up on competitors, but sometimes the only option is to fight fire with fire. – However, let’s not forget this isn’t just about patents. Google now has direct access to mobile phone handsets too, so who knows what other developments we’ll see in the coming months/years.”
pC: “Patents may be why Page also noted that the top five Android licensees showed ‘enthusiastic support’ for the deal. Google was quick to put out a release with quotes from four of them to support that. From Samsung’s Mobile head J.K. Shin: ‘We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners & ecosystem.’ … Meanwhile, the markets and the Internet are now zooming with speculation about what this might all mean for the wider mobile competitive landscape. Nokia’s shares are creeping up, as people wonder if this increases the changes of Microsoft buying it…”
ATD: “First of all, the deal will give a lot of fresh meat to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is already investigating several aspects of Google’s business, including its Android mobile operating system business. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, investigators from the FTC and from the offices of several state attorneys general have been exploring whether or not Google prevents phone manufactures who become Android partners from using the smartphone operating systems of other companies.”
RWW: “The deal is subject to regulatory approval in both the United States and the European Union. Yet, unlike many of Google’s acquisitions in recent years, this one should go through relatively quickly. That is because of what Apple has done to the ecosystem. … Yet, that is excluding the Android ecosystem itself. If Android is ‘open’ (and many people doubt how open it actually is, even if it is licensed for free), then what is going to happen with Samsung and HTC? … Android lovers should be excited that Google now has Motorola under its thumb. There should be more and better Android devices coming to market. Google lovers should be happy because it means that Google is defending itself in the patent wars and should raise the bottom line of the company. Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and the Android ecosystem should be wary because Google now has the capability of completing disrupting the balance of the environment in the same way that Apple has.”
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Gerrit Eicker
GigaOM: “Our sources say that Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft for quite some time. Microsoft was interested in acquiring Motorola’s patent portfolio that would have allowed it to torpedo Android even further. The possibility of that deal brought Google to the negotiation table, resulting in the blockbuster sale.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Virtual Office
McAfee: The definition of workplace changes, dramatic increases in productivity could be ahead; http://eicker.at/VirtualOffice
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Gerrit Eicker
#PlusGate
Google Plus likes to escape its homemade identity crisis, but #PlusGate keeps trending; http://eicker.at/PlusGate
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Gerrit Eicker
Horowitz: “Last night, Robert Scoble shared some information based on his conversation with Vic Gundotra. That post went a long way toward clearing the air, and we want to thank many of you for your feedback and support. … We’ve noticed that many violations of the Google+ common name policy were in fact well-intentioned and inadvertent and for these users our process can be frustrating and disappointing. So we’re currently making a number of improvements to this process – specifically regarding how we notify these users that they’re not in compliance with Google+ policies and how we communicate the remedies available to them. … Second, we’re looking at ways to improve the signup process to reduce the likelihood that users get themselves into a state that will later result in review. … We’ll keep working to get better, and we appreciate the feedback – and the passion – that Google+ has generated.”
Winer: “There’s a very simple business reason why Google cares if they have your real name. It means it’s possible to cross-relate your account with your buying behavior with their partners, who might be banks, retailers, supermarkets, hospitals, airlines. To connect with your use of cell phones that might be running their mobile operating system. To provide identity in a commerce-ready way. And to give them information about what you do on the Internet, without obfuscation of pseudonyms.”
Wired: “After a steady stream of angry blog posts and heated debate among its own users over the value of pseudonymity on the web, Google announced Monday that it was revising its ‘real name’ policy, at least for display, on Google+. … Google’s response aims to try to make social identification nearly as nuanced and granular as its approach to sharing content has been. Users can already add nicknames to their profile, as well as ‘other names’… Let’s be clear, though: All of these changes affect only the public display of identity to other users and the open web. Google itself still wants your full identity, or at least as much identity information as possible. Other users may only get partial glimpses at your multiple and overlapping identities, as well as the information you share. Google gets everything. … Under the banner of increased privacy and user control, it solicits information from you that, were it viewable by everyone in your networks, you would most likely keep to yourself. – Well, now we’ve given you almost everything, Google. Please don’t be evil.”
EFF: “A new debate around pseudonymity on online platforms has arisen as a result of the identification policy of Google+, which requires users to identify by ‘the name your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you’. This policy is similar to that of Facebook’s which requires users to ‘provide their real names and information.’ Google’s policy has in a few short weeks attracted significant attention both within the community and outside of it, sparking debate as to whether a social platform should place limits on identity. … It is well within the rights of any company – Google, Facebook, or otherwise – to create policies as they see fit for their services. But it is shortsighted for these companies to suggest that ‘real name’ policies create greater potential for civility, when they only do so at the expense of diversity and free expression. Indeed, a shift toward crafting policies requiring ‘real’ names will have a chilling effect on online free expression.”
Hinckley: “This whole persona/pseudonym argument may seem like a tempest in a teapot, but the fact is, the forum for public discourse is no longer the town hall, or newspaper, or fliers on the street. It is here on the Internet, and it is happening in communities like this, hosted by private sector companies. Freedom of speech is not guaranteed in these places. As Lawrence Lessig once said, ‘the code is the law.’ The code that Google applies, the rules they set up now in the software, are going to influence our right to speak out now and in the future. It is imperative that we impress upon Google the importance of providing users with the same rights (and responsibilities) as exist in the society that nurtured Google and brought about its success. … Behind every pseudonym is a real person. Deny the pseudonym and you deny the person.”
WSJ: “Actually, compared with Google’s other recent forays into the world of social media, Google+ has done pretty well. It took Buzz and Wave just a few hours before they began to be overwhelmed with bad publicity. It has taken a month for the knives to come out for Google+.”
TC: “Google Minus – Each of the past three weeks, we’ve been seeing less and less traffic referred. And that’s with the overall network supposedly growing. – Part of that may be Google’s own fault. They really screwed up the brand situation. They even gutted one of our employees who just wanted to share content. – It would be hard to overstate just how important this second phase of Google+ is for Google. While they’re not a small startup limited by resources and money, they still only get one chance to make a first impression. In the first two weeks, that impression was very good. In the last two, not as good.“
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Gerrit Eicker
NWW: “Google continues to suspend pseudonymous Profile accounts that are not real names, judging from today’s suspension of ‘Botgirl Questi‘, the avatar name of a well-known SL blogger. In real life, Botgirl is David Elfanbaum, co-founder of a high tech consultancy called Asynchrony Solutions. … ‘Out of 50,000 people who may be familiar with me, 95% know me as Botgirl Questi. So theoretically under their existing policy, it should be my real life account that got suspended.’ (Google’s rules state the profile name should be one ‘that you commonly go by in daily life.’) Also, Elfanbaum adds, ‘I’m in solidarity with the majority of those with avatar identities who have not linked with real life.‘”
Botgirl Questi: “My new site aggregating #plusgate #nymwars posts and articles. Please /cc me on new links that I should add.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Guardian: “Google+ pseudonym wars escalate – is it the new being ‘banned from the ranch’? – The list of blocked users is what is now being referred to as the NymWars extends to some fairly influential users. Most embarrassingly for Google, the latest is Blake Ross, co-founder of Firefox, who was inexplicably blocked from the service on Wednesday night. He trumps even William Shatner. … It’s risky for Google to take what feels like a hardline approach, for two reasons. Firstly, many of the users it is now penalising for using online monikers are valuable, influential early adopters – and Google really needs them to be on side. Secondly, given the battle for this space, and how Google+ needs to prove itself by getting to a critical mass of people as quickly as possible, it can’t afford to lose momentum.”
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Gerrit Eicker
The Atlantic: “The kind of naming policy that Facebook and Google Plus have is actually a radical departure from the way identity and speech interact in the real world. They attach identity more strongly to every act of online speech than almost any real world situation does. … [I]n real life, we expect very few statements to be public, persistent, and attached to your real identity. Basically, only people talking on television or to the media can expect such treatment. And even then, the vast majority of their statements don’t become part of the searchable Internet. … [P]seudonyms allow statements to be public and persistent, but not attached to one’s real identity. – I can understand why Google and Facebook don’t want this to happen. It’s bad for their marketing teams. … They are creating tighter links between people’s behavior and their identities than has previously existed in the modern world.”
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Gerrit Eicker
BB: “+Soulja Boy, +T-Pain, and other pop celebrities won’t have a problem using Google+ with their stage names, but internet-eccentrics who’ve been known in the world by non-normal names for years can’t get a break – in some cases, even when those ‘weird’ names are in fact their legal names. Tim Carmody of Wired has the latest on Google+ nymwars. Yes, it’s still in beta, but boy oh boy do they seem determined to screw this pooch.”
Gizmodo: “Google’s Real Names Policy is Evil – Google’s horrible new policy on using real names in Google+ effectively means that the service is now a danger to real people. You have to ask yourself why a company that pledged to not be evil would do this. … Forget social networking, the big goldmine of the future is online identity verification. This could be Google prioritizing getting ahead in that race over its users’ preferences and safety. – In other words, it’s Google putting money and greed over humanity. It’s Google being evil. … The easy answer, of course, is simply to not use Google+. And I’m quite sure some people will posit that as a solution. But there are two reasons that’s not the answer. – First, Google is too big and too important. … Second, and this is related to the first, is that Google+ is a community. And we as a society we have a duty to work to make our communities free and open.”
RWW: “Google’s Joseph Smarr refers us to this video interview (at 9:30) he did with Alex Howard, where among other things he offers the following explanation. (Thanks to Carolyn Martin for the transcription.) – ‘It’s not just enough to offer the ability to post under a pseudonymous identifier. If you’re going to make the commitment that we’re not going to out your real identity, that actually takes a lot of work, right? Especially if you’re using your real account to log in, and then posting under a pseudonym. And so we feel a real responsibility that if we’re gonna make the claim to people, ‘it’s safe, you’re not gonna get outed’, that we really think through the architecture end to end and make sure that there aren’t any loopholes or gotchas where all of a sudden you get outed. And that’s actually a hard thing to do in software. And so, I think that’s [ ] an angle people often miss … we don’t want to do it wrong so we’d rather wait until we get it right.’ – Does that sound like Google might change this policy in the future? I’ve followed up with Smarr to ask for more details.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google DDP
AdAge: [Google attempts] to create a liquid market for the data used to target display advertising; http://eicker.at/GoogleDDP
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus: Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, Mobile, Huddle
Google starts its own social network Google Plus finally, the nuance and richness of real-life sharing; http://eicker.at/GooglePlus
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. … Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. – In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. – We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project.”
Google+: “Google+ is in limited Field Trial – Right now, we’re testing with a small number of people, but it won’t be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone. Leave us your email address and we’ll make sure you’re the first to know when we’re ready to invite more people.” … +Circles: “You share different things with different people. … Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself, just like real life.” +Sparks: “…looks for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read, and share.” +Hangouts: “With Hangouts, the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time. Let buddies know you’re hanging out and see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat.” +Mobile: “…Your photos upload themselves. +Huddle: “Huddle takes care of it by turning all those different conversations into one simple group chat…”
RWW: “The fundamental value proposition is around privacy: it’s the opposite of Facebook and Twitter’s universal broadcast paradigm. Google Plus is based on the Google Circles feature, which lets you share and view content to and from explicitly identified groups of your contacts, and no one else. It’s really easy to use and a great feature – but even if you’re communicating out in public, the rest of the service is very well designed, too. This is a smart, attractive, very strong social offering from Google. … Anything that can increase the percentage of social software users who are actively curating dynamic, topical sources is a net win for the web and for the people who use it.”
TC: “The reality is that Google is in a better position to organize all of the social signals we broadcast online rather than to organize all of the individuals making those signals. – Instead of building another social network, I’d like to see Google focus on helping us search through all the user-generated signals and content and to help us with our search, much of which is done offline through social questions, not keyword-speak. (Although, the threaded comments approach Google+ is using in the main stream it presents to users does lend itself to friends asking each other questions and answering them). This approach would let Google focus on what it excels at, helping us find information online, especially information created by our friends and friends of friends, perhaps even in an instant. Now, that would be a huge plus.”
Mashable: “Google+ is a bold and dramatic attempt at social. There’s a reason why Google calls this a ‘project’ rather than a ‘product’ — they don’t want people to think of this as the final product, but as a constantly-evolving entity that permeates every corner of the Google empire. – Overall, Google+ is solid. But I’m not going to call it a Facebook killer or a game-changer. The last Google product I said that about was the ill-fated Google Buzz. Perhaps that’s why Google’s rolling this out slowly via invites, the same style Gmail used to release itself to the world. – If Google can persuade users to come back every day, it has a winner. But the company will have to do even more to provide a truly compelling alternative to Facebook. At the moment, Google+ cannot compete with the king of social, but Google doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to take on Mark Zuckerberg’s giant quite yet.”
pC: “It’s going to be a while before we find out whether or not this is something that will resonate with the public, and that’s actually a good thing: by launching the service in an invitation-only mode, Google will have time to discover flaws and fix bugs among a group of early adopters who are likely to be much more understanding when problems arise than the general public, which freaked out about the mistakes Google made when launching Google Buzz. Google’s taking a risk that Google+ won’t have enough users on board in its early days to facilitate connections, but it seems to have decided that erring on the side of getting privacy features right is more important than building a Facebook killer on Day 1.”
TNW: “A complete video tour of Google+ featuring Mobile, Sparks and Circles“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Goes FTC
Google responds to FTC: Supporting choice, ensuring economic opportunity; http://eicker.at/GoogleFTC
Gerrit Eicker
FTC Goes Google
WSJ: FTC regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation; http://eicker.at/FTCGoogle
Gerrit Eicker
Twitter vs. UberMedia
UberMedia plans a Twitter competitor, Twitter plans to buy UberMedia’s TweetDeck. Any winners? http://eicker.at/TwitterUberMedia
Gerrit Eicker
NYT Paywall Impact
Hitwise: The NYT paywall impact is strong. Visits -5% to -15%, page views -11% to -30%; http://eicker.at/NYTPaywallImpact
Gerrit Eicker 09:22 on 21. August 2011 Permalink |
Andreessen: “This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I’ve observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the recent turmoil in the stock market. – In short, software is eating the world. … Why is this happening now? … Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. … Software is also eating much of the value chain of industries that are widely viewed as primarily existing in the physical world. … Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming. This includes even industries that are software-based today. … Instead of constantly questioning their valuations, let’s seek to understand how the new generation of technology companies are doing what they do, what the broader consequences are for businesses and the economy and what we can collectively do to expand the number of innovative new software companies created in the U.S. and around the world.”