January 22, 2009
Google showed its business dodged the worst of the economic slowdown. Revenue rose 18 percent in the fourth quarter and impressed investors, who had lowered their expectations in recent weeks.
We're in a worldwide recession, says Eric Schmidt
“It’s clear we’re in a worldwide recession,” CEO Eric Schmidt said Thursday on a conference call. But the company cut costs and saw growth in most of its markets.
While it appeared that cost-per-click, a measure of ad profitability, fell in the quarter, business for Google was solid in the U.S. and in the emerging markets of China and Brazil.
The company also said it anticipated key innovations in the months ahead. There is a huge untapped potential in online search, said Schmidt.
What if Google could understand the meaning of words people type into search queries? The company has new products to roll out in this area, Schmidt said.
There also are “breakthroughs” coming this year in the use display advertising on YouTube, Schmidt promised. Nevertheless, despite experimentation with advertising on the video site, “we’ve not found a single solution that drives revenue,” he said. “We’re working on that.”
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news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Downturn, Earnings, Google, Online Advertising, Online Search, youtube | 
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Posted by Mark Boslet
January 15, 2009
With televisions beginning to include Internet browsing, Google on Thursday launched a Web site aimed at bringing YouTube videos to the TV.
New site initially set up for PlayStation and Wii
YouTube for Television will initially work with just the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii (what about Microsoft’s Xbox 360?). But the Internet search giant vows to add support for more television “devices” that provide browsers.
YouTube, the largest video site on the Web, has been searching for ways to include more professionally generated content and to earn more money from the content it shows. The announcement, released on a Google blog, didn’t address either of these business issues.
But television access could expand YouTube’s audience, especially with more mainstream, less Net savvy viewers. That might permit the greater use of ads with videos.
The TV Wedsite, now in beta, tries to imitate the 10-foot TV viewing experience and a “steamlined interface” that lets people find videos with “just a few clicks of the remote.” It has an optional auto-play feature for related videos.
The site is available in 22 geographies in 12 languages.
Leave a Comment » | hardware, news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Google, Online Video, Television, Web Browsing, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
December 29, 2008
Major record companies are said to be looking at plans to launch a YouTube competitor
Rival site could be patterned after Hulu
The report from the Financial Times said the site would be patterned after Hulu, the video site owned by NBC Universal and News Corp. Hulu shows television programs along with ads.
A variety of plans are under consideration, including a partnership with Hulu, a partnership with YouTube and a separate site.
Sony, EMI and Universal are negotiating with Google for the display of their content on YouTube while Warner has pulled out of talks on a contract with the search giant. Google owns YouTube.
Leave a Comment » | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: EMI, Google, Hulu. Music Companies, Online Video, Sony, Universal, Warner, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
December 19, 2008
November saw a decline in online search activity, largely because it has one fewer day than October, but Google gained share over its rivals.
Search share for November
Americans conducted 12.3 billion searches in the month, down 3 percent, according to comScore.
Google captured 63.5 percent of searches in the month, up 0.4 percentage points, the research firm said. Yahoo’s share was mostly unchanged at 20.4 percent, down 0.1 percentage points.
Microsoft slipped slightly to 8.3 percent and Ask Networks declined modestly to 4 percent.
In November, YouTube was responsible for about 25 percent of Google’s search volume.
Leave a Comment » | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Ask Networks, ComScore, Google, Microsoft, November, Online Search, Search Market, yahoo, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
December 11, 2008
No need to open the browser anymore: YouTube is on the desktop.
Google announced Thursday the launch of a YouTube gadget for Windows and Linux (not Mac). The desktop window plays videos and lists the most popular videos of the day.
The announcement follows by days the release of a similar gadget for Gmail, Google’s free e-mail program – another in the parade of thousands of gadgets Google and outside developers have made available for use on the Google homepage or a PC desktop.
The YouTube gadget highlighted by the company Thursday works inside Google’s Desktop search software for indexing and sorting through the contents of a PC. This also is true of the Gmail gadget.
With all the desktop pop-ups now available alongside Google’s online calendar and documents, who needs the bulky operating-system environment of Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s Mac OS X? When asked, Google just rolls its eyes.
Google's new YouTube desktop gadget
1 Comment | computers, news, software, web 2.0 | Tagged: Apple, gadget, Gmail, Google, Google Desktop, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Operating System, windows, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
December 9, 2008
Video on the Web is taking off with U.S. Internet users viewing 13.5 billion clips in October, 45 percent growth from last year.
The top destination for videos is Google’s YouTube, which commanded nearly 40 percent market share in the month, said comScore. Visitors watched nearly 5.4 billion videos on post-your-own-content site.
YouTube accounts for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed on Google’s sprawling list of online sites.
The second most popular destination is Fox Interactive Media, owner of MySpace, followed by Yahoo! and Viacom Digital. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox featuring television programming, was sixth.
Fox Interactive Media had 3.8 percent market share, said market monitor comScore.
During the month, more than 147 million Internet users watched an average of 92 videos, or an average of 274 minutes. Google’s sites attracted 100 million of them. Fox had 61 million viewers.
More than 80 percent of 18 to 34 years old watched video online – the top age segment.
Top Sites For Viewing Online Video
1 Comment | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: ComScore, Fox Interactive Media, Google, hulu, MySpace, Online Video, Viacom Digital, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
December 5, 2008
No worries for the CEO of Twitter. If they can't succeed making money, they'll probably get bought!
Talking earlier this week at the Churchill Club in San Francisco, Calif., Twitter’s CEO pointed the fact that in the last 5 years none of the very popular Internet services have gone away because they could not make money.
Those really successful Internet companies would get acquired but not disappear or die.
A reference to the San Francisco startup of course that is still looking for ways to monetize its growing user base; which now total 6 million subscribers.
To prove his point, Williams cited YouTube and Paypal as two popular Internet companies that also had trouble – YouTube still is - monetizing their success.
“YouTube sold to Google because they were going to get their pants suit out. If that wasn’t the case, then the founders and their backers wouldn’t want to sell because it’s the future of television in the U.S. They had some unique things working against them,” said Williams.
And Williams knows the topic fairly well having sold Blogger to Google in February 2003 and recently rejected Facebook’s $500 million offer!
Leave a Comment » | startups, web 2.0 | Tagged: churchill club, PayPal, Twitter, youtube | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
December 2, 2008
Here are the search terms with the greatest growth in usage over the past year. No great surprises here, except maybe SurfTheChannel.
“We combed through billions of anonymous, aggregated search queries to bring you this snapshot of what’s been top-of-mind for Americans,” says Google.
1. Obama
2. Facebook
3. Att
4. iPhone
5. YouTube
6. Fox News
7. Palin
8. Beijing 2008
9. David Cook
10. SurfTheChannel
Leave a Comment » | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Facebook, Google, iPhone, Most Popular Search Terms, Obama, Search, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
November 25, 2008
Ok. So it’s not the biggest news of the day. But what the heck. A lot of people are going to see it when they go to the site.
Mimics high-definition TV
Google said Tuesday that its YouTube player has gotten wider and the sidebar has gone on a diet.
“YouTube changed the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, (the ratio) generally used for high-definition TV. Videos using the older proportions show black pillars to the left and right.”
This according to a blog post by Philipp Lenssen.
Leave a Comment » | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Google, High Definition TV, Wider Video Player, youtube | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
November 24, 2008
The Opera Mini Internet browser supports all Java enabled phones
In spite fierce competition from Google, Firefox and Microsoft, Opera software is not giving up on the Internet browser market.
The Norwegian company is releasing tomorrow the final version of its Opera Mini 4.2 browser for all Java-enabled phones, including Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.
However, the version for Google’s G1 Android phone is still in beta and no versions – native or Java – are yet planned for Apple’s iPhone.
“Special porting to Android was required as it uses a proprietary implementation of Java,” explains Opera spokesperson, Falguni Bhuta.
The beta of the Opera Mini 4.2 browser was announced two weeks ago in conjunction of a new datacenter improving browsing speeds for U.S. users. The new mobile browser adds colourful “skins”, improved support for YouTube and other mobile video services and better synchronisation between mobile phones and Mac/Windows PCs.
The new version can be downloaded here directly from your phone, starting tomorrow morning at 10 AM (EDT).
3 Comments | news, software, wireless | Tagged: android, browser, Chrome, g1, Google, Internet, java, Microsoft, opera, youtube | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
