by Call2actionmedia | Feb 23, 2016 | Your Call To Action
I have written about this before but am seeing some interesting headlines which I believe are related… 1) 2/22/16 Google Shuttering Comparison-Shopping Site for Auto Insurance, Credit Cards, Mortgages http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-shuttering-comparison-shopping-site-for-auto-insurance-credit-cards-and-mortgages-1456194520?mod=djemalertTECH Google Compare shutdown after one year is a setback to the Alphabet Inc. unit’s efforts to provide niche shopping services and financial-services tools. The quick reversal is a setback to the Alphabet unit’s efforts to use its enormous reach to provide consumers with niche shopping services and financial-services tools. 2) 2/23/16 “Google is sinking into an antitrust quagmire” http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/23/google-is-sinking-into-an-antitrust-quagmire-commentary.html Google parent Alphabet is sinking further into an antitrust quagmire. The European Commission may beef up its anti-competitive complaint against Google, Bloomberg reported on Monday. U.S. authorities are probing the search giant, too. Proving abuses will be difficult, but the expanding scope means the company will have to expend more energy to pull itself out of the bog. Google has long dominated web searches — it has almost two-thirds of the U.S. market, according to ComScore, and a higher percentage in many European markets. That has brought it regulatory scrutiny for years. Demonstrating that the company has used its position abusively has been difficult. It’s easy to click on another search service and hard to prove Google is harming the public by injecting additional information into results. U.S. authorities dropped a probe in 2013 after the company promised to behave. Earlier this month, a London court found Google had not unfairly crushed a rival by putting its maps on top of search...
by Call2actionmedia | May 21, 2015 | Your Call To Action
The tech world is known for its intense competition and its dog eat dog culture. By its nature, if IP isnt protected its useless. Relationships and switching costs may mitigate some of that but the end result is an extremely competitive landscape. That is what makes Tech exciting and Silicon Valley the epicenter of this excitement. Its important and probably challenging to remain cutthroat and remain a good natured person. Most people probably can’t seperate the two. An person who seemed to have lived this dichotomy was recently taken way too early from the world, Mr. Dave Goldberg (The Ultimate Mensch). By the massive outpouring of grief, it is evident that many people were touched by and benefited from him. That aspect of a person, the ability to spread goodness, is whats most important as evidenced by ones legacy. By contrast, Steve Jobs left the world with great technology but as a person his memory is tarred by his ruthlessness. Another example, in my opinion, of a world class example of positivity was the signing of the multi-billion dollar deal papers at the Welfare office by former recipient Jan Koum. My interpretation of this is firstly a clear message to people that the American Dream is alive and well. More importantly it shows a deep level of gratitude. When Mr. Koum was in this country as an immigrant, the United States government provided him with basic neccessaties and provided basic levels of care to him and his family as he got on his feet, something not forgotten. His success shines bright when put into perspective of the obstacles he overcame....
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 31, 2015 | Your Call To Action
Google makes their bread and butter by having algorithms read many signals, interpret and serve accurate results to the inquirer. Knowing which signals to look out for and how to weight them is their secret sauce. But, can Google also be a provider of signals? What does this job posting signal about Real...
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 9, 2015 | Your Call To Action
I am a huge fan of Google. I had a feeling from the begining that they would become the dominant force they became. In a world of unreliablility, Google was a solid pillar at least in terms of stable systems. Google’s strength lies in the fact that it is an advertising company creating connections between people whether it be consumer to business or business to business. It does this (and this may be debatable) by creating an agnostic system rewarding the highest quality providers with the most traffic. It has also done a great job making this system ubiquotous (case in point, my right click doing spell check on Google to check that spelling). While Google is clearly in a strong position in many businesses for example the Android mobile operating system, I feel there are some real issues under the hood with search. In February, it was revealed that Google lost 2 points of market share to Yahoo when Firefox switched their default search to Yahoo (see: http://www.zdnet.com/article/yahoo-search-share-gains-on-googles-losses-thanks-to-firefox-deal/). That means it wasnt important enough or the user did not detect (Yahoo is smart enough to make the UI/UX Google like to avoid issues) that this was not their usual Google search results. This is a big deal. Then there is the upcoming Safari deal where slowly Google’s wide net is suddenly becoming smaller. Additionally, mobile search is clearly not being dominated by any one player yet and Google has yet to show anything too sticky there. A more recent troubling sign has been Google’s recent moves into competitor territory in the lead generation business with moves into Car Insurance,...
by Call2actionmedia | Feb 25, 2015 | Your Call To Action
We need more of it. This is a great step by Google. Facebook should create topic based real-time chat rooms. Slack is figuring this out in a big way. There are so many benefits.. In the Google example, how many businesses already generate X incremental engagements by having real time chat.. think the secretary at work who cannot pick up the phone to do her shopping. We need more of...
