Seriously, What’s Google Up To?

With the release of the oddly titled Google Base, Google promises to dominate yet another market: online classifieds. Not content with trying to index the world’s Websites, the new beta service allows people to create even more content, including “all types of online and offline information and images.”

While the company insists Base is not a classified ad service, since this content will be searchable not only on Google Base but also on Google Search, Froogle and Google Local, you know doggone well it will be used for classified ads.

Given the huge decline in newspaper readership, any significant competition in the classified ad business could prove to be the death knell for many metropolitan dailies. And given that many readers of newspapers are switching to online editions, supported by online ads, although not necessarily online classifieds – Google’s service is even more troubling.

According to a report in Editor & Publisher, the Audit Bureau of Circulations' showed a 2.6 percent decline in daily paid circulation for US newspapers, while Nielsen//NetRatings says newspaper Web site viewership grew 11 percent year-over-year to 39.3 million unique visitors in October 2005, or 26 percent of the active US Internet population. Newspapers’ online growth is greater than the growth of the active Internet universe as a whole, which rose 3 percent, so this flight to the Web is concerning for newspaper companies dependent on classified ads.

Google says it is not planning at this point to offer its own ads on Google Base, but I can’t believe that’s not part of the ultimate plan.

So we have to ask ourselves, if Google Base isn’t about advertising, what the heck it is about?

Certainly there are many different kinds of opportunities for people to post their own content on the Web – blogs, for example. Google did swallow Blogger, and so offers a blogging service of its own. Google even uses Blogger to make company announcements, like the announcement of the Google Base service. Let’s dig a little bit into Google Base and see what we can turn up. First off, Google offers various categories of entries, or you can make up your own. Here are their standard categories:

Course Schedules	Events and Activities
Jobs	News and Articles
People Profiles	Products
Recipes	Reference Articles
Reviews	Services
Vehicles	Wanted Ads

Notice how Google has coyly put classified ads at the bottom by calling them Wanted Ads. Subtle but perhaps telling. Yet on the main Google Base page, among the several examples of entries include Cars for Sale, a category squarely in the classified ad space. Google offers helpful filters to let you search for cars by make and location. I found the Volvo dealer in my neighborhood had many cars listed, Google helpfully provides a map of the area so you can find it.

Since there are perhaps eight other auto dealers in my immediate area, I’m not sure why Borton Volvo is the first one to come up. The listings appear to be ordered alphabetically, kind of like the other advertising medium being threatened by Google Base: the yellow pages. Don’t be surprised if the businesses near you suddenly change to names like AAAAA Borton Volvo and so on.

Of course, there are plenty of car sites out there, such as CarSoup and Cars.com, and there are other search engines who can find you a car, such as Yahoo, who uses AutoTrader’s database, and the granddaddy of them all, Intellichoice. But Google’s integration with Google Maps makes for an interesting edge.

But enough about cars, Google Base will eat newspapers’ lunch in apartment rentals, house sales, jobs, and all the other classified ad categories. Interestingly, the top company in Jobs is not alphabetically advantaged – workHaven. So Google must already be doing some sort of pay for placement scheme.

So, on the one hand, Google is making a play to dominate content on the Web: Other ways to submit information to Google include Google Video, Google Print, and Google Sitemaps. On the other hand, Google uses content to drive advertising revenue. Therefore, despite protestations, Google Base is a key part of the company’s strategy to dominate online advertising.

Stay tuned. The term googlewatching may yet take its place beside the other common verb, googling.

Why Do We Have Personal Computers?

The News – 10/14/05

Why Do We Have Personal Computers?

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t do without my personal computer, although I realize this is not a universal feeling. However, I know that if people like my technophobic wife can’t do without their computers, then there are a whole lot of folks out there who have come to rely on their PCs.

The reason I can’t do without my PC is because I make my living with computers. That makes me a power user, and power users have a warped view of the world. Take, for example, a CNet online forum contributor who recently commented on a story about how Microsoft is worried Google will create a service, delivered over a thin-client architecture, that will eliminate the need for an operating system:

Thin clients are yet another chunk of hype with no strong future. Why move everything off your system and use everything you did before on remote servers?

You will have to trust that your data is secure.

You have to deal with slower computing. If it makes you less productive, what is the point?

It will likely be more expensive. Why rent software? That makes as much sense as renting music or everyday clothes.

Gaming will not work on something like this.

Thin clients- hype with no substance

Where to begin in pointing out the flaws in this screed?

I’m the last guy to advocate the return to the mainframe-and-terminal, hierarchical, priesthood-dominated world prevalent up until the last decade or so. But given the extreme irritation of dealing with fat client MS Windows machines, I can definitely see the appeal of thin-client computing, at least for the non-power users among us.

Think about it. How many times have you installed a program, uninstalled a program, or just looked at your PC wrong and all of a sudden the stupid thing doesn’t work like it used to? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could always get your email, always browse the Web without problems (like viruses and popups), and always do your word processing without annoying hiccups, incompatibilities and other major annoyances?

Dealing with the mess that is your average Windows PC has forced me to reach a conclusion that is startling to those around me: I hate computers! If I could, I would take all seven of the little tyrants I own and purify them in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.

In comparison, thin-client computing promises such an idyllic world. All the software you use runs on a server, maintained and installed by somebody else. You may have some local storage for data, or you might have vast reserves to store your stuff on the server. Then, wherever you go, there you are – you log in, and, boom, your familiar desktop with all your applications and all your files is there. Marvelous!

Yes, as the raving power user says above, you will have to trust that your data is secure. But sometimes trusting such a thing to professionals is better than trusting it to yourself. When was the last time your Mom or Dad backed up their data? (Of course, I assume you are backing your stuff up regularly to CD or DVD!) Just ask the client of mine (who shall remain nameless) who deleted his Outlook data file because his drive was filling up, despite me pleading with him on the phone at the time, “No, no, no! Don’t do that! That’s your address book and all your messages!”

The second point our raver makes is that you will have to deal with slower computing. Well, most of the things that our light and medium users do aren’t exactly heavy breathing, computing-wise. Otherwise people wouldn’t be so fond of Web-based email services like Yahoo, Excite, and Gmail. Further, most folks don’t type at 100 words per minute, nor do they usually create huge word processing files that might take a while to save.

So big deal. It takes a little longer to open a document, a little longer to save. Let’s face it: Most tasks ordinary people do with their computers don’t really take much horsepower.

I know what the raver is saying, though: You won’t be able to play Battlefield Vietnam or other massively multiplayer shooter games on a thin client. He’s right. For that, you will want your own fat PC. Ditto if you’re a day trader, or any other user with high computing needs.

It’s just that most people aren’t like that.

The raver’s third point, that thin-client computing will be more expensive, is hard to determine. In some sense, you’re trading your own time and headaches for the ability to pay someone else to worry about it for you. Besides, this is an assertion, and, as I tell my sons, assertion is not proof. Once you factor in all the costs of owning and maintaining your own computing equipment, the premium for thin-client computing might not seem so large.

As far as the raver’s comment about renting music goes, you just wait. The recording industry is doing their best to make it so you can’t so much as play the music you bought in the car as well as the house without their permission.

As I mentioned, the raver is right on when he or she says that you won’t be able to do serious gaming on thin client. But you could play the odd game of Tetris, or Spider Solitaire, or any number of role-playing games on thin devices.

Now in the past, I have not been a fan of thin client appliances, especially back several years ago when they were all the rage. With full PCs now available at under $400, it’s going to be hard to find a price point where the appliance approach makes sense, at least as far as up-front investment is concerned. Unless the thin-client is built into something you already buy like, say, a new TV.

Sure, Microsoft’s WebTV (now known as MSN TV) has been a failure, if something with more than a million subscribers can be termed a failure, but that doesn’t mean the concept is totally wrong. People haven’t been signing up in droves for a $200 poorly-performing Web appliance with lame applications and a $10 a month surcharge that looks crappy on your old TV. But have you noticed that many of the new flat-panel TVs also double as PC monitors?

Or another possibility: The Tivo is already a pretty heavy duty computing appliance, and is available in some places for $100. What if it were bundled with a bunch of thin-client applications and marketed to the folks who are weary of dealing with the complexity of unreliable Windows PCs?

Ready to chuck the boat anchor into Lake Minnetonka yet? Next issue, we’ll take a look at some of the new technologies that will make thin-client applications work more and more like installed applications.

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: The WiMAX Guys’ main business is new installs for people who want to set up wireless hotspots such as hotels, warehouses, apartment buildings, and office buildings or hotzones that cover cities. We also sell a knowledge-based Web portal called the MAX K-Base. Check out our main Website at www.TheWiMAXGuys.com.
  
  My wife created a bit of a stir when her op-ed piece was published in the Minneapolis StarTribune newspaper after the election. Her article, “Two Nations, Handcuffed Together,” has been commented on or linked to by more than 85 Websites. She’s now created a Website to capitalize on her newfound pundit status. Check it out at www.debellsworth.com.
   
  Many issues ago I debuted SNS Begware, an opportunity for you, gentle reader, to express your appreciation by tipping your server via PayPal. See the sidebar for more info. Total in the kitty so far: $91.48. Thanks Dave!
  
  And now that I’m partnered with one of the largest advertisers on the planet, Google, that should be kicking in serious coin to the StratVantage coffers. Let’s see. The current total is: $12.20. Great. Read this issue on the Web and click on the ads to feed the kitty. You can also shop at Amazon, pay nothing additional, and send a spiff to me.
  
  
• The Raw File – SNS is dedicated to delivering the scoop on the latest and greatest. However, I collect lots of information that never makes it into the newsletter before it gets old. I’ve collected all this aging info into a page called The Raw File. This page is the raw information I gather for SNS articles. It’s not pretty, and some may be a little incoherent, but chances are there are still things in TRF that might be news to you. So therefore, use The Raw File at your own risk – it’s 45+ pages of the best stuff that didn’t make it into SNS.
  The Raw File
  
  
• FISH Wraps Newspaper: My wife and I like to make up TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) and FLAs (Four or Five Letter Acronyms) about annoying situations, things, or persons we come into contact with on a regular basis. Such abbreviations are our way of poking fun at the things that frustrate us, not an attempt to be cruel.
  
  One of our earliest creations – from the ‘70s! – was the OMIAH (Old Man In A Hat), a type of slow, overly-cautious, clueless driver we used to encounter ahead of us on the highways. But as the fedora-wearing generation of men has gradually met its reward, thus decimating its ranks, we’ve had to come up with another FLA: BEOG (Big-Eared Old Guy), you know, the duffer in the tan Buick Century tooling along in the left lane at 5 miles under the limit.
  
  Of course, when the current crop of twenty-somethings enters their dotage, I’m sure many of them will be COOTs (Cap On, Old Tatoos). And I certainly shouldn’t be throwing stones, given that I have an AARP card!
  
  When talking with pretty much any phone service personnel, we are apt to exclaim EIEIO! (Expect Incompetence, Endure Idiot Operatives!) An operative is a service employee only barely acquainted with the rudiments of their job.
  
  Some of our coinages are more recent than these time-honored sobriquets, however, such as MINIAC (Mostly Invisible Nana In A Car) – the little old ladies peering over the steering wheel like Kilroy. We kid, but we love.
  
  So recently, my wife, while perusing the new makeover of the local newspaper, the StarTribune, used one of her newer creations to create a strange mental picture for me when she exclaimed, “They put a FISH in here!”
  
  The StarTribune, like most metropolitan dailies, is very concerned that the twenty-somethings don’t read newspapers, preferring to get their news from the ever-reliable Internet. In an apparent attempt to be more relevant to Generations X and Y’s tastes and preferences, the newspaper reprinted a piece of FISH (Forwarded Internet Serial Humor) on their opinion page.
  
  You’ve all gotten FISH, whether they are “humorous” lists on topics such as, “You know you’re old when . . .” or merely jokes of questionable taste and dubious humor. Such pieces tend to take on a life of their own, being forwarded from person to person, each typically appending their own sentiment, such as “Too true!”
  
  The FISH the StarTribune printed was particularly lame: 10 Things Mom Taught Me. Because the new-look Strib doesn’t include their Short Cuts section their Website (yeah, that makes sense!), I found the list elsewhere, with slightly different wording and ranking, to share with you:
  
  1. PRIORITIES - "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."
  
  2. RELIGION - "You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
  
  3. TIME TRAVEL - "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"
  
  4. LOGIC - "Because I said so, that's why."
  
  5. MORE LOGIC - "If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."
  
  6. FORESIGHT - "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."
  
  7. IRONY - "Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."
  
  8. OSMOSIS - "Shut your mouth and eat your supper."
  
  9. CONTORTIONISM - "Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"
  
  10. STAMINA - "You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."
  
  Regular readers know what I think of Forward-It-To-Everyone-You-Know culture. Now the stinking newspapers are getting into the act.
  Weekend Property and Construction News
  The New-Look StarTribune with an annoying popup ad that doesn’t work well in Firefox browsers
  
  
• I’m Not Above FISHing: Lest you think we’re just all about derision here at StratVantage Central, I invite you to take the following cultural aptitude FISH I ran into somewhere on the Net, called You ain’t cultured yet ‘less you can… Note: No Googling allowed!
  
  1. Tell, within a dozen, how many books P. G. Wodehouse wrote. Shoot, make it within thirty…
  
  2. Name the song playing on the radio when Duke’s Samoan attorney threw the grapefruit into the bathtub.
  
  3. Fill in the blank, “I love the smell of _____________ in the morning.”
  
  4. Tell what machine Toad fell in love with after being thrown from his caravan.
  
  5. Name the Who’s original drummer.
  
  6. Describe the procedure for trapping a heffalump.
  
  7. Name the Black Panther Party member who went from exile in Cuba to preaching at Wheaton Bible Church before designing and selling codpiece-equipped pants.
  
  8. Name the artist who played harmonica on Keith Green’s 1980 “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt” LP.
  
  9. Tell who said, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.”
  
  10. Name the movie: “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.”
  
  11. Name the Beatle with the bare feet.
  
  12. Name the now-dead newspaper columnist who often quoted his friend Slats Grobnik.
  
  13. Tell what color and model car O.J. Simpson was being driven down the Santa Monica freeway in.
  
  14. Name the Chicago Bears defensive tackle who scored a touchdown in Super Bowl XX.
  
  15. Finish the sentence from "Cool Hand Luke": “What we have here is a failure to _____________ .”
  
  16. Name the movie this line comes from: “It's just a flesh wound! Come back and I'll bite your kneecaps off!”
  
  17. Name the song that ends with the drummer shouting, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”
  
  18. Name the lead guitarist on the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
  
  19. Name the Tom Wolfe book originally serialized in Rolling Stone magazine.
  
  20. Name the television series modeled on the work of a New Yorker cartoonist.
  
  You get extra credit for finding the three errors in the questions. I got 14 right without Google; 20 right with.
  WorldViews
  
  
• Mensa Brain Teasers: While we’re in a silly mood here, here’s a FISH featuring a fascinating game brought to my attention by Alert SNS Reader Bill Lehnertz. The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational apparently once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
  
  Here are the 2005 winners:
  
  1.  Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
  
  2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
  
  3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
  
  4. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
  
  5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
  
  6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
  
  7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
  
  8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
  
  9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
  
  10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
  
  11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
  
  12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
  
  13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
  
  14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
  
  15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
  
  16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
  
  And “Mensa” Bill added his own:
  
  Catsastrophy (n): What you hang on the wall after cat-hunting with a shotgun and you ruin its face.
  
  Incidentally, a Web search and a search at washingtonpost.com turned up no mention of this contest, so perhaps it’s an urban legend. Still funny, though.
  
  
• Has Your Site Been Cloned? One of the problems of the Web is it is so doggone easy to vacuum up all the pages on a site, tweak them, and put them up as your own. I mentioned instance of this with song lyric sites and joke ads in previous SNS editions. The problem is much bigger if your content is something you’ve slaved over or is unique in any way.
  
  Now there’s a service that will keep an eye out for people ripping off your content for just $10 a month. Copyscape has a great search engine that will analyze a page of your site and then scour the Web looking for pages whose content is a close match. I found a couple of sites I didn’t know about this way, including a site that had ripped off some content from one of my white papers.
  
  I wish I could have used Cloudscape a couple of years ago, though, when a college student basically ripped off one of my white papers, turned it in for his class, and the professor posted it back on the Web, with the student attributed as author! The worst thing about this incident was that the professor wasn’t concerned about the plagiarism.
  
  Copyscape
  
  
• If You’ve Made it This Far: Well, there still have been no more entries in our contest. As you may remember, Alert SNS Reader Ken Florian correctly identified the song containing the lyric “And I said yes sir brother sheriff, and that's your wife on the back of my horse.” You may recall that the song is indeed Gangster of Love, a song made popular by Stevie “Guitar” Miller and first appearing on his album Sailor. Miller did not, however, write the song, which was penned by Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had a minor hit with it in 1957. My favorite other cover recording of the song is by Johnny Winter, on an obscure disk called Black Cat Bone.
  
  You may further recall the contest was to email me the retort to the partial music lyric buried somewhere in the previous newsletter. The prize was one stick of totally obsolete PC memory. Since Mr. Florian neglected to also answer the tiebreaker, “Who is Hoops McCann?” twice, he is not the winner. Frankly, I thought the tiebreaker was pretty easy, especially if you use my favorite search engine, Google. Perhaps you should try Dumbfind, and put in the names of various categories of popular entertainment until you find the two answers.
  
  So, to claim the memory, Alert SNS Readers must first answer that tiebreaker and then also tell me where I can buy the LP featuring songs containing the lyrics “nauseous gasser” and “merry-go-round” for less than $69. It’s only going to get harder unless someone can emerge victorious. Of course, buying me the LP would make one an instant winner, regardless of previous right answers!

What’s Google Up To?, Error Breeding Error, Dotcom Bust a Conspiracy?

What’s Google Up To?

As you know, I am now a Google business partner, having taken their coin to the tune of a righteous $9.47 since I started offering AdSense ads on the Website version of this newsletter. As part of the deal, I had to agree not to “engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill.”

Despite that, I have to ask, “What the heck is Google up to?”

They just announced free Wi-Fi for everyone in San Francisco. Prior to that, they announced Google Secure Access, a free Virtual Private Network service for anyone with any Wi-Fi connection. They recent bought a stealthy startup that purports to be working on wireless applications. And they bought Keyhole, which they turned into Google Earth.

Are they out to rule the world?

To find out, let’s take a look at what these various recent moves have in common. They all are pieces of an advertising puzzle so brilliantly nefarious that you just couldn’t call it evil. But first, a look at the facts.

• Google is the world’s most-used search engine
• They make most of their money from advertising (in a very non-evil way!)
• They launched Google Local, which allows for location-specific searches, in February 2005
• Their Gmail service allows them to scan your email for keywords so they can advertise to you
• Google Desktop search and Picasa allow you to index everything on your hard drive, and communicate some information back to Google
• Google Personal History/Personalized Search service allows you to store your searching history on Google’s servers for later access
• Their Google Secure Access service sets up a Virtual Private Network connection between your wireless laptop and Google’s proxy server. That means all your traffic is secure. It also means all your traffic flows through Google’s server, where it is decrypted and sent out on the Internet. Google also has an application called Google Web Accelerator, which does much the same thing.

Here are some more facts. First, excerpts from Google Secure Access’ terms of service:

• Google may log some information from your web page requests as may the websites that you visit.
  
  
• Google Secure Access does not log cookies and strips potentially sensitive query data from the end of requests to help better protect your privacy.
  
  
• Google also logs a small set of non-personally identifiable information -- such as routing information, session durations and operating system and Google Secure Access client version numbers -- in order to create your Google Secure Access connection, understand how people are using Google Secure Access and help us maintain the Google Secure Access client.
  
  
• Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable information to any third parties except under the limited circumstances described in the Google Privacy Policy.
  
  
• If Google concludes that we are required by law or have a good faith belief that collection, preservation or disclosure of additional information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public, such as if we believe the Google Secure Access service is being abused, we may for a limited period of time preserve additional internet traffic or other information.

And here are Google Privacy Policy excerpts:

• We may store and process personal information collected on our site in the United States or any other country in which Google Inc. or its agents maintain facilities. By using our services, you consent to the transfer of your information among these facilities, including those located outside your country.
  
  
• We may share aggregated information with others. Examples of this include the number of users who searched for "Mars Rover" or how many users clicked on a particular advertisement.
  
  
• Google may present links in a format that enables us to understand whether they have been followed. We use this information to understand and improve the quality of Google's search technology. For instance, this data helps us determine how often users are satisfied with the first result of a query and how often they proceed to later results.

Next, excerpts from Google’s Gmail terms of use:

• Because we keep back-up copies of data for the purposes of recovery from errors or system failure, residual copies of email may remain on our systems for some time, even after you have deleted messages from your mailbox or after the termination of your account [italics mine].
  
  
• Information displayed or clicked on in your Gmail account (including UI elements, ads, links, and other information) is also recorded.

Finally, excerpts from Google Desktop’s terms of use:

• If you choose to enable Advanced Features, Google Desktop may send information about the websites that you visit to provide enhanced Google Desktop functions, such as personalizing news displayed in Sidebar.
  
  
• Enabling Advanced Features also allows Google Desktop to collect a limited amount of non-personal information from your computer and send it to Google. This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do and the time it takes for you to see your results, and application reports we'll use to make the program better.
  
  
• Your copy of Google Desktop includes a unique application number. When you install Google Desktop, this number and a message indicating whether the installation succeeded is sent back to Google so that we can make the software work better.

Here are yet more facts – a list of Google’s acquisitions over the years, courtesy of Adam Rifkin’s blog, Wikipedia, and Kuro5hin.

2/2001: Deja – back in the day, there was, and still is, a threaded discussion service called USENET originally created by two Duke grad students back in nineteen-seventy-freakin’-nine; Deja archived 500 million messages, pretty much back to the beginning of the commercial Internet in 1995, and ran the Deja News service; Google bought the archive and turned it into Google Groups

9/2001: Outride - a spin-off of Xerox PARC – developers of state-of-the-art model-based search relevance technology

2/2003: Pyra Labs – creator of Blogger blogging software – content for the Google machine – the better to advertise to you

4/2003: Neotonic Software – e-mail customer support

4/2003: Applied Semantics (formerly known as Oingo) – domain name, contextual advertising and enterprise search solutions; most important for Google: technology that understands, organizes and extracts information from Web sites, built in to their AdSense product, to which I am now thrall

9/2003: Kaltix – personalized search to possibly replace or fix PageRank, which may have been broken in part by Google Bombing by bloggers! See the explanation behind the fact that President Bush’s biography at whitehouse.gov is the first entry if you type the single word “failure” into Google. (It’s number 4 on MSN Search and Yahoo, number 2 on Excite and Dumbfind, 7 on AltaVista, not mentioned on Hotbot or Lycos, and is replaced by Michael Moore’s home page on the AOL version of Google, I kid you not!)

10/2003: Sprinks – advertising company that provided ads for Google competitors About.com, Metacrawler.com, and Mamma.com

10/2003: Genius Labs – a Boston-based blogging entity comprised entirely of a guy named Biz Stone; Stone resigned from Google last month.

4/2004: Ignite Logic – provides Web templates for law firms and other small businesses

6/2004: Baidu – Google bought part of Baidu, China's biggest independent Internet search engine

7/2004: Picasa – desktop photo management/storage/search

10/2004: Keyhole – view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest; became Google Earth

2004: Zipdash – mobile/traffic/mapping company – now working with Google Maps; technology used to develop and launch Google Ride Finder

2004: Where2 – mapping software provider –Australian mapping company mentioned in the 2004 annual report, but not much is known about it. It also had something to do with Google Maps.

3/2005: Urchin – Web analytics company – tools that optimize content and track marketing performance

4/2005: Dodgeball – a two-person cell phone social networking/SMS meetup service – the service can provide you with addresses and directions in major cities; also has flash mob capabilities

7/2005: Akwan Information Technologies – Latin American search company in technology of search as a part of its plan to open an R&D office and expand its presence into Latin and South America.

8/2005: Android Inc. – mysterious mobile software provider

So what is Google up to with all these acquisitions? Perhaps we can glean a little of their direction by examining their 10 Things manifesto. Listed as things Google has found to be true, they form the DNA of the company:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

The only one of these principles that I see them violating in their acquisition strategy is number 2, It's best to do one thing really, really well. Yet, depending on where they’re going, these acquisitions may add up to doing one thing; it’s just not limited to what we think Google is doing today as a search engine. Their S-1 filing for their Initial Public Offering (IPO) states: “Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. . . Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Now let’s look at the parts of the machine Google is building.

1. Google has a killer advertising engine, also known as their search engine. They charge to deliver users to Websites, whose owners pay by the click. This ad engine represents the lion’s share of Google’s revenue.

2. Google has a killer way to locate and even image every business and residence in the US, and soon the world. Further, they are developing services to allow people to meet based on location, and could thus advertise based on location.

3. Google is working on the magic triangle of Internet success: Commerce, Content, and Community.

1. Google has struggled to develop eCommerce capabilities. Their Froogle service has been available only as a beta for almost three years. Nonetheless, you have to figure that they’ll work it out.
   
   
2. Google is developing killer content, from the Google Groups archive to real-time traffic info delivered to cell phones to Google Earth to blogs. They also are planning on digitizing thousands of books. Google now allows you to turn their main page into a quasi-portal, a la Yahoo, with news and weather.
   
3. Google is making many inroads into the blogosphere – buying blogger.com, for example – and trying to challenge Yahoo Groups with their Google Groups service and developing their community chops

4. Google has many ways to personally identify your interests, wants, and needs – through Google Personalized search, the cookie they set in your browser (AKA the mark of the beast), and the statistics they gather through Google Desktop and Picasa
   
   
5. Google has plans to offer free Wi-Fi access to the Internet in San Francisco, driving more users to its servers where their desires can be known

So what are they going to do with this machine? Here’s what I think we’ll see within the next few years:

• Nationwide free Wi-Fi sponsored by Google’s ads and secured by Google Secure Access
  
  
• Google will increase their ability to know what you want by tracking searches, by tracking all access through their free Wi-Fi service, and by tracking what you’re searching for on your own computer via Google Desktop
  
  
• Google will figure out how to make Froogle a killer eCommerce destination and may even spawn their own PayPal-like payment system, possibly involving cell phone-based payments
  
  
• Google will extend further into cell phones, powering social networking applications in order to achieve one of the holy grails of advertising: location-based ads. Google will be able to find you wherever you are and offer ads and coupons based on your location, tastes, and interests.
  
  
• Google will release a Linux-based operating system combined with Sun’s OpenOffice running on cheap hardware and featuring Application Service Provider (ASP) applications hosted on Google servers. Of course, this offering will track user behavior.
  
  
• Google will build its Website analytics business and its Google Enterprise business to further integrate into the structure of the Web. There may be wink-wink agreements on how taking these services will improve one’s PageRank.
  
  
• Google will improve or replace its PageRank service, which has come under criticism
  
  
• Google will expand its hegemony worldwide by buying, investing in, or out-competing any offshore competitors.

In other words, Google is building a system to know exactly what you want and deliver as much of it to you as it can wherever you are.

Let’s detail who will be hurt by the creation of this system: Internet Service Providers, Wi-Fi network providers (hey!), other search engines (natch), eCommerce sites, online retailers, cell phone users (hello, ads!), fledgling location-based advertising services, Microsoft, PC manufacturers (cheapo GooglePCs), Website analytics firms, and possibly, people who value their privacy.

Is Google trying to take over the world? You decide. But it’s a mighty good thing these guys promise not to be evil – although they have refused to talk to CNet for printing an article containing sensitive information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt – information that ironically was obtained via Google searches. That actually sounds a little bit evil. In fact, the New York Times thinks Google may be replacing Microsoft as the huge corporation people love to hate.

So hang on to your privacy, if you can, and stay tuned.

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: The WiMAX Guys’ main business is new installs for people who want to set up wireless hotspots such as hotels, warehouses, apartment buildings, and office buildings or hotzones that cover cities. We also sell a knowledge-based Web portal called the MAX K-Base. Check out our main Website at www.TheWiMAXGuys.com.
  
  My wife created a bit of a stir when her op-ed piece was published in the Minneapolis StarTribune newspaper after the election. Her article, “Two Nations, Handcuffed Together,” has been commented on or linked to by more than 85 Websites. She’s now created a Website to capitalize on her newfound pundit status. Check it out at www.debellsworth.com.
  
  Many issues ago I debuted SNS Begware, an opportunity for you, gentle reader, to express your appreciation by tipping your server via PayPal. See the sidebar for more info. Total in the kitty so far: $91.48. Thanks Dave!
  
  And now that I’m partnered with one of the largest advertisers on the planet, Google, that should be kicking in serious coin to the StratVantage coffers. Let’s see. The current total is: $9.47. Great. Read this issue on the Web and click on the ads to feed the kitty.
  
  
• The Raw File – SNS is dedicated to delivering the scoop on the latest and greatest. However, I collect lots of information that never makes it into the newsletter before it gets old. I’ve collected all this aging info into a page called The Raw File. This page is the raw information I gather for SNS articles. It’s not pretty, and some may be a little incoherent, but chances are there are still things in TRF that might be news to you. So therefore, use The Raw File at your own risk – it’s 45+ pages of the best stuff that didn’t make it into SNS.
  The Raw File
  
  
• Error Breeding Error: Unlike the game Telephone that you played as a child, in which a message morphed as it passed from person to person around a room, the Web, being digital, allows for perfect replication of information. But what if that information is erroneous? Well, it gets replicated and transferred just the same as the good stuff. A case in point involves a song lyric I recently tried to check on the Web. There are scads of lyric sites, many of which open multiple pop-up windows when you visit them and even when you leave them. I found recently that they all had one thing in common: a bad line from a favorite song of mine.
  
  To understand why their version of the lyric has to be wrong, first take a look at this excerpt from Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business:
  
  Salesman talking to me,
  trying to run me up a creek,
  Says you can buy it, go on try it,
  you can pay me next week.
  Aw too much monkey business,
  too much monkey business,
  too much monkey business
  for me to be involved again.
  
  Now here are the lyrics for Steve Miller’s Livin' in the USA, as erroneously reported by pretty much every lyrics site:
  
  I got to be free
  Doot do do do do doot doot
  Living in the U.S.A.
  Come on try it, you can buy it, you can leave it next week, yeah
  Somebody give me a cheeseburger!
  
  OK, I always knew that Steve was singing “you can buy it, you can try it, you can pay me next week, yeah!” This is perhaps my favorite verse from my favorite song ever, and I’ve listened to it at all volume levels more times than I can count. But I never knew he was quoting a Chuck Berry song. Yet when I was looking up the lyrics to Miller’s song recently, I started to doubt my sanity, since site after lyrics site had the same mistake you see above. And that lyric doesn’t even make sense, for heaven’s sake!
  
  Just goes to show you: Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. It also proves there’s no honor among thieves. I’m sure every lyrics site I visited had stolen these lyrics from another site, and thus this grievous error was propagated upon an unsuspecting populace. Now just don’t get me started on pompitous!
  
  
• Dotcom Bust a Conspiracy? A reader at BusinessWeek Online posted my current favorite conspiracy theory recently. A user with the nickname, DOT COM BUST? had this to say in response to a Business Week article:
  
  Hey, what happened to the dot com bust? Amazing that you could have a bust with a service that never stops growing and everybody only seems to want more of it. Old media was smart. They bankrupted all the dot coms with advertising and used their format to hype the bust until they could catch up. (Remember, they were the last to catch on). They aren't paying so much for those great domain names and talented programmers anymore; not since the "?bust" If HALF the money that went into advertising had gone into development, the landscape would look a LOT different today. People should have gotten a clue when spook operation SAIC snapped up the root server monopoly. What a scam. Oh well, once they get their hands in enuf pockets you can brace yourself for the sudden and mysterious "bandwidth shortage" that's waiting in the wings. (Think GAS) You'll know it's coming when you hear the ringing in your ears; the sound of all those poor helpless baby Bells and corporate giants chiming in harmony.
  
  I mean, now that he mentions it, it seems so obvious!
  Business Week
  
  
• If You’ve Made it This Far: Well, there still have been no more entries in our contest. As you may remember, Alert SNS Reader Ken Florian correctly identified the song containing the lyric “And I said yes sir brother sheriff, and that's your wife on the back of my horse.” You may recall that the song is indeed Gangster of Love, a song made popular by Stevie “Guitar” Miller and first appearing on his album Sailor. Miller did not, however, write the song, which was penned by Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had a minor hit with it in 1957. My favorite other cover recording of the song is by Johnny Winter, on an obscure disk called Black Cat Bone.
  
  You may further recall the contest was to email me the retort to the partial music lyric buried somewhere in the previous newsletter. The prize was one stick of totally obsolete PC memory. Since Mr. Florian neglected to also answer the tiebreaker, “Who is Hoops McCann?” twice, he is not the winner. Frankly, I thought the tiebreaker was pretty easy, especially if you use my favorite search engine, Google. Perhaps you should try Dumbfind, and put in the names of various categories of popular entertainment until you find the two answers.
  
  So, to claim the memory, Alert SNS Readers must first answer that tiebreaker and then also tell me where I can buy the LP featuring songs containing the lyrics “nauseous gasser” and “merry-go-round” for less than $69. It’s only going to get harder unless someone can emerge victorious. Of course, buying me the LP would make one an instant winner, regardless of previous right answers!

Mainlining Broadband, You Saw it Here First, VoIP Gathers Momentum, DSL Prices Drop: Competition? You’re Soaking In It, Stupid Name Alert

Mainlining Broadband

Well, I’m not betting that the latest monopoly to attempt to give you broadband options is going to set the world on fire. Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) has been on the verge for about as long as there’s been a broadband verge. What a great concept, though. People talk about making broadband Internet as ubiquitous as power, so who better to bring it to you than the guys who own the power lines going into your home? Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as it was envisioned.

Sure there are plenty of companies that will sell you gear to use the electrical wiring within your house to do networking, but going vast distances through noisy transformers and switches to connect your whole home or business to the Internet is a bit different deal.

And, sure, there may be more than a dozen trials underway in the US as Pyramid Research claims, but, holy brownout, Batman, can you imaging the electric company marketing Internet services to you? I mean, their sales approach for years has consisted of asking folks who call in two questions: “How much do you want?” and “Where do you want it?” Just because these guys have (or had) several of their own industry associations – the Power Line Communications Association (which doesn’t even appear to be in business anymore), the Universal Powerline Association), and the United Power Line Council doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly develop the ability to mount sales and marketing efforts in the highly competitive world of Internet broadband, where the options already include offerings from two other monopolies, telcos (DSL) and cablecos (cable broadband), as well as highly sales and marketing-oriented competitors like cellcos (Sprint and Verizon’s EV-DO offerings) and upstarts like fixed wireless operators (like the local Twin Cities’ Stonebridge and Implex). Add to that the fact that the technology is facing several hurdles, including complaints from licensed users of radio frequency spectrum and ham radio operators that BPL interferes with their signals. These interference claims have gotten the FCC interested in rulemaking concerning the technology – never a good sign. Ultimately, the FCC approved BPL but will be on the lookout for interference claims.

According to the FCC:

The interference concern regarding BPL operation arises from the fact that electric power lines are not shielded and therefore portions of any RF energy they may carry can be radiated.

Most Access BPL systems that are currently deployed operate in the range from 2 MHz to 50 MHz, with very low-power signals that are spread over a broad range of frequencies. These frequencies are also used by licensed radio services that must be protected from harmful interference under the Commission’s Part 15 rules for unlicensed devices. In the radio spectrum below 50 MHz, incumbent authorized radio services include fixed, land mobile, aeronautical mobile, maritime mobile, radiolocation, broadcast radio, amateur radio terrestrial and satellite, and radio-astronomy. Users of this spectrum include, for example, public safety and Federal government agencies, aeronautical navigation licensees, amateur radio operators, international broadcasting stations, and citizens band radio operators.

The deployment of broadband delivery capabilities to provide all Americans with access to affordable high speed Internet and data services is one of the most important challenges currently facing the Commission and the communications industry. [. . . ]

We believe that the widespread introduction of Access BPL service would further our goals for broadband service consistent with the challenges indicated above.

So the FCC decided to allow the development of BPL to go forward, while maintaining its rules prohibiting radio interference by unlicensed carriers. The Hams lose; the big guys win. Hmmmm. (To be fair, the Hams got all up in arms on the basis of very little objective evidence.) The BPL vendors say they will “notch out” the possibly interfering frequencies from their transmissions so everything will be cool.

Indeed, the backing of powerful companies is one of the factors in BPL’s favor. The technology is being championed by electrical utilities that have deep pockets and the ears of politicians. Just take a look at the gang of suspects supporting the FCC rulemaking effort:

• Ambient Corporation
• American Petroleum Institute
• AT&T
• APCO/NPSTC
• the CEA
• the CSAA
• Cinergy Corp.
• the City of Manassas Virginia
• Current
• Duke Energy
• Main.Net Communications
• National Telecommunications and Information Administration
• National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
• Oncor Electric Delivery Company
• PPL Telcom LLC
• Progress Energy
• Southern, Southern Telecom, and Southern Company Services

In an example of real-world power, recently Texas State Sen. Troy Fraser got a bill passed authorizing the use of BPL in Texas, hang the possible interference problems. One of his motivations: possible competition for the cablecos. “For years, the cable industry has faced little or no competition. This bill creates a fair and balanced approach to creating additional competition in all aspects of the communications industry, which will in turn bring in billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the state,” the senator said. I like the un-ironic use of the phrase “fair and balanced” here.

Despite all this, though, apparently only a few companies have actually deployed BPL services beyond the test phase, including Broadband Horizons and CenterPoint Energy in Texas (which is teaming with IBM) and Douglas Electric Cooperative, with more than 9,000 customers in Oregon, and Manassas, Virginia, which claims to be the first operational BPL service in the US.

Broadband Horizons got some pub recently for providing free Internet to 3,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Gee, maybe Barbara Bush was right. These evacuees have it good!

But Douglas Electric Coop, an early poster child of BPM, doesn’t even list the service on its Website. In fact, many utilities that are supposedly in trials don’t have anything about BPL on their Websites, including North Carolina’s Duke Power, which is supposedly ramping up its deployment in Charlotte to 15,000 homes passed. Huh? If you were doing some leading edge development, wouldn’t you be trumpeting it on your Website? See what I mean about sales and marketing deficits?

In an interesting bit of either patronage or poaching, COMtek, which provided the BPL system for Manassas, hired the city’s former utilities director as a vice president of BPL operations soon after the system was deployed. See the big pockets political discussion above.

One of the oddest things about BPL is that some of the power companies plan to actually deliver the signal to your house or business via – wait for it – Wi-Fi! Huh? I guess the reason has to do with getting through those nasty step-down transformers in your neighborhood. But, wait, I thought this was all about solving the last-mile problem, and the copper going everywhere was a big plus for BPL. Guess not.

So if all this doesn’t make you think this is a hot trend, witness the fact that my favorite evil company, Google, has invested in Current Communications, a BPL provider which is selling BPL Internet service in the Cincinnati area.

All this buzz about a potentially new revenue source for power companies obscures the fact that there are several positive implications of BPL for the maintenance and operation of their existing physical plant. Power companies already do some rudimentary management over their wires; BPL would allow them to quickly spot blown transformers and other defective network elements, for example. In fact, I’ve been told that while testing BPL over their electrical network, at least one power company was able to predict transformer failure by measuring the device’s resistance to transferring the BPL signal.

Creating a “smart grid” with BPL technology could allow energy companies to develop services such as automated meter reading, real-time system monitoring, preventive maintenance and diagnostics, and outage detection and restoration. In fact, ConEd, the New York utility, thinks that the revenue from BPL may pay for lots of the monitoring capabilities they had been planning on funding themselves. Said a CenterPoint spokesperson, “[W]ith BPL we could see the health and status of our network down to the outlet in the home. [Ed. Note: Yikes! Turn off the grow lights, Maynard!] These smart grid technologies should result in improved system reliability and service for our electric customers.” In fact, there’s an international consortium dedicated to bringing forth the concept of an IntelliGrid in which the power network becomes capable of real-time, two-way monitoring, sensing, and control.

So what’s all this mean for consumers and businesses? Well, at the least, if power companies can grow a sales and marketing capability better than that of their fellow monopoly competitors, it could mean wide availability of a cheaper alternative for broadband access, especially in rural areas. However, despite the hype, don’t expect BPL to offer blazing speeds. Apparently, BPL throughput can range from 300Kbps to 2Mbps, about the same as most cable and DSL – I get 6Mbps from my cable installation.

Don’t hold your breath, though. I’ve been tracking this trend since 1999, and the progress has so far been glacial. Still, the future promises other potential broadband competitors, including WiMAX, EV-DO and EV-DV from the cellcos, fiber to the home, and, who knows, even blimp or aircraft-based alternatives (which I first brought to the attention of Alert SNS Readers way back in 2001). Stay tuned. The broadband wars could be heating up again.

Pyramid Research

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: The WiMAX Guys’ main business is new installs for people who want to set up wireless hotspots such as hotels, warehouses, apartment buildings, and office buildings or hotzones that cover cities. We also sell a knowledge-based Web portal called the MAX K-Base. Check out our main Website at www.TheWiMAXGuys.com. My wife created a bit of a stir when her op-ed piece was published in the Minneapolis StarTribune newspaper after the election. Her article, “Two Nations, Handcuffed Together,” has been commented on or linked to by more than 85 Websites. She’s now created a Website to capitalize on her newfound pundit status. Check it out at www.debellsworth.com. Many issues ago I debuted SNS Begware, an opportunity for you, gentle reader, to express your appreciation by tipping your server via PayPal. See the sidebar for more info. Total in the kitty so far: $91.48. Thanks Dave! And now that I’m partnered with one of the largest advertisers on the planet, Google, that should be kicking in serious coin to the StratVantage coffers. Let’s see. The current total is: $0.12. Great.
• The Raw File – SNS is dedicated to delivering the scoop on the latest and greatest. However, I collect lots of information that never makes it into the newsletter before it gets old. I’ve collected all this aging info into a page called The Raw File. This page is the raw information I gather for SNS articles. It’s not pretty, and some may be a little incoherent, but chances are there are still things in TRF that might be news to you. So therefore, use The Raw File at your own risk – it’s 45+ pages of the best stuff that didn’t make it into SNS. The Raw File
• You Saw it Here First: Well, at least I hope so. Palm is going over to the dark side by releasing a Treo based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 (an OS so nice they’ve named it thrice: Windows CE, PocketPC, Windows Mobile). Apparently two years in the making, this sea change doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the PalmOS, but it sure isn’t going to help the venerable handheld system, which will probably be relegated to low-end devices. Palm and Microsoft announced they will team up on a new Treo from Verizon Wireless. Palm has also made some changes in the beloved mobile OS. wanted to develop a customized version of Windows Mobile, the only smartphone vendor to do so. According to the New York Times, “Palm added interface elements like the ability to speed dial by pressing a person's photo on the screen, the ability to decline to take a call by automatically sending a message (rather than ignoring it) and the ability to go through your cellphone voice mail with on-screen icons.” The new Treo will ship early next year, running on Verizon's high-speed EV-DO network. Palm
• VoIP Gathers Momentum: You may never have heard of it, but Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is starting to heat up. The technology allows you to digitize your voice and send it over the Internet, and it’s behind efforts such as Skype (recently bought by xxxx) and Vonage (available at BestBuy). Even my favorite evil empire, Google, has gotten into the act with the recently released Google Talk. Locally in the Twin Cities, I recently attended an event sponsored by industry group The VoIP Symposium, along with a hundred other VoIP enthusiasts. The presentations from the event are being sold, believe it or not, to non-attendees for $100. If interested, send an email to matt@voipconsortium.com. Below are the highlights of the event, according to its organizers.
• VoIP is VHS/CD/MP3. TDM is Beta/8-Track/Cassette. There is no turning back. Need more evidence?
• 911/E911 is a real concern but primarily from a liability perspective. VoIP 911/E911 is no worse than TDM 911/E911 in the Enterprise.
• VoIP feature sets have long surpassed TDM feature sets.
• VoIP Business Case/ROI is multi-faceted and depends on many factors, e.g. single campus v. multi-location campus, required features, etc.
• VoIP Deployment is best done after careful planning and training.
• IP Centrex is here, has a low cost of entry and makes sense for companies with even hundreds of employees. Examples: Enventis Telecom, Onvoy, Covad.
• Moves, Adds and Changes alone can justify migrating from TDM to IP-based voice.
• VoIP Deployments are successful up to multiple thousands of seats. New records are being claimed on a monthly basis. Example: Spanlink deployed a 450-site, multi-thousand-seat Cisco-based solution for W.W. Grainger.
• The FCC delayed its 911/E911 ruling. Vonage issued a press release claiming over 99% customer feedback on 911/E911.
• Small VoIP Software Vendors are adding tremendous value in the open architecture hardware solutions of large vendors such as Cisco, Nortel and Avaya. Examples: Unimax, Aptigen. Voip Consortium
• DSL Prices Drop: Competition? You’re Soaking In It: The Baby Bells aren’t used to competition, it’s true. But they have learned a favorite trick of monopolies everywhere: When threatened, reduce the price. In the hands of the right monopoly (think Microsoft’s response to Netscape: a free Internet Explorer) such a tactic can work. But will the Bells’ recent DSL price reductions really do anything to dent the cable broadband hegemony or turn back new competitors such as wireless broadband and fiber to the home (the say-it-don’t-spray-it acronymed FTTH)? The Detroit News
• Stupid Name Alert: You think FTTH is a bad name? Dumbfind.com, a DC-based company has launched its new search engine, which it has spent more than two years developing. Dumbfind combines traditional keyword search with the ability to prioritize results based on generalized topics. The company says the site allows users to search more extensively within the topic for wanted sites and to weed out unrelated sites. “No one company should control the flow of information, no matter how good their intentions may be," said the CEO, in an obvious knock against the evil Google empire. I dunno. I must be dumb. But I couldn’t really see what the advantage was of this search engine, and there are no instructions available on their main page. Could be great. Hard to tell. YahooNews Thanks to Alert SNS Reader Jeff Ellsworth for the pointer.
• If You’ve Made it This Far: Well, there have been no more entries in our contest. As you may remember, Alert SNS Reader Ken Florian correctly identified the song containing the lyric “And I said yes sir brother sheriff, and that's your wife on the back of my horse.” You may recall that the song is indeed Gangster of Love, a song made popular by Stevie “Guitar” Miller and first appearing on his album Sailor. Miller did not, however, write the song, which was penned by Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had a minor hit with it in 1957. My favorite other cover recording of the song is by Johnny Winter, on an obscure disk called Black Cat Bone. You may further recall the contest was to email me the retort to the partial music lyric buried somewhere in the previous newsletter. The prize was one stick of totally obsolete PC memory. Since Mr. Florian neglected to also answer the tiebreaker, “Who is Hoops McCann?” twice, he is not the winner. Frankly, I thought the tiebreaker was pretty easy, especially if you use my favorite search engine, Google. Perhaps you should try Dumbfind, and put in the names of various categories of popular entertainment until you find the two answers. So, to claim the memory, Alert SNS Readers must first answer that tiebreaker and then also tell me where I can buy the LP featuring songs containing the lyrics “nauseous gasser” and “merry-go-round” for less than $69. It’s only going to get harder unless someone can emerge victorious. Of course, buying me the LP would make one an instant winner, regardless of previous right answers!

Success has many fathers; failure has many analysts, BuzzKill, Comedy is Easy. Predicting the Future is Hard, Sweating the Small Stuff, ASP, more

Success has many fathers; failure has many analysts

Yes, that’s right. I said it. You can Google it to be sure. It’s one of my better bon mots, if I do say so.

The cool thing is, it’s undoubtedly true. Take a look at the uncharacteristically fierce journalistic bashing the Bush government is undergoing in the wake of their truly historic bungling of Katrina. Our president actually admitted a mistake, the first one of his five year administration. But let’s not go there.

We could take a look at why failure is not longer an option, and the effect of that mandate, combined with the intense scrutiny of public companies and the resulting obsession with quarterly results, on risk takers and innovation. (For a great example, see the recent stock drop of BestBuy, who only increased earnings 48 percent compared to last year and missed earnings per share forecasts by a penny.)

But let’s instead take a look at some of the predictions and hot technologies that flamed out over the last five years.

Let’s first examine predictions by the high bux analysts. Then, in a future issue, we’ll take a look at my goofs.

BuzzKill

In 2000, I ran an item that said: “IDC predicts that the current $115 Billion eSolutions Business Will Skyrocket to $430 Billion by 2004.” A search of Forrester’s site today yields zero hits for the term eSolutions. Hmmmmm. Institutional amnesia? A Google search (did I tell you how much I love Google?) turns up 1.7 million pages containing the term eSolutions, and 31,500 also contain the word billions. Unfortunately, finding the current value of the eSolutions market is not the type of thing that Web searches are good at uncovering. And a search of major industry analyst sites turn up very little on eSolutions. Let’s just say that the term eSolutions has fallen out of favor, so who knows how much the market is worth?

Conclusion: Prediction probably worthless.

Comedy is Easy. Predicting the Future is Hard

Also in 2000, I included an item under the title Rosy Technology Predictions May Be Pessimistic about a George Washington University study that pulled together a number of predictions from noted futurists. It included a statement from Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly: “The Web is underhyped.” You know, I think he was right. Also included were the following predictions, which pegged when each advance would achieve critical mass:

Prediction	Year
Entertainment On-Demand	2003
Videoconferencing	2004
PC Convergence	2005
Distance Learning	2006
Advanced Data Storage
Standard Digital Protocol
PCS Gains Markets
Groupware Systems	2007
Computer Sensory Recognition
Modular Software
Parallel Processing Computing	2008
Information Superhighway
Personal Digital Assistants
Intelligent Agents	2009
Ubiquitous Computing Environment
Broadband Networks
Electronic Banking/Cash
Expert Systems	2010

Note that some of the trends don’t have a predicted date. A curious example is “PCS Gains Markets,” referring to the expansion of digital cell phone technology, which, of course, is ubiquitous today.

Here’s George Washington U’s current thinking.

Conclusion: Prediction mixed.

Sweating the Small Stuff

One of the complaints that chip fabricators have about all this nanotechnology business is that they are already working on the nanoscale. The current Northwood Pentium 4 uses 0.13-micron (120 nanometer) transistors, for example.

Well, back in 2000, I printed an item in which Intel predicted “By 2005 we’ll see the first 30 nanometer transistors (0.03 microns). A hundred thousand of them stacked on top of each other will be the thickness of a sheet of paper. This will enable 10GHz processors that can process 20 million calculations in the time a bullet flies 1 foot.”

Hmmm. Not quite, Intel. But your competition is getting pretty close. AMD’s Opteron 275 is not only a 64-bit chip (compared with the P4’s 32-bits) but uses miniscule 0.09-micron transistors, three times larger than the predicted size.

Conclusion: Prediction busted.

ASP, Where is Thy Sting?

In an article entitled, ASPs Defying Predictions of Demise? I passed along the information that two Application Service Provider (ASP) portals gave slightly different censuses of the ASP universe: 1,870 companies vs. 1,763. Of course, both portals predicted a bright future for selling software as a service. Let’s compare these old numbers with the current numbers listed at ASPStreet and ASPNews:

Predictor	2000	2005	Difference
ASPNews	1,870	1,822	-48
ASPStreet	1,763	2,582	+819

Hmmm. The ASP market is either pretty healthy or slowly declining. You decide.

Conclusion: Prediction mixed.

Flash vs. Content

OK, this one isn’t strictly a prediction, but it’s worth revisiting. In a previous SNS, I railed about the apparent triumph of flash (little ‘f’ and big ‘F’) over content on a growing number of sites. Many sites still have Flash intros (which basically says to search engines, “Go away!” However, we’ve seen Flash be more integrated into a Website as a banner header or other page element.

Two good examples I’m intimately familiar with are the Evalubase Research site and one of The WiMAX Guys clients’ site, Uncovering Profits. The Evalubase site (done by yours truly; be kind, I’m a graphics idiot) uses three different Flash objects to add a little pizzazz. Uncovering Profits has an all-Flash main page (we got involved a little too late to prevent this), but uses a Flash navbar throughout the rest of the site.

But the most interesting thing about this particular blast from the past is the site I used as an example of the most egregious use of Flash I had seen, the Website of a company called Balthaser. If the site had been based on HTML, you could see how their site used to look courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Instead, you get a blank page.

Anyway, the company now has a pretty cool interactive design application built in Flash. It’s still not optimal, it’s all black and all in Flash, but it does get the job done. Try signing up for their free account and see how it works. The screen is still way too dark, and I missed the “Next” button during the signup phase, but, whaddaya gonna do? What do you suppose the piercing density of the Balthaser staff is?

Conclusion: I still hate the overuse of Flash.

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: The WiMAX Guys’ main business is new installs for people who want to set up wireless hotspots such as hotels, warehouses, apartment buildings, and office buildings or hotzones that cover cities. We also sell a knowledge-based Web portal called the MAX K-Base. Check out our main Website at www.TheWiMAXGuys.com. My wife created a bit of a stir when her op-ed piece was published in the Minneapolis StarTribune newspaper after the election. Her article, “Two Nations, Handcuffed Together,” has been commented on or linked to by more than 85 Websites. She’s now created a Website to capitalize on her newfound pundit status. Check it out at www.debellsworth.com. Several issues ago I debuted SNS Begware, an opportunity for you, gentle reader, to express your appreciation by tipping your server via PayPal. See the sidebar for more info. Total in the kitty so far: $91.48. Thanks Dave!
• The Raw File – SNS is dedicated to delivering the scoop on the latest and greatest. However, I collect lots of information that never makes it into the newsletter before it gets old. I’ve collected all this aging info into a page called The Raw File. This page is the raw information I gather for SNS articles. It’s not pretty, and some may be a little incoherent, but chances are there are still things in TRF that might be news to you. So therefore, use The Raw File at your own risk – it’s 45+ pages of the best stuff that didn’t make it into SNS. The Raw File
• Microsoft Soundbite Security : Well, it looks like the behemoth has learned the talk. Can they walk it? Their latest soundbite: “With security, it's never who you know. It's who you don't know.”
• FindForward Can Spot That Meme: One of the really ubiquitous buzzwords of the early Web was meme, defined as a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Or more concisely, a thought virus. The rise of the idea of “soccer moms” is an example of the spread of a meme. Well, my favorite search engine, Google, is now so broad that you can chart the rise and fall of memes throughout the whole 20^th century using a new search service called FindForward. In addition to being a regular search engine, the service allows you to specify which half of the 20^th century to search for your term and gives back a graph depicting the popularity of the term by year. Cool idea, but, unfortunately, it’s not tremendously accurate, placing the first mention of the pet rock in 1951 instead of 1975. According to the site, the service, called Centuryshare, “tries to find natural peaks for ideas in particular years by searching the Web via Google. For every year, the number of the year is combined with the search query: to find out when Elvis Presley was at the height of his fame, the engine searches for Elvis Presley 1950, Elvis Presley 1951, Elvis Presley 1952, and so on, keeping track of the returned result count along the way.” Despite its flaws, FindForward is a harbinger of services to come, once all human knowledge has been digitized (see the Library of Alexandria and Library of Congress efforts) and put online. FindForward
• Dear Mr. Interjections R. Slatternly . . . You probably get spam all the time from people with improbable names. To avoid anti-spam efforts, spammers auto generate spammer names, with often hilarious results. Here’s just a partial list of the funny ones I got recently. I mean, really, Hollis Hartley? LOL! On a serious note, find out how to report spam at Abuse.net.
• Forward to Everyone You Know: The next time you get one of those urgent-forward-this-email-to-everyone-you-know messages from someone, strike a blow for sanity and direct the forwarder to this little quiz. Dr. Joe Thanks to Alert SNS Reader Doug Laney for the pointer.
• If You’ve Made it This Far: Well, there is a partial winner in our contest: Alert SNS Reader Ken Florian correctly identified the song containing the lyric “And I said yes sir brother sheriff, and that's your wife on the back of my horse.” The song is indeed Gangster of Love, a song made popular by Stevie “Guitar” Miller and first appearing on his album Sailor. Miller did not, however, write the song, which was penned by Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had a minor hit with it in 1957. My favorite other cover recording of the song is by Johnny Winter, on an obscure disk called Black Cat Bone. You may recall the contest was to email me the retort to the partial music lyric buried somewhere in the previous newsletter. The prize was one stick of totally obsolete PC memory. Sadly, I cannot award the memory to Mr. Florian, since he neglected to also answer the tiebreaker, “Who is Hoops McCann?” twice. Hint: By this I mean there are two different answers to the question. So, to claim the memory, Alert SNS Readers must first answer that tiebreaker and then also tell me where I can buy the LP featuring songs containing the lyrics “nauseous gasser” and “merry-go-round” for less than $69. It’s only going to get harder unless someone can emerge victorious.