Google Plus - familiar territory

I had a look at Google Plus. (Here's their tour.) My initial reaction is: hmm, all sounds very familiar. Midentity (social software start-up that I co-founded that ran between 2002 and 2006) had many of the attributes of Google Plus.

A key concept of Midentity was the ability to divide one's network of contacts into sub-groups. Midentity believed that you shared different content about yourself, based on the identity that you presented to them: Business, University friends, close buddies, tennis club, in-laws, etc.

In this way, you could share content appropriately and selectively with others in a way that is relevant to your connections. ie Google Circles.

Midentity's go-to-market service was a group text messaging service called Circles (text your message to your Circle's number, then the service delivered your message to all participants; if a participant replied, the reply went to all). ie Google's Huddle.

And yes, we were heavily focussed on mobile (the name Midentity stood for My Identity and Mobile Identity) and we experimented integrating with some instant upload features using early version of Shozu's phone software. ie Google Instant Upload.

Techcrunch carried an article, When Google Circles Collide, about how the author, Rocky Agrawal, uses multiple products to selectively share his content with his followers.

Do scroll down the article to heading 'The unsolved social network problem' in the article.

Streams of Content

The biggest unsolved problem in social networking remains unsolved with Google+: separating signal from noise. Twitter, it seems, doesn’t even want to try.

One person I follow on Twitter actually tags most of his posts. I’m interested in his content on tech, business and aviation. But I couldn’t care less about his Chicago tweets

I totally agree that this has become one of the pains of social networks – finding the updates that matter.

Actually, this is the reason why I purchased this stream121 domain – as I envisaged the problem in 2005 – the problem of filtering everyone else's content that's relevant to an individual. ie Google Sparks.

With that said, I have never gone out to solve this problem....... An opportunity lost? Yes for sure, but I always believed that the identity problem was a more fundamental one to solve.

(Apologies that this entry was so long in the making - it was stuck in draft mode for some unknown reason.)

Google’s secret sauce

Google's secret sauce - or rather one of them - is its operational expertise at deploying and managing vast (I mean really vast) numbers of servers in its operation.

Google’s Servers
It uses commodity computers with its own Linux-based Operating System (see Wikipedia), both of which have been tuned to Google’s requirements.

It is ‘reasonably’ estimated that it has 1 million of them - the largest server farm in the world by far. Here’s an eye watering graphic from Gizmodo: Google’s Insane Number of Servers Visualized (April 2010).

(Want to know who the other big server boys? see DataCenterKnowledge)

Google are notoriously secret about its hardware, so I think these figures are only ball park estimates.


Performance IS important
This operational horse power is a key competitive advantage is Google's business operation. For example, user responsiveness is critical. These stats are taken from the Velocity Conference 2009 and reported by its organiser, Steve Souders on his blog post, Velocity and the Bottom Line:

• Bing found that a 2 second slowdown changed queries/user by -1.8% and revenue/user by -4.3%.
• Google Search found that a 400 millisecond delay resulted in a -0.59% change in searches/user.
• At Google, one experiment increased the number of search results per page from 10 to 30, with a corresponding increase in page load times from 400 milliseconds to 900 milliseconds. This resulted in a 25% dropoff in first result page searches.
• At Shopzilla, a year-long performance redesign resulted in a 5 second speed up (from ~7 seconds to ~2 seconds). This resulted in a 25% increase in page views, a 7-12% increase in revenue, and a 50% reduction in hardware.

Google’s own dedicated network
Google itself has a massive internal network. If you think of all the crawling that Google does, then the spider will be want to shuttle that information back to its nearest home base. Given the number of sites that Google crawls, it’s a really good idea to have ‘home’ nearby.

Here’s one estimate for the volume of traffic:

60 percent of Google's traffic was being channelled through direct interconnects that link its massive data centres to one another.

Significance?
Given Google's secrecy around its operational expertise, then it should take note of Facebook open sourcing its data centre design recently.

Facebook open sources data centre design

Facebook's has committed to open source its data centre design. This will surely threaten Google competitive advantage.

Firstly, this is what Facebook did:

Facebook then took the revolutionary step of releasing the designs for most of the hardware in the datacenter under the Creative Commons license. They released everything from the power supply and battery backup systems to the rack hardware, motherboards, chassis, battery cabinets, and even their electrical and mechanical construction specifications.

(from O’Reilly’s Jesse Robbins' blog post)

The result: Facebook’s shiny, new, custom-built datacentre in Prineville, Oregon, USA uses 38% less energy to do the same work as Facebook's existing facilities, while costing 24% less.

Side note: Dunno quite why Prineville was chosen. Cost of electricity is a massive factor, which is why Google and other choose locations near hydro power plants, but this is not the case in Prineville. See article at OregonLive.com.

Facebook can do this because its competitive weapon is entrenched and massive user base which is unlikely to wander off anywhere soon. Facebook is sticky, 'coz all your friends are there too.

Why should Google be concerned? Well, Google isn’t a one trick pony, but search is very, very, VERY important to it and user can more easily churn to another search engine than users of Facebook.

Search needs muscle - and operational muscle is one of Google's secret sauces - see my next post on Google's Secret Sauce.

Nokia lashes itself to Microsoft for its smartphones

Last week, Nokia, that doyen of phone manufacturing companies, lashed itself to Microsoft's Windows 7 phone operating system for its future smartphones. Nokia is in the midst of turbulent times. Stephen Elop, its new boss of 5 months, sent his staff an memo on 11th February warning them that they were standing on a burning oil platform and risked being consumed by the flames. The firm will also get a new operational structure and leadership team, more of whom will come from outside Finland, aka ‘de-finnistration’.

In 2G and 2.5G phone era, Nokia were all conquering: they perfected the 'candy bar' phone and made an elegant user experience, built on sound technology. As users ventured beyond calling and texting to surfing and dedicated applications, this design started to creak. The advent of touch technology really demonstrated that Nokia had lost its golden touch.

Further details of the partnership: Microsoft's Bing will power Nokia's search services, while Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services.

On reflection, this announcement isn't too surprising. Stephen Elop formerly head of Office Products at MS was recruited as Nokia's CEO 5 months ago. He will have the historical and cultural capabilities to make this marriage work.

The tech press have been making a big deal of this announcement. But let's not forget that Nokia still makes about one third of the world's phones and remains extremely powerful in the developing markets of the world. Any phone manufacturer would be delighted to swap places with Nokia.

This isn't a company in crisis, but it does need a kick up the pants. Phone manufacturing today is much more about providing the building blocks for an ecosystem and less about filling the end-to-end solution with single solution technology.

In this respect, I think that, of the two front runners in the smartphone battle, iPhone and Google's Android, Android is better positioned, as Apple remains draconianly closed. However, I do believe that Apple will open its iOS to a greater degree within 18 months' time. RIM's Blackberry remains in trailer in the race and will most probably remain niched in the enterprise market.

Microsoft are likely to be VERY pleased with this new relationship. Historically, it has spent colossal amounts of money on mobile development, with little real traction. Access to this mobile giant (I refuse to call it a dinosaur yet) will bolster its credibility.

However as Rory Cellan-Jones writes in the BBC news story:

The cruel verdict from some is that two turkeys don't make an eagle .... This is a huge moment which could shape the future of an industry.

However what did make me sit up and think was the Economist's analysis (Nokia falls into the arms of Microsoft) and the analysis below of market share vs profits (source is credited to Asymco)



Incumbents are receiving a battering from Apple (particularly Nokia), which is fleecing the profits in the industry. We're likely to see an increasing number of partnerships and acquisitions to counter the Android + iPhone duopoly. I believe it also augers the end of European telcos doing handset manufacture.

One nagging thought: what are the implications for Japanese highly advanced mobile technology, now that the ecosystem battle has superseded the device wars??

Google's URL Shortener has QR Code functionality

Mentioned previously as a beta feature (Google adds QR Codes as part of URL Shortener), but now Google has officially launched its URL Shortener , Goo.gl with the QR Code generator. (See Techcrunch report.)

If you simply add “.qr” to the end of any goo.gl URL, it will create a QR code. Scanning this with any QR code reader will take you to the URL.

Google adds QR Codes as part of URL Shortener

Not to be outdone by Facebook adding QR Codes (see recent post), Google has enabled QR Codes as part of the URL Shortener according to this Techcrunch report: Google Continues To Embrace QR Codes, Integrates Them Into Its URL Shortener.

So Google has a URL Shortener Goo.gl (yawn) which launched in December 2009 (Facebook And Google Get Into The Short URL Game). Today, Google added a very elegant feature: if you add “.qr” to the end of any shortened link, this will generate a QR code for it. For example, the link http://goo.gl/SJhz would become http://goo.gl/SJhz.qr.

Google are a clearly massive fan of QR Codes and this is an easy way to propagate them.

Privacy and Google's Latitude

Google has just released Latitude, a a service that lets you keep track of where your friends are by tracking the whereabouts of their mobile phones. Latitude is available in 27 countries. The following phones are supported: Android-powered devices with Maps v3.0 and above. G1 users in the US will be receiving Maps v3.0 in a system update soon. Most color BlackBerry devices Most Windows Mobile 5.0 and above devices. Note: Some Windows Mobile devices don’t support cell-ID location detection. Most Symbian S60 devices iPhone and iPod touch devices with the Google Mobile App (coming soon in the US) Many Sony Ericsson devices (coming soon) (From Pandia) It is opt-in. Will Google be 'on top' of the privacy issue?

LinkedIn's Intelligent Application Platform

LinkedIn has arrived that it's permitting third parties build applications for use within its community. (Article from Silicon)

For example, BusinessWeek will integrate LinkedIn onto its news website, allowing people to find out more about individuals or companies mentioned in articles. I can envisage a Snap-type hover over.

We can expect similar announcements from all the companies that are part of Google's Open Social community.

Big feature on QR Codes in major UK newspaper

The Sun, the most read newspaper in the UK (famous for its topless Page 3 girls), had a series of pages promoting QR code last week:

• What is in Keeley's hands?
• How to crack QR smart code
• QR craze started in Japan
• Pet Shop Boys' coded message

Mobile Content News reports that News International, the Sun’s owner, is watching the take-up of the service closely, and may roll it out across all of its titles if it proves successful. Naturally the Sun is looking at the advertising potential and have already signed up Ladbrokes, Sky and Twentieth Century Fox to the service.

Also from mobilestance.com:

Google has stated that Andriod will feature a basic, but functional “format agnostic” QR reader, to be preloaded on all devices shipping with the Android Open OS.

The same link also contains this:

many of the major US carriers are getting behind the technology, giving the downloadable readers some fairly prominent deck placement over the next few quarters (sources confidential).

Obviously, I still haven't researched how the legals in QR Codes outside of Japan have been overcome. Any pointers anyone??

Google's My Location

Google Maps has My Location in beta.

It displays your current location on Google Maps. It works with a GPS-enabled mobile phones - so no real surprises there.

What I like is that it works (using the same interface) on non-GPS phones using cell triangulation. You press '0' on your keypad to do the location look-up. Here's a YouTube explaining it.

Now, we all know that mobile operators charge for location look-ups using cell triangulation (eg about 7p in the UK (about 15 US cents)- I know because I experimented launching an LBS service in 2003).

Google's service is in beta - what happens on launch? Presumably, it will be funded by Google's giant advertising machine. I also assume that there will be a geo-location version of their advertising service to follow.

Google mobile objectives: Open Handset Alliance / Android

Google make a huge foray into the mobile arena, by providing a phone operating system for free 'Android'. It has launched Open Handset Alliance as the vehicle to facilitate its penetration into the mobile market.

See Sergry Brin introduce it:


Four handset manufacturers are on board: Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG. Operators?? Sprint, Nextel, T-Mobile, China Mobile, Telefonica and Telecom Italia will sport the Google-powered phones - the first of them will be available late 2008.

This announcement is more than a poke in the eye with significant mobile OS providers such as Microsoft, Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian.

Clearly, everyone is feeling everyone else out with this new offering - 'of course, I'll participate, but I'm not going to jettison any of my existing partnerships that I have nurtured for years'.

I think this strategy is too early for Google - mobile internet isn't what 99% of users require out of a phone at the moment. Another desktop player, MS, took years to gain traction in the mobile sector. Admittedly, this strategy isn't home grown, it came from the acquisition of Android in 2005 - so it will have a better chance than MS, but still...

Google's behemoth is advertising - the mobile industry is a lot more sophisticated and VERY different to the internet. 'Free' isn't word that is trips off the tongue of mobile executives.

I reserve judgment. As I've said before, when people with lots of ammunition are wandering around the battlefield, be careful, they don't have to know too much about what they are doing to be very dangerous.

UPDATE: Here's a biting critique of Google's announcement from a report from Analysys:

As a strategy to bring fundamental change to the mobile industry, Android is way off target.
In reality, a free OS will not be sufficient incentive for major players to write off investments in established software platforms and adopt a platform that offers nothing new from a development perspective.
Manufacturers have a financial liability for their devices, and cannot contemplate the prospect of an open-source OS that could release a virus or trojan into the market. The required investment in OS security and stability would be high, as it has been for Android’s predecessors.
They (members of the Open Handset Alliance) can exploit the publicity if the initiative is successful, and minimise their exposure (as one of several players participating in numerous initiatives) if it fails. In cash terms, partners will invest little in R&D to support this programme.
Ultimately, Google’s primary strategic and revenue objective is to encourage the use of its search engine. If, by backing an OS alliance, Google can expand the scope of its search box placement by cementing relationships with established partners and developing deals with new partners, arguably Android will have done its job.

No surprise that I agree with this viewpoint!

Google opensocial aims to become the social platform glue

At the start of this month, Google released standard set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for building social applications that will work across social networking and other Web sites. So as a developer, write once, integrate with many.

Here are some of the companies that have signed up: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. (Most of these are consumer sites, but some are business sites.)

This could be seen as a face-off between Facebook's platform (representing 50 million active users) vs OpenSocial (which leverages users of existing silioed services which together represent 100 million users). However Google is stressing this is an developer platform (rather than commercial one).

Hello? Identity management standard in another guise??

Nice point from this Gartner analyst in this article:

What's missing, said Valdes, is any common user experience, which he believes is one of the reasons that Facebook has prospered.

Also Facebook represents a trusted brand - with privacy standards & trust, as well as a similar consumer experience. A set of APIs alone doesn't represent that.

Google proposes global privacy standard

From Silicon.com:
While Google is leading a charge to create a global privacy standard for how companies protect consumer data.

USA Today story adds some historical colour to the story, by highlighting the fact that Google is struggling with privacy concerns that threatens its purchase Internet ad service DoubleClick for $3.1 billion:

Facing pressure from European regulators, Google got the privacy ball rolling in a new direction earlier this year when it announced plans to regularly remove key pieces of personal information about the search requests stored in its computers.

It then narrowed its time frame for depersonalizing search requests from as long as two years to 18 months — a standard that Microsoft, which runs the third-most-popular search engine, also has adopted.

Yahoo, which operates the second-most-popular search engine, has gone further by promising to scrub personal information within 13 months — a standard Time Warner's AOL also follows.

InterActiveCorp's Ask.com is going even further by offering its users a tool that will prevent search terms and the Internet addresses of computers from being retained.

Previously, all the search engines had been vague about how long they hold on to the personal information logged from search requests.

Showing their true colors - Skype & Google

Two announcements, one shortly after the other, indicate the intended strategic direction of some big players.


Skype has announced SkypePro in Europe for €2 per month:

• Pay nothing per minute to numbers in your country
• Free Voicemail
• Ability to purchase SkypeIn at a discount
• Bunch of other discount vouchers, freebies

Interestingly, Skype will still charge a 'connection fee' of about 3.9 Euro cents per call. This sounds a trivial charge for Skype to eat in comparison to the zero cost per minute.

Frankly, I'm surprised Skype haven't put this bundle together years earlier.


Google finally announces an Office-like suite of productivity tools for business called Google Apps Premier Edition for $50 per user, per year: online e-mail, calendaring, messaging, and talk applications, as well as a word processor and a spreadsheet.

It differs from the the consumer version (launched last August) with an API to permit businesses to interface to their existing applications.

Missing from the line-up are a presentation tool (I wonder if the Google M&A team will be busy??) and full-on contact management capabilities.

And in the Microsoft corner: Office 2007 for $499 or MS Live (and Ray Ozzie: Chief Software Architect, creator of IBM Corp.’s Lotus Notes). I wonder what Yahoo's reaction will be?

Google to partner with triple-play BSkyB

Google and BSkyB get together to provide services that blend BSkyB's plays together (from the Times):

• BSkyB will use Google’s video content tools to launch a portal allowing users to share their own video content, including the facility to upload and download from a mobile phone.
  
• BSkyB customers can use BskyB-branded version of Google Mail.

Still on the negotation table: BskyB's use of Google Talk and their email service.

This is only the beginning - we should expect more glue between the multi-plays once they have sured up their M&A.