Category: Web 2.0

Steve Rubel calls it right on Google: “All your Ads belong to us“.

Its been said before, but I’ll say it again: when will Governments start intervening in Google’s growth? How much of the online world will Google dominate before Government says enough is enough, this is anti-competitive, monopoly behaviour? Sure, the argument against is that you can’t regulate people’s behaviour, there is alternatives to Google in all the markets in which they compete/ dominate/ control, but every day, every month, every year Google gets bigger and bigger, more and more dominant and in control: Google + DoubleClick equals a massive share of the online advertising market. Search may not be all Google in the US, but Google has in excess of 80% market share in other countries, including Australia. Is Google close to becoming the Standard Oil or the AT&T of our times? remember that they also own a big chunk of internet backbone in the US as well. Time will tell I guess, but I’ll predict that if Governments aren’t taking a look at Google now, they soon will be.

$3.1bn: Google’s purchase price for Doubleclick. Struth. Web 1.0 lives again, literally, DoubleClick is a Web 1.0 company, dating from the early days of the internet. Is this a smart move for Google? if they apply the Adwords model to Doubleclick CPM banner advertising is going to get a whole lot more sexy very soon, and firms such as ValueClick and RightMedia should be looking out, big time.

Spot question: will this deal mark the top of the Web 2.0 boom/ bubble?

CBS announces 10 content distribution partners: BBC.

Will the content be geoblocked? I can’t currently view video content (show episodes, not previews) on the CBS website without spoofing my IP address or using a Proxy; will services such as Joost also block content to non-US viewers? I can only hope they don’t. And of course if they don’t, the death of network delayed TV in Australia is sure to follow, after all, who’s going to wait 6-9 months to watch the latest hit series from the US when you can stream it from the web legally, as opposed to what many do now anyway, download the content from bittorrent. Here’s hoping.

Is there anything David Krug won’t sell?

Email in my inbox this morning (my time, +8GMT) letting me know that Splashpress Media has acquired 901am. Minin Rivera, ex-Editor of The Blogging Times has taken the Editor position.

Congrats to all involved.

I’m starting to become convinced that I must be psychic: I was only looking at domain names yesterday for a Web 2.0 focused site. Having said that I’ve made no decision as to whether I will continue there, particularly given my history with the new owners, and the tone they’ve taken with me so far on the acquisition (not bad, just formal).

Spot Question though: is there anything Splashpress hasn’t bought? 🙂

Scoble on Photobucket’s ban @ MySpace: Myspace is right, everyone else is bad, parasites even.

BS.

MySpace is the amazing success it is because it gave it’s users a creative freedom other sites didn’t.

My response to Scoble as follows. It will probably get deleted, so I’ll post it here.

I’ll tell you what I think, I think you’re a goose. News Corp’s Myspace has become popular off the back of allowing broad creative freedom to users, and now it’s trying to take that away. Have you actually checked Myspace to see if there’s an easy alternative there to Photobucket’s video hosting? THERE ISN’T. People are using services such as this because MySpace DOESN’T offer a reasonable alternative + they want to run this stuff on their sites. This is literally a case of MySpace bitting the hand that has helped fuel its amazing success, it’s not an argument about whether they should be able to make money off the site, that they should be able to make money is a given, it’s about creative freedom and what defines a given service, in this case MySpace, and its users.

Food for thought.

Michael Arrington @ TechCrunch has the scoop: Google has invested in China based browser Maxthon, which for memory has something like 25-30% of the Chinese market. It’s a very smart move by Google, knocking Baidu off in China and Yahoo off elsewhere as the default search option for Maxthon will exponentially increase their share in China, where they’ve so far failed to make a major indent. Arrington reckons the figure is $1m, that makes the strategic investment an absolute bargain as well.

Has Twitter passed its peak? or is it more of an adjustment following the post SXSW hype, a rollercoaster ride of traffic? I’ve got an ever increasing list of friends/ subs in Twitter, and yet the level of posting this last week is actually declined. Might have something to do with Easter…will wait and see I guess.

If you want to join me: http://twitter.com/duncanriley

Nothing too exciting, but I am trying to post the occasionally interesting thing.

For those not following my posts @ 901am, I wrote yesterday about my switch to all things Google.

But I do have a small wish list of things I’d like Google to implement/ change so I can perfect my experience:

1. Outlook style functionality in gmail
I need folders! The main reason I download my email to Outlook is so I can drag emails into an extensive array of folders. Yes, gmail has tags, but it’s not the same. I’d switch permanently to only using gmail via gmail.com is I could have this feature, if Yahoo can do it, surely Google can as well

2. Full screen text in reader
I’m liking Google Reader more and more each day, but the text from the feeds should use the whole screen, not wrap half way

3. Firefox bookmark integration
I’m staying with Google Bookmarks for sure, but having two Bookmark buttons in Firefox is stupid. Foxmarks integrates with Firefox Bookmarks, GMarks (which isn’t from Google) doesn’t…and Google’s only alternative is the Google toolbar, which I’m not interested in using. C’mon Google, support your product!

There’s probably more things, if you’ve got any suggestions for Google, please share!

Scoble reports the Leo Laporte has switched to Jaiku, a Twitter clone. Already I’m seeing messages there from new signups thanking both Scoble + Laporte. Does the world need another Twitter? I’m finding keeping up on Twitter hard enough as it is, imagine having to do it on two sites, or three, or more? And as for business models, do any of these sites have one as yet? Twitter has zero revenue…so the VC funds must be burning at Web 1.0 rates…it starts to give rise to the bubble argument in a way. Time will tell I guess.

Tags: Twitter, Jaiku

On March 28 I wrote a post pointing out that Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been duped by a clever person running a site called popuri..a site which I alleged ran on a script that could be bought for $20. Turns out I was wrong, totally wrong, and hence I openly apologise to all readers.

The script (either the same one, or one very close to it) is actually available for free at DP here. 6th script down. Look for “Advanced AJAX PageRank Checker (MOST POPULAR ONE EVER! 400+ Copies sold)”.

Now for those aiming to set up a similar site, all you have to do is add nifty little icons next to the words, find a cool Web 2.0 URL and of course, don’t forget the logo.

Degree of Difficulty: EASY
Time to complete: 20 minutes.