Google Hangs Out a Shingle for Its Apps Marketplace

Google does what Google does and it has now opened the doors on an apps marketplace that is designed for Google Apps customers. Don’t think the overlap in terminology with the other app guys is coincidence either. The difference with this form of app though is the fundamental difference that separates Google from Apple. Google provides apps that are fundamental business needs and this strategy is where the search giant appears to be hanging its hat moving forward relating to search, advertising and more.

Yesterday the Official Google blog reported:

Every day, thousands of businesses choose the cloud. More than 2 million businesses have adopted Google Apps over the last three years, eliminating the hassles associated with purchasing, installing and maintaining hardware and software themselves.

We’ve found that when businesses begin to experience the benefits of cloud computing, they want more. We’re often asked when we’ll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management. But we certainly can’t and won’t do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise.

First of all, having 2 million businesses using Google Apps is pretty impressive. While most are the SMB’s of the world, Google has shown the world the ability to penetrate enterprise accounts as well. Of course, this hits at another of the biggest competitors against the Goog: Microsoft.

Some apps that are part of the roll out are Intuit Online payroll, Manymoon project management, PS Connect and JIRA Studio for development to manage flow between various apps.

Watching this strategy unfold is pretty interesting. There is an awful lot riding on it and it would appear that Google has more of the pieces under their roof than any other competitor does. How this plays out should be fascinating. One of the final paragraphs of the post tells the real story:

For more information on the benefits of the Google Apps Marketplace to businesses, check out our Enterprise Blog post. Developers interested in learning how to integrate with Google Apps can check out our post on the Google Code Blog. Or, you can explore the Google Apps Marketplace directly at http://google.com/appsmarketplace.

Notice the order of how these are written. What it seems to be saying is that Google wants the enterprise and is daring everyone else to find a way to stop them.

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Google Testing New TV Search Service?

I will let you in on my new system for posts. If the post title has a question mark there is good reason to suspect that it will fall in the realm of rumor. In this case, the source of the information, The Wall Street Journal, tends to report on things that are as “real” as they can be. On this one, however, there was enough evidence that while Google may be up to something it’s not ready or prime time.

What gave it away? This line in the WSJ article

A Google spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.

That was easy. OK, now that we have that out of the way let’s talk about what Google may or may not be doing with TV search. The Business Insider tells us a little more as well

Google is testing a new TV search service with Dish Network, the no. 2 U.S. satellite TV provider, the WSJ reports.

The service lets you search TV shows and Web video, including YouTube videos
, the WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro reports. The service runs on set-top boxes “using elements of Google’s Android operating system,” and is currently being tested by Google employees and their families, according to the WSJ.

Google TV search makes sense of course because if anything can be searched then it can be better managed. Also, Dish Network is the perfect candidate for this kind of service because their battle with DirecTV is heating up. Dish has troubles because DirecTV owns the sports side of the ledger so if Dish could create a more compelling experience overall then it has something to battle with.

So what’s the net-net of this? Well, it’s apparently that Google is doing what it always does which is to expand its horizons and to get into more areas to make money. You gotta figure that not all of the 20,000 employees at the Goog are working on search right? Something is always brewing. I guess the lesson to learn here is that if you can be friends with the right Google employees you may get to be part of their informal product tests.

Google Gets the Department of Justice’s Seal of Non-Approval

I can hear it now. We normal folks won’t be able to hear this signal (kind like a dog whistle) but this is being sounded across the US to Washington, DC from Mountain View, CA as we speak.

“Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! (Especially if you still have stock) I repeat – Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! This is your real leader, Eric Schmidt, and we need you to ‘talk’ to some people about this ‘problem’ that the US government has with our book deal. Remember where your allegiance is and who is more powerful. Go and do your duty for the Goog immediately. Thanks and have a great day!”

OK, so it really is a ridiculous thought but I bet the folks at Google wish that could happen when a road block like this happens to a deal that seems quite important to one of the most powerful companies in the world. Sfgate.com tells us

The Department of Justice said in a filing late Thursday that revisions to the proposed legal settlement allowing Google Inc. to publish millions of books online didn’t do enough to allay antitrust, copyright and other legal concerns.

The landmark deal would allow the Mountain View search titan to move ahead with its ambitious project while establishing a system for identifying and paying appropriate rights holders.

The government acknowledged “substantial progress” on several issues, but said in a statement filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that core concerns remain unresolved, including the amount of power granted to Google.

There is quite a bit at stake with this book deal for sure and there are those who are both for and against. Those against include library groups, academics and competitors who have privacy and anti-competitive concerns. Those for the deal include student, minorities and the disabled because the service would provide the ability to access more information than ever.

Google is doing an “act as if” and not really publicly recognizing this decision that could influence whether this gets past the government’s scrutiny or not. This whole drama has been two years in the making and Google has had a similar battle in Europe. Whether this will ever reach the point of an agreement that allows Google to do what is proposed for many out of print volumes is a major TBD (to be determined).

Google keeps running precariously close to the line that reads “If crossed people will yell monopoly!” I suspect they would like just one victory but whether that will happen in this case may be more out of their control than usual.

How do you feel about this book agreement? Have you followed it? Do you care? If Google gets the green light is it truly giving them to much power? If they can’t do it will any of these books ever be seen again by anyone?

Google Still A Distant Second To Baidu in China

When the world looks at areas where the pure numbers are pretty staggering it’s the sheer size and potential of the Chinese market. Let’s face it there are a lot of Chinese folks. So it would only be natural that Google would like a piece of that pie. What is not normal though is the fact that Google is second fiddle by a considerable margin to Baidu, which is acting like the Chinese version of Google in its homeland.

CNNMoney.com reports that Baidu is pretty much putting it to Google. As one should expect though it is probably not wise to count Google out on this one.

At first glance one might readily declare “game over” in the China online search war. Beijing-based Baidu (BIDU) dominates: According to Jennifer Li, Baidu’s chief financial officer, Baidu’s market share for search in China was about 77% in the third quarter, up from 75.6% in the second quarter.

Google (GOOG), she says, lost share in China, dropping to 17% in the third quarter, from about 19% in the second quarter.

So what’s the cause of this disparity? Apparently it’s not Google’s handling of the Chinese language. In fact, they receive pretty good marks on this one. What is likely the biggest contributor that can be seen (meaning there might be, just maybe a little bit, of Chinese government stuff going on here but that is PURE speculation on my part) is something that even Google can’t overcome: time. Google came to the Chinese marketing in 2006 while Baidu has been at it since 2000. That’s a lot of time to get a head start.

What might be interesting to watch is the battle that is developing as Baidu makes a play in the growing mobile market. Google has fared well there but Baidu is making some serious waves in that pool.

And Baidu is trying to extend its search dominance on mobile phones, an area where Google has done well in China, thanks to a search deal with China Mobile, the nation’s largest carrier. In October Baidu announced a deal to provide mobile search to customers of China Unicom’s (CHU) 3G services, and it also is testing a mobile app that features Baidu’s some most popular online tools, including a message board service.

This market will be interesting to watch for sure because the political side of opportunity is one that the world watches very closely. Remember all the Internet ‘issues’ around the Beijing Olympics of 2008? Missteps by anyone outside of the Chinese market are likely to happen and it will likely keep foreign competition at a serious disadvantage. Once again, this is just me thinking out loud based on what has happened in the past.

Baidu is saying that Google is on their radar and not being overlooked.

But no one, least of all Baidu executives, assumes Google is content with its position in China today. “We don’t underestimate their technology or their ability,” says Baidu CFO Li.

As for Google’s plan of attack? Maybe it looks a lot like the ne that it has for Apple elsewhere.

Google’s ambitions in China go well beyond traditional online advertising and search. The company is widely believed to be looking for multiple ways to introduce its Android mobile operating platform in China, and recent reports suggest it may look to open an Android application marketplace in China.

Google most certainly has its work cut out for it. How it fares in China may very well tell a lot about what the company is made of since it is one of the few places where it will need to fight from behind rather than defend from the top.

Yikes! Google to Acquire Yelp!?

You know how marketers will burn unused budget before the end of the so they don’t lose it next year? Well, do you at least remember when that was a common practice since today there usually much budget to start with? Apparently Google must have some end of the year M & A funds lying around to spend. The word is that they are ready to acquire the local business review site Yelp for a tidy sum. What a way to end the year.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been busy coming up with the inside scoop:

Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn’t done, we’ve heard that it’s very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.

Yelp was founded in 2004 as a way to let users leave reviews on local businesses. Comscore puts worldwide traffic at nearly 9 million monthly unique visitors, and it has been growing fast – the company says its real numbers are more like 25 million monthly uniques.

This would certainly be an interesting addition to Google’s growing local search empire. With their activities in the mobile realm and all the opportunities with Google Maps, Google Local Business etc, etc Yelp would be a very strong addition to an already strong stable of local offerings.

As for Yelp as a service? It certainly is growing and has a great reputation but it remains a service that has great success in high tech pockets. With Google at the helm it could spread like wildfire. Either that or it may just be assimilated into “The Goog” and used as the model moving forward for Google’s local business offerings. That is all a big TBD and, of course, having this deal finished first will help with the speculation about the integration of Yelp and its offerings.

Arrington notes as well that we should expect more acquisition activity from Google in the coming months. While many joke about it, maybe this really IS a Google world and we are all just allowed to play in it.

Google’s Revolving Talent Door Spins in Europe

We have spoken before of the task that Google is faced with on a daily basis. While the company attracts the best and the brightest help it’s not as easy to keep them around as you might think. The trouble with having a lot of ‘talent’ are the egos that can be attached to that particular set of people. So once they climb on board The Goog the assimilation process may not take hold with everyone. As a result, they often look for greener pastures elsewhere while giving Google top spot on their resume. It can’t hurt, right?

TechCrunch tells the story today of another C level exit this time on the European front

European Directories has announced a big win this morning with the appointment of Ben Legg as Chief Operating Officer.

Legg joins the Dutch/British company from Google, one of its main competitors, where the man served as COO Europe since January this year and as Director of Operations in the two years before that.

Now, since I was born and raised in the States I honestly had no idea who European Directories was so this seemed like a bit of a shock. That was until I learned more about the size of the company and its impact.

European Directories says it currently provides more than 700,000 SME customers with a range of solutions to their local advertising needs. In total, the company now employs 4,700 staff.

Not too shabby for sure. Read on though and you see that he apparently likes a challenge because the company sounds like the European equivalent of the myriad Yellow Page offerings we are abandoning here in the states like rats on a sinking ship.

He will also head unnamed ‘group-wide initiatives’ that will be launched to transform the traditionally print-based directory business to a multi-media lead generation venture.

We all know how well that is going here in the US (check out RH Donnelly and their performance as of late). If this type of company has waited this long to turn the corner into a multi media venture then there appears to be some folks asleep at the wheel.

Admittedly though the European market is very different from the US and the direct comparison between these two may not be fair but the underlying reasons for converting to a multi media approach are probably pretty close to the same: go multi media or shrivel up and fade away into irrelevance.

So while we talk about talent leaving Google the one thing we don’t see is Google suffering too much (in the short term at least) as a result of the revolving door they have working with some top talent. Maybe The Goog is just so strong that as it floats through the Internet space and it drops a few PhD’s and MBA’s here and there it doesn’t feel it.

Anyway, at least you folks in Europe can look forward to your online space being cluttered with more lead gen efforts. Sweet!

Android to Make Waves by 2012

This is interesting timing for me personally regarding the release of a report from Gartner regarding its predictions for the future of smart phones once Android finds its stride. I have noted here before that I am a BlackBerry Storm user on the Verizon Network and I am underwhelmed. I like the network and chuckle regarding the AT&T lapses in service that I hear iPhone users gripe about. At the same time the Storm is just not that great.

It’s so ‘not that great’ that I went out and bought a 32GB iPod Touch just so I could enter the world of apps. At the same time Verizon announced its offering of Android phones in the near future. I got a little giddy at the thought of having the Touch for Apple apps and then the Android phone for all things Google because I suspect that the offering will be on par if not better than Apple’s.

Well, along comes Gartner and makes me feel like some kind of prophet (in a pretty insignificant way but a way nonetheless)! According to Computerworld

While the Google-backed Android mobile operating system currently runs on less than 2% of all smartphones, Gartner Inc. predicts it will surge to 14% of the global smartphone market in 2012 — ahead of the iPhone, as well as Windows Mobile and BlackBerry smartphones.

In that year, Gartner forecasts Android will actually rank second globally, behind the Symbian OS, which is used in Nokia devices that are highly popular in Europe and many countries outside the U.S. Symbian now runs on about half of all smartphones, but will fall to 39% in 2012, Gartner says.

As I surmised prior to this report, since Google is behind the Android there is a serious likelihood that it is going to be integrated near seamlessly into a lot things I already do with Google. Trouble is that just as I typed that last sentence I got the chills. I felt like I was being assimilated into the Goog. It wasn’t even as if I gave it a second thought. I just went along with the fact that I, like millions of others, are somewhat owned by the collective computing conscience that is Google. Well, I’m over it.

Bring it on I say. Competition is good and now some of the iPhone glitterati will have to see if hey really do have the coolest toy on the playground.

The Gartner forecast gives Android such an enormous surge in popularity because of a variety of factors, but chiefly because of Google Inc.’s backing of Android and the range of cloud computing functions and related applications that Google will make available in coming years.

Right now the market is split with the Symbian OS currently has 50% share world wide due to the popularity of Nokia devices in Europe (does anyone in the US still use a Nokia phone?) with Blackberrys and iPhones taking the next spots. What Android phones look to do is provide some of the best features of it’s competitors in a more all inclusive platform

And because Android and Google operate in an “integrative and open environment, [they] could easily top … the singular Apple

.

The final indicator of the potential game changing influence that Android could have is the prediction that BlackBerry OS’s will drop from number 2 today to 5th as of 2012. If that holds true there are going to be some interesting times ahead for the smart phone world and the folks like us that depend on them.

Google Docs and the New World Student

If you are going to school it is probably hard to imagine a better resume builder than an internship at Google. I suspect that those folks will have a bit of an advantage in an interview situation over the kid who tries to spin his gig waiting tables at the beach for the summer by saying he “managed workflow and expedited product delivery in a fast paced, food related industry.” So what were these busy, industrious over-achievers up to for the summer? Trying to make school easier, of course, through improvements in Google Docs.

It’s moves like this that makes Google both fascinating and scary all at once. There are few, if any, areas of a person’s life that Google is not trying to impact. Of course, they are still first and foremost a search engine but there is very little from an information standpoint that Google is not looking to play in. I can’t decide if I am happy or I have been brainwashed by “The Goog” (the Internet’s version of the Borg for you Next Generation fans) into truly believing that it is a Google world and I am simply allowed to participate in it.

The Google Docs improvements are interesting and the Official Google Blog gives the details.

We created an equation editor so you can easily complete problem sets online or write papers that include equations. If you’re taking math, you can now take notes in class or answer questions using Google Docs.

In the same vein, we also added superscripts and subscripts — perfect for expressing chemical compounds or algebraic expressions

For language enthusiasts, we integrated translation features into Google Docs. You can translate either a single word or an entire document — handy for making sure you’re on the right track when writing those foreign language essays.

For those of you conducting surveys, we added a “Go to page based on answer” option in Google forms, making it easy to show participants only those questions that are relevant to them.

There’s more and it’s pretty cool. The one that got me was the translation service though. How many people are going to be writing their papers in English then handing in the French version that Google produced? While thinking it through makes that seem like a bad idea since one would suspect that the translations are less than perfect, it looks to me like the perfect opportunity for Google “do the work for you!”.

It’s that last idea that I actually fear the most. It’s great to have tools to enhance our capabilities and draw out more of our talent but when does the line cross when we have submitted our creativity and more to the application or service that helps us simply get from point A to point B the quickest but with less effort and actual thought? Of course, the folks over at Twitter and Facebook couldn’t be happier because with all that extra time on their hands students can be sitting around ‘collaborating’ and reducing their entire lives to a pithy saying or two.

Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the Internet today.

Yahoo Looking to Sell HotJobs, Buy Xoopit

With their Q2 results out—and better than expected—Yahoo seems to think they’re now in a prime position to review their holdings. In their portfolio, and on the chopping block: HotJobs and Yahoo Small Business. But Yahoo may also be looking to invest, most likely in Xoopit.

According to Reuters, Yahoo may be looking to divest itself of HotJobs, a job search website, as well as the division over Hot Jobs, Yahoo Small Business. YSB covers Yahoo! Domains, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Business Email, and Yahoo! Store, which could net the company a big bonus. Yahoo has been looking to sell for 2-3 months in an effort to focus on its core business.

Meanwhile, Yahoo is rumored to be in the final stages of acquiring Xoopit for around $20M:

sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, video, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them on many sites. It also has other products that essentially enliven email. . . .

According to sources, Yahoo was first impressed with its innovative plug-in that works with Gmail from Google (GOOG), and has been looking at the company for a while, previously offering about $10 million for it.

Xoopit also makes a similar photo-sharing application for Yahoo Mail, which it launched late last year.

As we said in May, Yahoo really wants to get in on social networking. Yahoo announced its social/mail push back in January 2008, but we haven’t seen a lot of movement on that front. The full acquisition of Xoopit might constitute the first step in that direction—but it doesn’t look like focusing on Yahoo’s core business of search. (On the other hand, their free webmail offering is an important part of the business, too.)

What do you think? Will Yahoo really sell HotJobs and YSB and/or buy Xoopit? Would either/both be a good idea?

Ning Rings VC Bell Again

With all of the talk regarding social media it seems that the inordinate amount of the attention goes to the big 2; Facebook and Twitter. While they do tend to generate significant drama and even some real news there is more to the social media space. In fact, there are those who see the social media universe fragmenting into very specific verticals so those of like mind can gather online without having to see that your friend just had a great breath of air. There’s got to be more right?

One of the biggest ‘sideline’ players in this space is Ning. They are doing very well despite some recent decline in numbers. They are doing so well that they picked up some more VC investment. The amount of the investment is not the focus, however, as pointed out over at AllThingsD. It’s the valuation that the investment is based on, which is a hefty $750 million. Not bad for getting just a small percentage of the attention that social media gets in the online press. For the uninitiated here is an overview of the company

Ning is working in a different corner of the social media space than the others

Ning is a platform aimed at offering customizable tools that lets users create their social networks about their interests, such as for fans of the movie “Twilight.”

Ning puts online ads on the sites, using Google (GOOG), and is also working on its own advertising platform. It also offers an array of other services and is planning more soon, such as a virtual gift offering.

Founded in early 2007, it currently has 29.3 million registered users, using 1.3 million social networks, and it adding one million registered users every 15 days, said the company.

Despite the positive news of investment interestTechCrunch reports

In the U.S., unique visitors actually declined 10 percent from May, 2009 to June, 2009, according to comScore. Ning had 5.1 million visitors in the U.S. in June (its worldwide audience is about three times as large).

The company attributes the decline to “some downtime in June as we expand and optimize our infrastructure to support the growth that we are expecting in the next 12 months.” Ning says it is adding 4,000 new Ning Networks every day and one million registered users every 15 days.

Ning lands this relatively small investment while it wasn’t even seeking more. Having Lightspeed Venture Partners on board, however, makes the roster of investors more impressive as the folks at Ning continue to grow their business. that can carry some value later on when they may actually look for money intentionally.

What is your experience with Ning? Do you have any experience at all with the service? What place does a service like Ning truly have? Ning CEO Gina Bianchini says that “We want to be the social network for interests and passions online.” Are there ways one can express passions online without such a service? Give us your passionate thoughts on the subject.

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