First, Google purchased DoubleClick, next it was Microsoft that bought aQuantive and now it’s Yahoo’s time to get its own online advertising company.
Yahoo has just acquired BlueLithium, the #6 ad network in the US, for $300 million, far from $3.1 billion Google paid for DoubleClick and just 5% of the amount of money Microsoft spent on aQuantive.
Latest edition of BRANDZ ranking has been released recently. Brandz is top 100 ranking of “Most Powerful Brands” on Earth published by Millward Brown Optimor in cooperation with the Financial Times.
In this year’s edition Google has risen to the top, previously dedicated to Microsoft, with Coca-Cola in 4th position. According to Millward Brown, Google’s brand value is $66.4bn (almost doubling its last year’s value) while Coca-Cola’s brand value is $44bn.
In the other hand, according to Interbrand’s Best Global Brands ranking released last summer, Coca-Cola is the most valuable brand with an estimated value of $67bn while Google is ranked 24th with $12.3bn.
This criteria disparity is accentuated by the fact that only five brands are part of the top10 in both rankings (but, of course, neither in the same position nor the same value). The only brand that is valuated aproximately the same is Microsoft!!
BRANDZ ($bn):
Interbrand ($bn):
Valuating brands seems to be a misterious science. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Microsoft’s top technical executive, Ray Ozzie, has recently said that Google success in finding in advertising revenue “was a wake-up call within Microsoft”. But he said Microsoft plans to do more than simply mimic Google by rolling out Web-based versions of desktop programs or following its particular search and advertising model.
Instead of jumping belatedly into the fray with Web-only programs, he said Microsoft will pursue a mix of software loaded on PCs and Internet services that also work with the growing array of mobile devices, a strategy he called ‘’software-plus-service'’.
He said he sees free, Web-based, ad-supported software as a way to extend Microsoft Office’s reach, but gave no specifics. ‘’Advertisers do want a targeted audience,'’ he said. If Microsoft can deliver it, ‘’I don’t see a reason why advertisers won’t move'’. What comes next? Only time will tell.
According to Wikipedia, a firewall is an information technology security device whose basic task is to control traffic between computer networks with different zones of trust.
By definition, network traffic is bidirectional which means that your personal firewall should protect your private home network from both, inbound traffic and outbound traffic. Whereas the former type of traffic has been generally thought to be a potential danger since the Internet was born, the latter one had not been considered a real danger until the proliferation of malware during the last few years. Right now outbound traffic have become a real danger.
Nevertheless while this seems obvious for everybody it looks like Microsoft disagrees. Windows XP’s built-in firewall, the current most-extended personal firewall, has no protection at all for outbound traffic giving users a false sense of security.
It was expected to be solved in brand-new Windows Vista as Microsoft states that new Vista’s firewall is now two-way. And it is true, but a closer look at the way it works reveals a particular way to understand security. By default, most firewalls, the good ones, allow no outbound connection unless explicitly authorized by the user, usually presenting a convenient wizard to program a particular rule the first time an application tries to connect to the Internet.
On the other hand, Windows Vista’s firewall by default allows all outbound connection until a rule is explicitly created to deny it by the user. Even worse, configuring these rules is no piece of cake at all. What does Microsoft say about this decision? Well, according to Matt Parreta, a spokesperson for Microsoft’s PR agency, they think that having to walk through the many wizard-driven pop-ups that would occur shortly after the first time Vista gets installed would be a poor out-of-the-box experience.
A false sense of security again, this time in the name of a “better user experience”. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Tons have been talked lately about whether YouTube’s video about how to get into Google TV is hoax or reality. Well, it is still not clear if it is hoax or reality. Some people claim that it is an amazing hoax while other people are conceited to have got a Google TV account.
Anyway, I believe that even if *this* Google TV is hoax, it will be a reality soon. Looks like, after social networks revolution, IPTV (TV over Internet) is the next big revolution and such player as Google won’t be out of this business.
Evidences? Friis and Zennstrom, the Skype and Kazaa guys, have recently launch Joost a new TV service based on peer-to-peer technologies. There is another new TV service called Babelgum, which combines social networking with TV viewing experience (web 2.0 with IPTV 1.0 ;-). Both, Joost and Babelgum are available only as a closed beta. There is also Apple with its Apple TV presented in last MacWorld Expo, a mixture between TiVo and an Internet computer. Even Bill Gates has been talking about this revolution lately while the brand new Windows Vista is more TV-oriented than ever (will Microsoft come next with Zune TV?).
Is there anybody out there who thinks that Google is not going to launch a “Google TV” service? What comes next? Only time will tell.
Chinese online population hit 136 million people by the end of 2006 becoming the world’s second largest behind the U.S. with a total online spending of $35,5 billion (47% more than the previous year).
Average Chinese Internet user spends $22 a month online, including payment to online services providers as well as shopping ang gaming. Still, the most popular Internet services in China are search engines (dominated by Baidu and Google and, to a lesser degree, by Yahoo!) followed by Internet portals (led by Sina.com, Netease.com and qq.com) and e-mail services.
But the most rapid growth in usage last year came from blogging. China now has 20.8 million bloggers. Top blogging sites are hosted by Sina, Qzone and MSN. Other new Internet services that are gaining particularly wide acceptance are personal Web pages similar to those on MySpace and video-sharing based on the Web 2.0 standards similar to YouTube. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Just one week for commercial launch of Windows Vista, but looks like good old times were really better.
August 1995 was top for Microsoft’s enthusiasts when Gate’s Company managed to get people to queue for miles to buy its brand-new Windows 95. This time, only CompUSA plans to keep its stores open past midnight on Tuesday, January 30th for those people who like to be the first ones in getting the new operating system as soon as it is launched. Best Buy and Circuit City will each keep a few stores open late, but most of their stores and those of other retailers are planning normal hours.
Of course, all retailers agree with the idea that this is a good opportunity that only happens once in five years (or more) and all of them are hoping something special, but though Microsoft’s operating systems are more attractive for customers and dealers than its zune, it looks like Windows 95 expectation has been left behind. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Tons have been said about the new product launchings Apple will announce in current MacWorld Expo. Everybody is expecting Steve Jobs to show the new iPhone, a gadget which is been widely thought of being a mixture between a digital music player and a smart phone.
Well, I don’t know if Steve (no last name is needed) is going to show the world the iTV (Apple’s thought device to compete against TiVo) or a new music player able to make phonecalls, but what I am really sure is that the latter is not going to be named iPhone anyway.
Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, registered “iPhone” as a mark back in late nineties, but it has not been but till now that they have launched the iPhone product, which is, as Linksys says, more than a phone as it is able to connect to Skype network or to send instant messages via Yahoo! Messenger but no mp3 player at all (just access multimedia content from the Internet).
The question is: why now? Has Linksys taken advantage from all the branding campaing to launch their product or is it just a coincidence? The choice is yours but if I were a Microsoft guy I would prepare the launching of the “Zune Phone” as soon as possible! What comes next? Only time will tell.
After a decent start in mid-november when it was unveiled, Microsoft’s Zune has not been able to reach more than #4 in portable music players war with just 1.9 percent market share compared to 62 percent for Apple’s iPod. SanDisk and Creative are second and third respectively.
Anyway, this is not peanuts at all for a new player in a estimated $6 billion market, but the worst thing is that Microsoft still has not convinced dealers. Only 10 percent of them recommend Zune over iPod, which is recommended by 70 percent of dealers.
This are no good news for short-term sales but Microsoft still claim its long-term commitment to the digital music player market. In spite of these sort-of-bad starting results, this is not the first time Microsoft is late for a market that would have almost ended dominating. Remember X-Box versus Sony’s PlayStation and even Windows-PC versus Apple’s Macintosh. What comes next? Only time will tell.