Analyzing Google Press Releases: More Revenues, Less Search
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007;
-- Jordan McCollum |
Google Blogoscoped released an automated tool today that looks at word frequency in official press releases from Google over the last 8 years. Among the interesting charts that Philipp Lenssen shares on their blog are the relative popularities of terms like “search,” “revenue,” and “blog” in Google press releases.
What are the trends?
Blogs arrived on Google’s press release radar in 2003 and peaked in 2005. They appear to be on their way back down now.
Revenues are being mentioned more frequently in press releases:
Of course, this increase could reflect anything from their public status to an actual increased emphasis on revenues. Search, on the other hand, is quite the opposite:
I have to admit that it does seem to indicate that Google is moving away from emphasizing search. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on it just as hard, but I think this correctly indicates that there is a lot more going on at Google than search these days.
Like “search,” Yahoo has received fewer mentions in recent years as well. Ask enjoyed a moment in the sun in 2002, but MSN, Microsoft and Live search have never seemed to hold Google’s attention.
** Join Andy Beal, Om Malik, Biz Stone, Dave Taylor & other experts for 2-days of hands-on social media training. Save $250 with code "FOA" **
Similar posts you may like...
Save & Share: 
Category: Google
Forward: Email This Post
June 20th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
that’s amazing.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Mr. Yang, Yahoo’s new CEO, stated that “search engines” are not their priority in a recent statement. At least Yahoo is honest about it..
June 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I’d be curious to see the volume of Google press releases for each year. No doubt it’s increased over time, quite likely by a lot. More to the point, they’ve been delving into a lot of new areas in the past few years. It may not be, then, that they’re talking less about search, but that they’re talking more about other things, thus reducing the proportion of press releases mentioning search without reducing the frequency.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
“I have to admit that it does seem to indicate that Google is moving away from emphasizing search.”
That’s incorrect. It means that google has mentioned much more things that just search in their *press releases*. However, if you analyzed google’s blog post you would see alot more search posts.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Hence the word “seem” and the sentence that followed it: “That doesn’t mean they’re not working on it just as hard, but I think this correctly indicates that there is a lot more going on at Google than search these days.”
June 20th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
@Steven–I think you’re right, the number of press releases has definitely increased since then, but I would also imagine that they have less to say about search in press releases these days. They don’t have to tout their awesome “searchiness” anymore–and they really do have a lot of other stuff going on that does merit a press release.
Certainly, though, they still mention search quite a bit. Look at the graphs again, and you’ll see that even at its lowest (this year), search is still mentioned more frequently than revenues (0.59% versus 0.37%).
June 20th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Also, obviously there would be alot more revenue press releases because google is now a public company - so investor conferences, earning calls, etc would be in press releases, not blog posts. I just checked google’s labels on its main blog and it shows that they labeled 95 posts search, and 98 labeled apps, nothing else comes close. I guess that seems to mean that google is emphasizing search and apps. I think the blog posts is a better measure of what’s happening internally. Press releases are for showing off, and making official announcements.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Very interesting tool they’ve got there… While it might be an indicator of the direction Google is trying to go, Jordan also makes a good point: “They don’t have to tout their awesome ’searchiness’ anymore–and they really do have a lot of other stuff going on that does merit a press release.”