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Linky Goodness, July 18

posted on July 18, 2008

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s Friday. Woot.

  • German Google Webmaster Central blog has a fun interview with Matt Cutts on porn, big feet and spam. The post has a German translation of the transcript, but the video itself is in English.
  • Need help with Google Webmaster Toots, Google Analytics and/or Google Website Optimizer? An hour-long YouTube webinar covering all three is now live (via).
  • CNET says Eric Schmidt thinks Google will hit the mother lode when they get YouTube advertising right. Good thing they’re still brainstorming.
  • We’ve had a bit of a debate before here on whether branding or search is the “wave of the future.” Google took the hint, according to MediaPost and recently released a study saying that Search Marketing Increases Brand Value. But does that answer the question or not?
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Yahoo Bares Its Teeth: Using Home Page, Legg Mason to Fight Icahn

posted on July 18, 2008

Yahoo’s letter to shareholders yesterday was just the first step in their latest defense against Carl Icahn’s attempts to elect a proxy board at the shareholder meeting in two weeks. Today, Yahoo and its allies strike two more blows.

First, Yahoo has begun leveraging one of its biggest assests—one of (if not the) most popular home pages on the Internet. Yahoo has put a notice about the pending board election below the fold. TechCrunch spotted this earlier today, with a box on the Yahoo home page below-the-fold reading “Your Yahoo!. Your Vote.” An alternate form of the box, as seen by CNET, reads “We have a couple of exclamation points to make.” Finally, a third iteration quotes Carl Icahn:

yahoo home page quotes icahn

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Using Search Engines Instead of the Address Bar to Navigate

posted on July 18, 2008

Marhsall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web makes a supposition that may be inherently incorrect.

A huge number of people online don’t know the difference between their browser’s address bar and search bar. Let’s keep that in perspective. What will it take for them to learn?

That particular point has created a great conversation over at Read Write Web including an extremely well thought out response from John Andrews.

The path to Amazon.com via Google is a richer experience for her [a user] than the direct navigation path, without much cognitive overhead and without much perceived risk.

To read John’s entire response head on over to Read Write Web. I however believe that another commenter, Jahbuh, got it right when he said;

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Only 39% Growth? Wall Street Demands World Peace from Google Next Time

posted on July 18, 2008

World PeaceHow many times do we have to read about this kind of “report”? What is wrong with a 39% rise in net income for a quarter? How can that number “disappoint” investors and cause a 10% drop in stock price after the announcement? Your answer: Analysts. Just look at the WSJ report from the 17th says to understand exactly how “poorly” Google performed.

Analysts are about details. After all, look at the root of the word and you can guess what kind of folks we are dealing with here (if you choose to go further with that one, be my guest ;-) ). Funny thing is these folks are making projections based on data? WHAT DATA? Google is notorious (or maybe brilliant) for not giving guidance to these people. Of course, the danger there is that these folks have deadlines to meet and personalities to build. Oh, I’m sorry; they are acting in the interest of the shareholders. I keep forgetting that they all aren’t Mary Meeker-like in trying to build a personal net worth on hype and theory.

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Pilgrim’s Picks for July 18 – Google Sucks Edition

posted on July 18, 2008

What is it they say about the squeaky wheel? Well, it’s been over 13 hours now and my Google Calendar is still blank. I have no idea what my appointments or deadlines are for the day. Thanks Google!

For those of you with their lives fully diarized, I present today’s Picks.

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Google’s Russian Monopoly Begins with Acquisition of Begun

posted on July 18, 2008

According to Mashable, Google just acquired Russian contextual ad company Begun for $140 million and grabbed a monopoly in Russia’s contextual advertising market in the process.

Begun is currently owned by two companies, leading to an interesting double-deal:

[Rambler Media Ltd] currently holds 50.1% of Begun. The transaction will consist of Rambler buying the remaining 49.9% stake in Begun from Bannatyne Limited, affiliated with the Finam group of companies, immediately after which Rambler will sell 100% of Begun to Google subject to certain approvals and conditions precedent for a total cash consideration of US$140 million, of which US$69.9 million is attributable to Bannatyne, with customary closing adjustments.

Anyone know how similar the Russian language is to Klingon? ;-)

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Google and Microsoft’s Quarterly Earnings Disappoint; Trouble Ahead for Both?

posted on July 18, 2008

Both Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) reported quarterly earnings yesterday evening: it was not a pretty picture for either company.

First up, Google.

  • Net income of $1.25 billion
  • Revenue of $5.37 billion
  • Q2 earnings of $4.63 with Wall Street expecting $4.74

The Analysts said:

Analysts noted that Mr. Schmidt had made reference, for the first time, to the “more challenging economic environment” in his prominent statement on Google’s earnings release. They also observed that Google had taken the unusual step of having Hal R. Varian, its chief economist, on the earnings call with investors and analysts.

Google said:

“We’re very well positioned in a slowdown especially if it gets worse,” said CEO Eric Schmidt, who added there would be “a flight to quality” if the economy tanked.