Timothy Chen

剛剛突然看到PTT PDA版出現一篇新聞轉錄，代號HTC Dream的「夢幻機」今天正式亮相？真名為”HTC Viva” (HTC 萬歲機?!)

STPI的搶先揭露原稿在這，有法人機構背書，應該不會再是芭樂了吧？

 

外型和之前影片流傳的不太一樣，照片被「鑽石機化」之後，感覺優雅了許多。左方大圓盤該不會是…滑鼠滾輪技術吧XD

 

Tags: Android, Dream, Google, HTC, Viva

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The Empire Strikes Back: Our Analysis Of Microsoft Live Search Cashback (TechCrunch)

 

StarWars Trilogy happens to be my favorite Movies. That’s the reason the headline caught my eyes and an afterthought posted here. For those who missed the announcement of Live Search Cashback, here is a catch-up.

 

For Consumers:

1. You make a commercial search on Microsoft Live Search.

2. You get certain % of discount (your cash rebate) if you purchase an item listed.

3. You still have to pay full price to the vendor; Microsoft will transact the discounted cash to your Cashback account afterward (60 days).

 

For Advertisers:

1. The % of discount is the bidding price for exposure of items, just as how Google AdWords bidding system works.

2. All the money advertisers paid for bidding ad-inventory goes to consumers who buy their item via Live Search. It means Microsoft get ZERO revenue from advertisers’ CPA fees.

 

That’s pretty cool. Advertisers pays indirectly to the consumers taking their desirable actions. Though Microsoft gains 0 $ right now, it could split the CPA revenue with consumers in the near future as long as users get addict to this model.

 

So, let take a look at what A-list bloggers thinking about the initiative:

 

First, Michael Arrington’s takeaway makes me lol (sincerely)

 This new approach is both desperate and brilliant. Desperate because Microsoft is giving away most of the search revenue to get market share gains. Brilliant because they have such a small share of search revenue today that they have little to lose, and they are hitting Google hard in their core business.

 

Sometimes, desperation is a good place to be because it forces you to try crazy stuff.

 

One paragraph mentioned it’s nearly impossible to conquer Google’s sheer search market share (60%+) by technology-improvement solely. This really resonate with my previous post,  下一站，獲利模式.

 

It’s clear that technology alone will not unseat Google as the dominant player in this market. Microsoft already tried that with their AdCenter improvements in 2006; Yahoo tried with Panama last year. Google’s dominance only grew.

 

Hey, think about this: Microsoft sacrifices its revenue for market share! Rarely can we see a tyrant make such a sacrifice, if any. I told you MS is no longer seating on the evil emperor’s throne, didn’t I? : P

 

By the way, I like Silicon Alley Insider’s comment:

The success of the cashback endeavor, of course, depends primarily on query volume, and convincing consumers to stop using Google and start using cashback by offering modest savings is going to be a tough sell. But even Google fans and Microsoft haters have got to admit–it’s a pretty cool model. It’s YOUR attention, after all. Why should Google make $20 billion off of it

 

True, true. Seems nobody’s ever asked why Google AdWords NEVER pays me money while it’s my click-behavior & my attention that make Google employees rich.

 

Finally, one should listen to Bill Gates’ saying before making any judgement. His keynote on Advance ‘08 keynote: (Live Search Cashback official press release)

 

During his keynote address, Gates outlined three areas of focus for the company’s broad search vision:

• Delivering the best search results by continuing to focus on relevancy and selection

 

• Expanding the role of search around the set of tasks that searchers are most often working to accomplish — including commerce, entertainment, navigation and reference — through improvements in its user experience, intelligent tools and access across devices

 

• Innovating in the economic model that today powers the search business by rewarding both advertisers and consumers for engagement

 

Is Live Search becoming a more vertical-orientated search engine? Not a bad idea to break Google’s stronghold.

 

(Gates’ pitch on Live Search Cashback)

Tags: Cashback, Google, Live Search, Microsoft

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Fortune前幾天發表了一篇很平衡的Google長篇報導 - Where does Google go next。與其去書店看一堆假Google之名的亂抄騙錢書，不如好好看完這邊timely的評論。

 

其中提到Google面對的幾個問題：

1. 優秀的工程師出走，在矽谷創立新公司
2. 高階管理階層出走，且被Facebook挖角
3. 近年花大錢併購的產品/技術，還沒帶來顯著利潤
4. 仍靠廣告營收為主，缺乏能分散風險的獲利模式(diversification)
5. 隨著企業變大，官僚文化侵蝕創新

 

1. 2. 與 5. 已是炒得沸沸騰騰的舊聞，我就不多說。3.與4.是我從web 2.0一頭熱鑽出來後，逐漸感興趣的現象。

 

想想Yahoo、Google為什麼會成為形象良好、消費者親賴的企業？其中一部分乃因為推出了好用，且免費的服務，或是砸錢收購有潛力的收費服務，重新包裝後免費推出。是的，不管這些服務怎麼生出來的，反正統統免費，但對獲利至上的企業來說，免費是很痛的。

 

Yahoo這兩年股價腰斬，我認為廣告收益停滯不前是次因，資源配置不佳才是主因：Yahoo投入大量的資源，開發(或收購)一個接著一個的Beta創新服務，這些服務推出數季後，有的中止，有的起飛，其共同點是：大多沒有solid的獲利模式。使用者用的開心，投資人可是越來越不放心。免費好服務帶出了全球第一的user base，卻也因此拖垮了利潤 (扣除開發，維護數千萬人的服務也需很高的成本)。

 

Google恐怕也有類似的隱憂，看看Google Lab有多少exciting的新服務蓄勢待發，但WOW過後，真的能賺到幾兩錢嗎？我個人常用，同時也是全球市佔率相當高的Google服務:Google Reader, Gmail, YouTube,，它們有辦法為Google下幾粒金雞蛋嗎？堅持免費，除了硬塞廣告外，還有其他獲利方式嗎？

 

參考Google花16億美金併購YouTube，2007一整年，帶來營收貢獻僅有1億美金，且大部分收入來源還是放在首頁的廣告：

… YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.6 billion and which continues to experience torrid growth. According to comScore Video Matrix, YouTube’s share of video on U.S. websites is now 34%, double what it was in February 2007. Yet Google has been relatively ineffective at selling ads on YouTube, collecting about $100 million in revenue in 2007, mostly from ads on YouTube’s home page.

 

對於第4點，先不論美國經濟緊縮對關鍵字廣告是正面或負面影響。雖然Google始終靠單一營收來源(廣告)獨挑大樑，一兩年內這隻金母雞還是有很大的競爭優勢；AdWords/AdSense 建立在精準的搜尋演算法之上，其他企業(M&Y)想複製這個模式搶客戶，恐怕也要先回頭看看自己的搜尋引擎有幾兩重。不夠重，終究得想辦法挖角更多天才來養肥，但看來天才最近最想進的公司是Facebook。

 

Google的廣告業務的競爭者，可以考慮往價值鍊的其他方向走，如提供Advertiser / Publisher 更便利的前後台機制 (降低客戶時間成本)、開發更創新更公平的關鍵字競價演算法 (降低客戶財務成本)、或提供更多協助工具 (縮短客戶決策時間)，甚至從平台走向服務端，吃掉幾家市場上的SEM整合顧問公司，提供total solution (提昇結果效益)；讓廣告主下對更正確的關鍵字和預算，廣告主就會開心掏錢。 能跳的小藍海很多，盡量避免在搜尋演算法這塊和Google head to head競爭，才不會枉費了RD部門一秒鐘幾千萬上下的”Brain Capital”。(Yahoo Panama & Microsoft adCenter)

 

如果採2/8法則，Yahoo和Google把8成資源，集中在「實現能賺錢的流程」上，只留2成資源，開發創新，網路重度使用者熱愛，但獲利前景不明的服務，如此一來，今日的Microsoft會不會倍感壓力呢？Google會不會提前來到傳說中的每股2000美元呢？當然，假使成真，我們的世界也許會多了出兩個evil empires - 三雄逐鹿中原，邪惡三國志

Tags: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo

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標題有點聳動。這是我今早在wikipedia研究AdSense的相關資料時，發現的有趣資訊：

 

The payment terms for webmasters have also been criticized.^[16] Google withholds payment until an account reaches US$100,^[17] but many small content providers require a long time – years in many cases – to build up this much AdSense revenue. These pending payments are recorded on Google’s balance sheet as “accrued revenue share”.^[18] At the close of its 2006 fiscal year, the sum of all these small debts amounted to a little over $370 million, cash that Google is able to invest but which effectively belongs to webmasters. However, Google will pay all earned revenue greater than $10 when the AdSense account is closed.

有參與AdSense利潤共享計畫的部落客或站長都知道，必需要等到帳單滿100美金後，才能收到Google寄來的支票。但網路上那條不切實際的長尾上，畢竟有許多小規模網站拼一整年拼不到100美金，這筆錢在Google的會計項目上就成了”accrued revenue share”，換個角度來看，就像是歸類到「待繳清」的負債。這些金額支付出去前，Google都能調度去從事各種投資，也能美化現金流量表上的數字。

 

這是doing evil dead嗎？我覺得還好，business is business，這些錢暫時放在Google手上運用，也許能為stakeholders創造出更多價值。說不定這些「研發經費」將會創造出下個讓你賺更多錢的AdSense 2.0。

Tags: AdSense, blog, Google

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