Reminder for anyone who used a Pebble: Your data will have been sold to FitBit and so Google now gets it. Yay!
That would be a drop in ocean compared to the data they have on you if you are using Android and Google other products
Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
171–180 of 784 posts
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming Google legitimately doesn't try to retain deleted data as they claim, you just need to delete your Fitbit account before the acquisition closes to ensure Google never lays hands on it.
I'm in the middle of deleting my Fitbit account. It takes 90 days, so hopefully this deal doesn't close quickly...
How does it take 90 days? If that's true then Google is absolutely aware of this and will make sure to take ownership of it prior to then.
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#173John Gruber^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Dan Lyons^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Steve Ballmer had another colourful analogy, he used it in response to companies claiming that a merger would create a powerhouse to challenge the market leader: "It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster." (Thanks to "raldi" f…
However, if the merging companies compete in the same market, it would be fairer to claim that "It's like taking the number two and number three sprinters in the world, and having them run IN SERIES against the number one sprinter." (emphasis mine).
Because number two and three companies merging to a new number one does in fact happen.
(Note that this is the case here, though. No idea where Google is going with this.)
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone stated below, YouTube is still not profitable. Waze is really not adding to their bottom line, and DoubleClick was to increase their advertising reach. It’s really not analogous to their hardware acquisitions.
"as someone stated"... Google has never released Youtube numbers, so I can't say that. I will tell you that youtube is the dominant video platform on the internet. You do realize Youtube shows ads? and those ads are part of google's ad revenue? But the numbers have been inferred "YouTube probably generates $16 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue"[1] Waze drives all of their google maps traffic data. Again, indus…
Your link estimate “revenue” not profit. And none of those are hardware acquisitions - again look at Motorola, HTC’s partial acquisition and Nest.
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
What long and successful history? The only one that I can think of that was a definite success is Android. Their only notable hardware acquisitions that I can think of were Motorola which was a disaster, Nest which is barely muddling along, and the semi-acquisition of HTC’s hardware team that made the Pixel. While the Pixel may be a great phone, it isn’t taking the world by storm
Looking on Pixel sometimes I think that Google is not interested to have phone that is taking the world. I think it is more interested in taking word of OS of phones and have phone that is part but not taking world. If Googles tries to take world of phones, then other companies like Samsung will start developing their phone OS which Google do not wants. So I think that the current state of the market of phones and ph…
I don't think Samsung, or anyone else trying to develop their own phone OS is any kind of threat to Google. If Microsoft can't make that work with their last phone OS, which was a genuinely interesting, innovative and high quality product, nobody can.
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#176Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not an exact quote, I'm going from memory. I believe it was many years ago.
It was actually Dan Lyons, as quoted by Gruber: https://daringfireball.net/2008/02/devils_advocate
Thanks, attribution fixed. Now that we've got that sorted, what do you think of the analogy with respect to this deal? Does it—cough—fit?
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
YouTube is hemorraging red ink, if it wasn't suppprted by the rest of Alphabet it would quickly become unsustainable. Kinda hard to call that a "successful" acquisition.
> YouTube is hemorraging red ink Citation please. Everything I've seen is a mix of "breaking even", "still unprofitable", and "adding billions to their bottom line". I.e. nobody really knows because Google doesn't break out YouTube financials. In any case, I still think calling the largest, most successful video serving site on the web "not successful" is laughable.
Do you consider Uber “successful” even if their not profitable?
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, Apple does this too to some extent. However, given their most recent commercial re privacy and all of their public statements on the topic, I don't expect them to exploit it for profit quite so shamelessly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py0acqg1oKc
> they will now be supplied with a 24/7 live feed of your most sensitive health statistics. In Apple land all health data stays on device, not in the cloud like Google/FitBit
True, and to the extent they would exploit it, this basically amounts to providing a good customer experience (b/c Health information is useful) so that you continue to buy into the ecosystem.
Sounds like a solid sales pitch to me.
Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B
#180To me, this isn’t about making a stronger push into the wearables market (sure, that’s what they will say), it’s more about collecting as much personal data as they can to better target ads with.
> making a stronger push into the wearables market
I can't see an advertising company ever being trusted enough for people to feel comfortable sharing their health data. They can push all they want, but maybe their slice of that market is about as big as it's going to be.