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Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

cnbc.com

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Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#331

Post by scarface74 »

xeromal wrote: post #315
scarface74 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider Uber “successful” even if their not profitable?

I guess it depends on how you define success. If I made a company was used by the entire world at some point, I'd probably be pretty proud and consider it a success even if it failed. My second point would be to say, is a business only successful if it always makes profits? How many years does it need to be in business to be a success? If I made a company that has a good run for 20 years then tanked, was it a success…

Uber has never made a profit. If I had a business that everyone used selling dollar bills for 95 cents would you consider it successful? That’s basically what Uber is doing.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#332

Post by taloft »

windexh8er wrote: post #63

Garmin and Apple have the fitness market covered. Fitbit never had the hardcore fitness market Garmin executed into and Apple has always had a product that works well across the wearable and fitness. Between these two companies I can't imagine there's much of a niche Fitbit does better. On the extreme hardcore triathlon user even Garmin has taken a lot of market from Suunto and the like. I've owned a handful of Garmi…

My Garmin 935 is waterproof, has an always on display, shows smartphone notifications, charges once a week, and has worked for over a year. If apple or Fitbit had this, I’d go back. Had multiple fit bits and they all broke in 6 months. Had an Apple Watch, but it needed to be charged every day, wasn’t waterproof, and display turned off. Apple has improved on 2 of those but it still needs every day charging.

I would put garmin last software, but the other hardware features more than make up for it.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#333

Post by Urgo »

As this has been rumored for a little while now and I've been a fitbit user since day 1 it got me to think a lot about what goolge might be able to do with the data and machine learning and it got me to think of two things that I don't think I heard anyone reference yet.

1) Presence. Right now Google often doesn't know WHO is watching YouTube, whether it be the logged in user or someone else in the house. If they know you're watching on a desktop or TV but your activity shows you're walking around its likely you're not actively watching or someone else is. They could hold off on showing an ad or not target it directly to you until they think you're there to watch it.

2) Involvement. Wasn't exactly sure what to call this but what I mean by this is they can measure your heart rate to see how you react to various things you're looking at now. There might already be studies on how best to control peoples heart rates when buying something or keep them watching longer but if not they'll be able to do a ton of machine learning to test this out. This can help determine when to run ads on YouTube videos to keep you from clicking off or when the optimal time would be to show you an ad to cause you to buy something.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#334

Post by tito »

sowbug wrote: post #321
tito wrote: post #312

Is there a pithy name for the “law” that any company that collects your data and promises its private will eventually sell it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_retention

Hmm I'm thinking something more like the "Streisand Effect" or "getting Rickrolled".

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#335

Post by wongarsu »

divbyzer0 wrote: post #307
netsharc wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... what else does Fitbit's cloud store? How often you exercise? Where you do it? What sorts of exercise? Check out these running shorts, keep cool in the summer! Carbon fibre kayak paddles are on sale! Or, when it's noticed a lull, and kmows you're influencable: Hire this personal trainer to get you back exercising!

Highly targetted ads are not my concern here, they may even be welcome. Using heartrate, activity levels, mobilty can probably infer a broad picture of someones health, which of course, would be very valuable to health insurance/life assurance companies. With this level of privatised surveilance, I'll stick with my mechanical automatic watch thanks.

With sufficient data you could find out much more than that. Your heart rate dropped around 8:20 and spiked shortly after at 8:25? The same happened to 3 million other customers, looks like you are also enjoying the Game of Thrones premiere on HBO.

Located in Hong Kong, elevated heart rate in the evening, spikes match tweets about police activity against protesters? Be prepared to be visited by the authorities.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#336

Post by fragmede »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #107
kerng wrote: post #46

Vic Gundotra (VP Google) said back when Microsoft bought Nokia that "two turkeys don't make an eagle". Google officially has become the Microosft of the mid 2000s. Lack of direction and innovation, buying up companies just for the sake of it. Here is a link to Google's anology: https://www.techspot.com/news/42338-google-attacks-nokia-and...

I mean two turkey's don't make an eagle, but a gun and a bullet are not very lethal on their own. Fitbit's sales are good and it's platform is not, Google's platform is good and it's sales are not. Easy fix.

What do you mean by "platform", in this context? Google's wearOS hasn't proved popular with users.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#337

Post by outuiorew »

kgraves wrote: post #56

Eventually, all startups will be acquired into the FAANG companies, no matter whatever their "mission statement" is, just like Matryoshka dolls. Pebble -> Fitbit -> Google. I am sure there are more examples.

Does anyone remember a video about 10(?) years back predictioning something like Google merging with Amazon merging with some other tech companies?

I remember it was somewhat of a parody of how Skynet would come into existence.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#338

Post by longerthoughts »

me_me_me wrote: post #54

And here I was considering getting fitbit... Could anyone suggest an alternative? I really have no trust that google will keep promise not to use the data. edit: thanks all, I have too look into it all back home.

>I really have no trust that google will keep promise not to use the data

Worth clarifying that they didn't even promise this. What they said was...

>The company never sells personal information, and Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads

That means they won't sell personal information but they will probably sell anonymized health and wellness data and they will absolutely use the data themselves, just not for Google ads.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#339

Post by cdnsteve »

Google makes 80% of revenue from ads. It covers the entire web with adsense/adwords, records anything you search, has users login to chrome, scans gmail for purchase history, tracks your gps location and where you live and work with your commute + waze.. plus much more through android. It has microphones in homes and knows about all your iot devices with nest, it knows about any other online accounts you have because google sso....

Now it has something it couldnt really capture, detailed health data that users willingly provide.

This is all in support of the monster data vacuum that google has become - not about web indexing, its about people indexing, health indexing, interests, habbits all to support ads.

It knows exactly what its doing.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#340

Post by endtime »

braythwayt wrote: post #193
raldi wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, turns out Lyons was just quoting Steve Ballmer: http://web.archive.org/web/20080206081701/https://fakesteve....

It's aphorisms all the way down! The usual algorithm is to follow the attributions until you reach Samuel Clemons, Benjamin Franklin, Confucius, or Laozi. They are said to have said everything.

> They are said to have said everything.

Which one of them said that?

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