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Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

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Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#11
Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider:

a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1]

b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks.

c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Video adds to bandwidth growth pretty directly. Click growth would be less direct.

Sergey and Larry, at least at one time, might have expressed concern:

"The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users"[2]

[1] http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-pr...

[2] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#12

interesting adjective "most valuable." To many that equates to revenue generated, to others profitability. Haven't read this article but starred for later I'm curious to see what it says.

For public companies this is always going to mean market capitalization, which is the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the share price. This is the amount that would be required to instantaneously buy all the stock were it for sale at the listed price and thereby gain 100% ownership. (In reality this never happens, and quickly buying large amounts of a stock typically elicits an additional premium on top of the list price. Buyouts of public companies tend to be for a significant percentage higher than the listed price.) So the market cap is in a way, quite literally, the valuation of the company.

EDIT: Italicized additions. Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#13
post #5

interesting adjective "most valuable." To many that equates to revenue generated, to others profitability. Haven't read this article but starred for later I'm curious to see what it says.

It's talking about Market Cap.

Yes, which is basically how much someone would pay to own the company today = discounted expected long-term profits.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#15
post #11

Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider: a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1] b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks. c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Vid…

Why is any of that concerning? I'm not seeing the link.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#16
post #11

Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider: a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1] b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks. c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Vid…

> b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks.

Can you clarify this statement?

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#17
post #11

Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider: a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1] b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks. c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Vid…

for b) I would say the contrary. Have you tried entering in a common website from a mobile browser without an adblocker? You get like so many ads, SO MANY, one over the other, some full-screen some that just let you see the 10% of the real site, some with a pseudo-pop-up, all with those little "x" almost unclickable to close them that force you to click on the ad in the end.

And in the "free apps with ads" of the mobile store the situation is even worse... they'll often try all possible tricks to force you to click on the ads.

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#18
post #11

Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider: a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1] b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks. c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Vid…

...or Google is just getting better at serving the right advertisement at the right time?

Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World

#20
post #17
post #11

Paid clicks up 31% overall, on Google’s own sites, up 40%. That's a bit concerning to me, especially when you consider: a) That growth is outpacing internet traffic growth, and has for many years now. Internet traffic CAGR is 23%[1] b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks. c) Since some of the growth is video, I would expect a decrease in click growth related to this as well. Vid…

for b) I would say the contrary. Have you tried entering in a common website from a mobile browser without an adblocker? You get like so many ads, SO MANY, one over the other, some full-screen some that just let you see the 10% of the real site, some with a pseudo-pop-up, all with those little "x" almost unclickable to close them that force you to click on the ad in the end. And in the "free apps with ads" of the mob…

Can that really go on forever? I don't know anyone that deliberately clicks on ads. Ads usually act as a "don't buy" signal to me - I assume the product is of low quality or a scam because of the skeeziness of how they tried to reach me as a customer.

Like higher education, the online ads business seems poised to collapse.

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