Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's flagship product, in the sense of revenue, is the text ad ;-)
The text ad which is targeted using AI?
When I buy Google ads I tell Google what search keywords I want my ads to match.
Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
271–280 of 445 posts
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>The fact that the increase was YoY makes it even more dubious. YoY click growth percentage has been higher than traffic growth for years and years for Google. I suspect there are a number of reasons for it. The 100% ads above the fold did get a lot of complaints in 2014, specifically because Google announced it would penalize sites that did that. Quite a few examples of Google doing this were subsequently pointed o…
> There are many things they've done that are pretty subtle as well. > The wikipedia information in the sidebar when you do informational searches used to have links to wikipedia...leading you away from google. They now keep you within Google, and include links to ads http://i.imgur.com/j3w9LbP.png That still has a link to wikipedia > Various widgets push organics down pretty far: http://i.imgur.com/VwYH7mY.png That…
>>That still has a link to wikipedia
The sidebar wikipedia info used to have all links that went to wikipedia. The one I posted isn't the best example for hat, but it is the best example of one with a directly monetized link.
>>That second box isn't an ad, it's just a called out search result.
It also consumes vertical space, pushing the organics down. The relevance is also quite low, being a link to a discontinued product.
>>You're missing my point because that's exactly it.
Not missing your point. I'm not saying the few examples I gave are everything they've done. I think they've been doing things like, for several years, this to sustain the expected growth. Lacking a dividend, the pressure to sustain growth rates is pretty high.
Edit: It's also likely that for other purposes (testing/deployment/whatever), these things (and similar ones I haven't noticed) have dials for where/when/how often they are exposed, either by geography, search terms, demographic, or some other criteria. A bunch of dials would also allow you to smooth growth if you wanted.
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure this is pretty proprietary information, but I do wonder what the value add of the AI-targeting is. Is it a relatively small bonus on top of a solid platform and audience for ads? Or is it the killer feature?
Recently I searched Amazon to read reviews of a book I bought on Kindle a few years ago. Now every website with Amazon affiliate advertising is showing me ads for that book. Considering that Amazon could have run a simple account search to determine that I am definitely not interested in seeing ads for a product that I already own, I think that the AI-targeting ad revolution is a while off yet. That is unrelated to G…
I have the same experience. On my machine, only Safari is "vanilla" - other browsers have various levels of ad/js blocking. So the only time I see ads is in Safari. I can't believe they're still feeding me Newegg ads for components that I already own and have bought from Newegg. I understand that's not as trivial a problem as it sounds, but I can't help but think companies are overpaying for ads.
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#274The elephant in the room nobody seems to notice is, they have so much data that they can actually look ahead of curve for any industry or tech, and so can have very good tactical advantage, and being open to jump in to any tech, they can steer much easily then the counterparts.
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as "screech to a halt." is concerned, it's maybe a little on the exaggerated side, but I'd believe it. I've worked for 5 different companies of varying sizes from 5 to 1000 employees. All of them have used Google Apps to run their business. Email, Calendars, Docs, Basically the Apps suite in it's entirety is the core of communicating and information storage. There's arguments for backups, etc but in reality if…
Google Apps has 50 million users, iCloud has 125 million Edit: to clarify, my source[1] said 5 million orgs with 50 million individual users. Not counting Gmail obviously [1] http://blog.bettercloud.com/google-apps-stats/
> Google Apps has 50 million users, iCloud has 125 million
That source is pretty old and cites an even older source (it looks like it may be from Google I/O 2012). Searching for "Google Apps has 50 million users" actually gives articles from last year saying they have 50 million education users alone, so I'd say the number is a pretty extreme lowshot now.
But more importantly, why would you compare Google Apps and iCloud? The closer thing would be Android backup and iCloud, maybe?
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you let me know how you use grep to search the internet as effectively as I do with Google, sure!
Effectively or Efficiently? I can search the internet way better. Email me what you are looking for and 9 times out of 10 I will send you back something better than what Google will spit out. Furthermore you won't even have to sift through 10 links, or change your search, I will do all this and send you the result back.
Using grep?
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.
Google's flagship product is an advertising platform, not a search box.
Which, even if true, just proves the thread's point. Ads uses a lot more traditional machine-learning/AI techniques than Search does.
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which pretty much shows that the market value of a company is not based on what they sell today, but on the expectation of what they will sell tomorrow. Does Apple do research in biotech (Alphabet's Calico)? Are they developing drones delivering wireless internet to the world (Google's Skybender)? Do they have an investment arm (Google Ventures)? Did they start an ISP (Google Fiber)? People see Alphabet's increasing…
It's interesting that the market is valuing Apple's ability to innovate in the absence of Steve Jobs at ~zero. Apple trades like a value stock right now; Wall Street assumes that they're a cash cow that is just going to be milked, and unlikely to have any future major hits. If you (correctly) disagree with this assessment, there may be money to be made here. If you agree with it, well, I understand why Apple wouldn't…
It's cliche at this point but...
"The Market Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent"
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple's brand trades a lot on having extremely well finished products with very polished experiences. If they started experimenting left and right like Google does, they would lose that brand image, which is arguably their most valuable asset (even above and beyond the technology itself). If Google releases Glass and it flops, it hardly affects their image ('well, yes, it's cool technology, that's what Google does, b…
> Apple's brand trades a lot on having extremely well finished products with very polished experiences I don't fully agree with this. Did you have the first version of the iPhone? No copy and paste? WTF. Antenna signal dropping because "you're holding it wrong!"? WTF. The only thing you can hold to the apple brand without any criticism is the industrial design of the packaging and look of their products has been cons…
They have well polished experiences compared to the competition. I don't think anyone would claim they (or anyone else) are perfect.
Re: Alphabet Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company in the World
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I referenced this higher up, but here it is: we aren't shifting from desktop to mobile, because desktop has leveled off. We're taking time out of literally all the other stuff we do in life, and shifting that to mobile.
Yes, I get that, but the word "shift" in this context isn't all that important. The "desktop/high CTR" leveling off while "mobile/low CTR" grows was the important bit. I'm not the first person to call that a shift.
I thought the premise was that there would be less value to extract, not just a tiny bit more effort per value.