Facebook is growing internationally

Facebook is growing fast not only in the United States but also in other countries. Not too long ago, Facebook was lagging behind other social networking sites in non-US countries. In the past 12 months, Facebook has grown eightfold in Brazil with 500 millions users, and it has as many users as Orkut's in India. According to Mark Zuckerberg, it's almost guarantee for Facebook to hit 1 billion users (i.e., ~1/7th of the world population in 2010).

Some analysts believe that Facebook is a threat to Google. Both companies rely on ads as a main source of income. While Google can learn a lot of about users' interests from search queries, but Facebook has far more usable personal data. Because Facebook can place more effective ads than Google, eventually Facebook will absorb some market shares from Google.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of these two companies in the next couple years.

Source: Facebook Makes Headway Around the World -- The New York Times

On NoSQL and Bug-free Software

Came across two interesting blog posts this weekend. The first discusses why developing bug-free software is difficult, and the second argues why it's harmful for new projects to blindly pursue NoSQL.

From "The Economics of Perfect Software":

Software can’t be written bug-free, so if you want to ship perfect software you have to fix the bugs that burrow their way into your code... the more time and money you throw at fixing bugs, the more bugs you’ll fix. But, unfortunately, our old nemesis from economics, the Law of Diminishing Returns, applies to this process.

I agree that in order to discover and fix all bugs in a software program is a costly business. But, money alone plays little in driving the quality of a product. Just because you can throw money at a project, it doesn't entail that the project is guaranteed to produce high quality software. Software programs are as good as the quality of the engineers who created them.

From "I Can't Wait for NoSQL to Die":

You Are Not Google. The sooner your company admits this, the sooner you can get down to some real work. Developing the app for Google-sized scale is a waste of your time, plus, there is no way you will get it right. Absolutely none. It's not that you're not smart enough, it's that you do not have the experience to know what problems you will see at scale.

I agree that not all software projects should start with NoSQL when an MySQL-solution makes perfect sense. It's a bad habit for developers to blindly follow buzzword technologies. But, this doesn't imply developers should stop learning about the new technology. NoSQL is new but not without value. It's very possible and feasible for new projects to use a hybrid SQL and NoSQL solution. Yes, you are not Google, but you can be the next Google!

A new war in the cloud

In this week's Economist magazine, an article talks about an ongoing technology war between Microsoft, Google and Apple, fighting to dominate the clouding computing market. The premise is that while all three companies have ample resources and niche technology to win, but the final outcome is still too early to tell -- i.e., don't bet your retirement fund in any one of the three companies. :-)

In cloud computing, there are three key elements: data centers, services and hardware periphery. Google clearly has an upper hand in building data centers. But, it's only a matter of time before the others know how to build scalable and efficient data centers. In services, Google again has a lead, but Microsoft and Apple are not too far behind. After a disastrous release of Windows Vista and a slow grasp of web-centric computing, Microsoft recently comes back with a new Windows 7, Live services and Bing search engine, bringing a new battle to Google's own turf. Unlike Google and Microsoft, Apple has always focused on selling the best designed hardware and not software. With the super successful iPhone and iTune store, Apple is the leader in mobile computing. As computing users become ever more mobile and develop an acquired taste for pervasive computing, winning this battle helps Apple to buy more time to develop its data centers and services.

The Economist article also points out other issues that could significantly alter the outcome of the ongoing battle -- antitrust issues, difference in culture and business model among the three companies and the emergence of new players, such as Amazon and Facebook.

The future of cloud computing certainly looks exciting!

Update: Oct. 12, 2009

• Google may be coming out with a new online music service
• Microsoft "owns" Twitter search and Facebook data
• Apple iPhone and iTouch's user adoption rate beats which of all popular devices
  

Google to acquire Twitter, for real?

The blog community seems to be saying that Google is in talk to acquire Twitter. By the way, not too long ago, Twitter turned down a half-billion deal from Facebook.

Twitter is a fascinating business and service. It's a simple service. People of all ages can quickly learn how to use it. To some it's an addictive communication and mind-broadcasting tool. However, while Twitter interests many people, but it doesn't really make any money as a business. The question here is why would a search engine company Google want to buy Twitter?

Google is a company that makes money by getting people to pay attention to their online products, e.g., search engines, gmails, news, blogs. The more people they can attract to their online "real estates", the more revenues it will generate from online advertising.

Blogger.com is an good example. It's a platform that attracts visitors, both publishers and readers. While publishers host Google Ads on their blogs, readers click through ads embedded in the blog posts. Blogger.com doesn't charge people for its service. It's free to publish and free to read. But, it helps Google to distribute advertisements and generate ad revenues.

I think Twitter is like Blogger.com. It's a platform for generating extremely high traffic and for distributing advertisements to a vast population. If Google does acquire Twitter, it's not because Twitter is cool, but because it's the new Blogger.

Technorati Tags: Google, Twitter, Business

Free Google music downloads in China

Google launched a new venture in China that allows free downloads of licensed songs over the internet. Free music downloads is a basic service currently offered by Baidu.com, Google's Chinese competitor.

The new service offers some 350,000 songs, and the number is expected to rise to 1.1 million in the coming months.

Fact: more than 99% of all music files distributed in China are pirated.

Exciting Android feature

The future is mobile computing. Recently Google showed off its latest Android platform.



The demo is extremely cool. However, it's still too early to say who will outcome strong in the future mobile computing world. Both Microsoft and Apple have good ideas and secret technologies under their sleeves. Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 will supports a multi-touch interface and may work with its Surface computing technology. On the other hand, Apple's iPhone may get a 3G upgrade.

April Fools' Day

April 1st is the one day in the whole year that you can make jokes, sometimes cruel jokes, and can still be forgiven by your co-workers, friends and families.

April Fools' Day:

The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, enemies and neighbors, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.

Given that many of us practically live on the Web, April Fools' Day has gradually become a special occasion for people to spread fake advertisements to attract Web readers and communicate fake personal stories to trick friends and families.

I Got Fooled.

This morning I got fooled by GMail's announcement of a new feature called "Custom Time". Supposedly this feature allows users to custom the time when they want their email to be sent. Without noticing this is a hoax, I was looking for a clickable link to "Custom Time" in my GMail account. After 5 minutes, still unable to find the link, I realized that it was an April Fools' joke.

April Fools' on Facebook.

A friend of mine and his girlfriend announced that they are engaged and the girlfriend is pregnant. They changed their Facebook profile information and status the night before. Also, they published few photos of an engagement ring etc. Not too surprised. Friends on the network called them and inquired whether the news is for real.

Wii Got Fooled.

My wife called me this morning and told me that she saw Best Buy selling Wii Fit, and asked whether she should go wait in line for a Wii Fit. Without a second thought, I say "Yes! Go Now". Moments later, I discovered that she had tricked me. I should have remembered that Wii Fit is not available until later this year. I got fooled again!

More April Fools' Hoaxes.

• USB Pregnancy Test


• Wii Pii Pii Brothers


• Google buys the US Government for $2 billion

Can Mozilla survive beyond 2008

Mozilla Foundation announced its 2006 revenue: $66,840,8550. This result represents a 26 percent increase from its 2005 revenue. The financial state of the Foundation looks bright in the short-term. However, some analysts have concerns about it's long-term outlook.

Here is the problem. In 2005, about 85% of the organization's revenue comes from Google, which pays royalty fees to have Google search services integrated in the open source Firefox browser. Google's contract with the Mozilla Foundation is to expire in November 2008. So far, no words from Google whether it wants to renew the contract. Analysts worried that Google may abundant the relationship and go on to implement its own browser strategies independent from Firefox. As a result, Mozilla could face a big drop in its revenue after 2008.

I think Mozilla can live well beyond 2008. First, if Google decides to end its contract in Nov. 2008, there is simply other potential clients to replace Google, e.g., Yahoo! and Ask. Second, Firefox can offer other kinds of royalty licensing to web business, such as EBay, Netflix, and Amazon. The Web is an important computing platform. It's definitely worth paying to have your business displayed in the default page of the worlds' second most popular web browser. Third, if Mozilla Foundation does run out of cash to operate, I'm sure some Silicon Valley VC will be happy to take over the organization and run it, perhaps, under a different business model.

Mozilla is here to stay, either with or without Google.

Why Google succeed and Yahoo! failed

Both Google and Yahoo! went through the millennium bubble burst. However, years after, the business of those companies seem to have gone into two different directions. Google's stock price has risen more than 500%, and the price of Yahoo!'s stocks is nearly unchanged.

So what business discussions have contributed to the success of Google and the failure of Yahoo!? Conrad de Aenlle in this IHT article explains...

The strength of Google has been to take complicated technology - a superb Internet search engine - and build an uncomplicated business around it: selling advertising aimed at consumers based on Google's understanding of their needs and wants, gleaned from their search patterns.

Yahoo is a jack of all trades - a communication medium, aggregator and distributor of news and entertainment - and it has not mastered many of them, Weiner said. "Yahoo is attempting to become a broadcasting platform, creating original content, cutting deals with film studios and TV networks," he said. "None of that has really panned out.

A simple answer to the question is this...

It takes more than great technology to make a great technology company.

When it comes to building a successful technology company, while technology and innovations are important, but the company's operation and execution are even more important.

Source: Why Yahoo! came up short

Mozilla business

Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization. It depends on people donations and contracts to operate it's daily business -- pay for developers, marketings etc. Since 2004, with the success of its Firefox browser, Mozilla has grown into a very successful open source organization, and a very profitable one.

The revenue of Mozilla Foundation increased from $6 million in 2004 to $52 million in 2005. A large portion of this increase is due to a special agreement with Google. The company pays Mozilla more than $100 million to have Firefox's default page to display the Google search page.

In 2005, a new for-profit Mozilla organization is created, which is called Mozilla Corp. A key task of the new organization is to manage tax and other issues related to the Google contract.

Here are couple interesting questions to think about:

1. When the survival of an open source organization (e.g., Mozilla) is depended on special arrangements and agreements with a for-profit company (e.g., Google), can it continue to function independently without being influenced by any business objectives of the for-profit company?


2. Should Mozilla share wealth with thousands of people who have contributed to its open source projects? If so, how?

Source: Firefox faces the costs of success

Google employees to auction their stock options

In April 2007, Google employees will be permitted to auction their stock options to preapproved financial institutions, according to a CNet News report. This is a completely unorthodox. According to Google executives, this new plan is aimed to bring fairness to employees who have higher strike price.

Traditionally, employees have two ways to deal with stock options: exercise (take ownership) of them once they have "vested" and sell them at the current trading price, and pay back the company for their so-called strike price (that's typically the trading price the day the options were granted), or hold on to them after exercising them.

For employees who have arrived at Google long after its stock price started to climb, the auction potentially presents a more profitable alternative to trading on the public markets. It would work like this: once an employee's options are vested, he or she can look for bidders in the private auction. A financial institution may offer the employee, for example, $150 per option. If the employee's strike price was $400 and the stock was trading at $500, the employee would have made $50 more per option going the auction route rather than selling them on the public market. Employees can also set a minimum price at which to sell.

I think this is an innovative approach to maintain employee loyalty. Not only this will give comfort to current employees, but also will attract new talents who see Google as a true innovative company.

Politicians turn to Google for new campaign tactic

As we enter a new era of information technology, politicians have learned to exploit search engines to better their political campaigns. According to the New York Times,

Fifty or so other Republican candidates have also been made targets in a sophisticated “Google bombing” campaign intended to game the search engine’s ranking algorithms. By flooding the Web with references to the candidates and repeatedly cross-linking to specific articles and sites on the Web, it is possible to take advantage of Google’s formula and force those articles to the top of the list of search results.

Put aside the real political value of those candidates. I'm impressed with their ability to exploit cutting-edge technology. However, I think those smart ideas probably came from their respective marketing and campaign organizations. Nevertheless, I think the world is changed forever because the Internet and its tight integration with our everyday life.

In the future as a new generation of politicians come into power, and they also happen to be the ones who live and breath with MySpace and YouTube, they will bring political warfares into a whole new next level. I wonder if we will soon see SMS spams, splogs (spam blogs), or YouTube videos for political campaigns?

Making Sense of Google's Innovative Culture

Everyone acknowledges that Google is an innovative company, but not everyone agrees that its innovative research culture makes sense from a business point of view. A recent BusinessWeek article "So Much Fanfar, So Few Hits" presents Google as a company that is extremely good at creating new web applications for different markets, but at the same time it's unable to compete in markets other than "search".

Consider just a few examples: Google Talk, an instant-messaging service launched last August, now ranks No. 10, garnering just 2% of the number of users for market leader MSN Messenger, according to comScore Media Metrix. Three-month-old Google Finance, heralded as a competitor to market leader Yahoo! Finance, has settled in as the 40th-most-visited finance site, according to data from Hitwise, a competitive intelligence firm. Gmail, the e-mail service that was lauded at its 2004 launch for offering 500 times as much storage space as some rivals (they quickly closed the gap), today is the system of choice for only about one-quarter the number of people who use MSN and Yahoo e-mail.

Does this mean Google's innovative culture is bad for business? I don't' think so. The truth is that innovation is not a silver bullet that always guarantee successful business. There are too many stories about past companies with amazing innovations, and none of their business really succeed.

Sound business management is not substitutable, at least not by innovation alone. In order for Google to succeed, its innovation must be combined with great management leadership and a sound business model. Though I don't know much about Google's managements, but it seems like they are doing a good job. At least they got some approval from Bill Gates.

A Less Risky Way to Invest GOOG

MarketWatch reports that Google is to be added to S&P 500 Index, replacing Burlington Resource Inc. This is a good news to those who want to invest in Google but doesn't want to buy Google stocks directly.

Since GOOG will be part of S&P 500 Index, investors can own shares of GOOG by investing in index funds that tracks S&P 500 index (e.g., Vanguard 500 Index Fund).

I think in the near future, investors should see a minor increase in the stock price of GOOG since all mutual funds that track S&P 500 index are forced to re-balance their portfolios to include GOOG.

The New Internet Media War

To many consumers the Internet is no longer just another place to kill time, but it's a place to get things done, to be entertained, and to be educated. As the Internet becomes an important part of our everyday life, businesses waste no time in finding new adventures in hope to increase their competitive advantages.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all have been buying new media companies to boost their Internet content services. Here is a chart of "who is buying what":

GOOG Shares Fall as Much as 19%

MarketWatch kindly informs us that GOOG share fall as much 19% in after-hours trading.

Shares of Google (GOOG) tumbled as much as 19% in Tuesday's after-hours session following the Internet company's lower-than-expected earnings report. The stock briefly changed hands at $352 vs. a regular-session closing price of $432.66. At last check, Google rebounded to $370.93.

My feeling is that this marks the beginning of GOOG price reality check. Most of Google's income comes from online advertising. There is little doubt that it's adSense business is growing. But one must ask the question "can Google sustain this kind of profit growth in the years to come?" I'm skeptical about this, unless it comes out with some new killer-apps (e.g., Goobuntu).

Google Stocks Downgraded to SELL

Not that I'm recommending people to short sell GOOG, but I do think Google's stocks are overpriced and too risky. Analyst Scott Kessler has downgraded Google's stocks from HOLD (3 stars) to SELL (2 stars).

Based on our forecasts of modestly stronger revenue growth and better operating leverage, we are raising 2005 and 2006 earnings per share (EPS) forecasts to $5.84 and $7.91, from $5.80 and $7.62. But our 12-month target price stays $428. We think Google still faces notable risks, including revenue concentration, rising competition, and click fraud. Google also announces the proposed purchase of dMarc Broadcasting, a provider of digital solutions for the radio industry, in a deal valued at up to $1.1 billion. Pending approvals, we see a first quarter closing. We think the deal reflects Google's need to diversify.

Learn to Love Google AdSense

I used to abhor ads on the Web. Now todays content ads don't bother me as much as before. As you can see I have Google ads on my site, you know I don't hate them. :-)

So the question is what has changed my mind about ads? Google AdSense. In the past, a lot of ads on the Web are pop-up ads with flashy images and logos. Most of the time, those ads are completely unrelated to the site that I was visiting. Remember those days when you visit a news site, an X10 ads would pop up right in front of your face...

That was then. With Google AdSense, ads have been a lot more polite and less intrusive. I even hear my friends saying that sometimes Google ads are useful in finding services that they are looking for.

Here is something that you might not know. Google AdSense is fueling is a growing market of entrepreneurs that profit displaying Google ads. According to this IHT article, it's not usual for a site with 15,000 user base to profit $10,000 a month from Google AdSense.

Five to tens years ago, it was almost impossible for a person to make that much money just by working in a small office with a laptop (except day traders). If you think about it, Google AdSense has created a completely new occupation. The sole function of this occupation is to increase site traffic and serve more ads.

If you think you have missed out on Google's stock bonanza, perhaps you can start with Google AdSense. Make some money and then go buy its stocks.

If you want to learn more about how Google AdSense has changed people's life, read Trickledown payoff from Google

Google AdWords in Newspapers

Who is afraid of Google? Everyone. Why? Because Google is everywhere. Not only Google wants to the whole Internet and the computing world to itself, now Google wants the ad spaces of your local newspapers. Is the ubiquitous of Goolge a good thing or a bad thing?

Google Inc., the new-media giant, now has a decidedly old-media partner: the Chicago Sun-Times.

In a quiet and small-scale experiment, Google is running classified-like ads in the pages of the Sun-Times, which so far is the only newspaper participating in the Web-search behemoth's test.

See ChicagoBusiness for more details.

Google Wants a Piece of the Video Market

At CES 2006, Google announced its new video cotent service, which will allow content owners to set their own prices. It's a clear sign that Google tries to ride the new wave that is created by Apple's iTune and iPod video.

This could confirm the speculation of some experts: video will be the hottest thing on the Web in 2006.