Entrepreneur Watch

Why the name 'Platypus', anyway?

In my last entry about Platypus/Gdrive, I forgot to mention an interesting tidbit I came across. I went to Google's Official Blog page and typed Platypus into the search box to see if anyone had ever mentioned it, not expecting anything. But I got this: The Platypus of the Internet posted by "Tech Lead" Justin Voskuhl.

The July 2005 entry is NOT about GDrive. It's about the XUL programming language used to create Firefox. (Justin seems to be mostly involved with Firefox over at Google.)

In his entry, he starts off marveling about the strange things, like a Platypus, natural selection can produce in nature: "How could something with such a seemingly discombobulated set of attributes be fit for survival in the hostile natural world?" he asks.

When the Platypus was first discovered and a dead one brought back from Australia for scientists to see, many thought it was a hoax, sewn together with parts from different animals -- like a duck's bill, an otter's body and a beaver's tail.

Justin compares XUL to a Platypus because it's such a strange beast, "using JavaScript ... to write code that works *in* a browser, to create the browser *itself*. But when he saw XUL and used it, he found it to be well-evolved and elegant.

Perhaps that's why GDrive got the code name (your suggestion, Justin?)? Platypus is CPU power. It's data storage. Its stores data locally and remotely, keeping the two in synch. It's a backup system. It's a collaboration tool. But it's designed for survival in the Internet Age.

I think that's cool.

GDrive/Platypus - Google's next big thing, or a disaster-in-waiting

OK, while we're on the subject, let's speculate on what the next big hit from Google might be. My favorite speculation is that it will be GDrive.

Artechnica quotes from a February, 2006 Google analysts' presentation that describes the apparent goal of GDrive: "a world of infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power." The idea is to use GDrive as your main storage device, rather than your computer disk drive. Google wants to supply enough storage space so that nobody ever runs out.

There are great advantages. No worries about backing up files. If you spill coffee on your computer and zap it into oblivion, your data is still safe. While playing with Writely, Corsin Camichael stumbled across a page that described "Platypus," which bloggers now suspect may be the code name for GDrive. The advantages are described this way:

        A filer for the whole world. But better.

 

Storing your files in   Platypus has a number of advantages over storing your files on either your C: drive   or filer. Backup.        If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your        files will be on your new machine in minutes. Sync.        Keep all your machines synchronized, even if they run different        operating systems. VPN-less        access. Not at a Google computer? View your files on the web at        http://troutboard.com/p. Collaborate.        Create shared spaces to which multiple Googlers can write. Disconnected        access. On the plane? VPN broken? All your files are still        accessible.

Sync implies the drive will be compatible with any computer, Mac, PCs, Linux, whatever. The question "Not at a Google Computer?" implies that this is actually an internal system for Google employees, and that they can get access to their data from the Web. They could be testing internally beofre outside release. Disconnected access--I don't know what this means. The data will also be stored in your own computer (constantly synched with GDrive) so that you can still get at it if you're offline?

This could also be something to be released with a Google-branded computer, designed to automatically use the virtual storage device. It's a great combination that could really threaten Microsoft. One of Google's very smart strategies is to recognize that data storage is incredibly cheap, and it can use it as a competitive advantage. Other companies, such as Yahoo, are reluctant to do that, because they want to use limited storage as an incentive to get you to upgrads to more powerful products.

But the risks are also huge. John Battelle at Searchblog doesn't trust Google enough to let the company have all his data. Personally, I do. I accept the loss of privacy in today's world, mainly because I don't really do anything controversial enough to raise my visibility to the top of a pile of millions of other people, thus catching the attention of government spies. I even email myself stuff through gmail just to have an easy backup. I know it's there forever. But maybe I'm stupid.

However, imagine this becoming a big hit, and somebody at Google screws up and all our data is released to the world. Or hackers break into it. Or the U.S. or other governments hand Google supbpoenas to investigate alleged illegal activity. In fact, that last one is a given.

All of a sudden, Google would lose a huge amount of public trust. The backlash could be enormous. People would bail out of the system (if there's an easy way to move or delete all your files, anyway.) If you can't delete your data, the backlash will be even bigger. This could be the catalyst to the undoing of all Google's plans to get us to use its software services.

But my guess is that people will use it. Most of us don't seem concerned enough about privacy to use the encryption products out there.

And that brings us to the next next big thing Google ought to do: Develop or buy its own encryption system, running on all its servers, so that nobody will be able to get at our data. It would be safer for Google to run that system for us, rather than relying on individuals to keep from screwing up their data protection schemes.

A Google PC, Platypus and encryption could be an incredible killer combination.

Is Google a one-hit wonder?

Fortune magazine has decided to do another "What's wrong with Google" article (Chaos by Design, Oct.2, 2006). After spending months doing reporting, in part at Google, Adam Lashinsky doesn't come up with much worth noting. Mostly, he talks about people buzzing around on scooters, bumping into each other at its crowded headquarters, having trouble getting meeting rooms, etc. He's highly skeptical of Shona Brown, an ex-McKinsey consultant and author of"Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos," who is now working at Google. Chaos, says Lashinsky, doesn't seem to create new hits.

I strongly disagree. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch notes that this is a complaint getting a lot of play recently--Can Google create another hit? Lashinsky describes Google's product development strategy as a "spaghetti method of product development (toss against wall, see if sticks)."

What's wrong with that approach? Nobody can really predict what the next hot thing is going to be, so experimentation is the only good approach. That means lots of mistakes and false starts, which reporters praise startups for and criticize Google for.

Lashinsky et. al. miss the analogy to Microsoft's early days. It took Microsoft years to create computer applications hits. The only question is whether Google has the stamina to keep plugging away at its new products until they become hits, as Microsoft did.

Microsoft made lots of questionable investments, too. Back in the 1980s, when Microsoft wasn't sure how much of a challenge Unix would be, the company made an investment in SCO, just in case. You have to spread yourself out in order to avoid getting blind-sided.

A key to Google's success is its ability to ignore Wall Street and others who insist on short-term results. Lachinsky quotes Benjamin Schachter, an analyst at UBS who notes Google's mediocre stock performance this year: "Investors are saying, 'Enough of what you're going to do. What does it do to the numbers?' "

Focusing on the numbers is the wrong approach. At Google, people are encouraged to experiment. One of the complaints I hear about Microsoft these days is that when there's a proposal for a new product, management demands, "Will it make us another $100 million?" Microsoft developers know that's the wrong attitude. That's why the best computer scientists work at Google.

I say keep throwing stuff at the wall, and some of it will stick.

Google's slippery slope

Much has been made of Google's new PAC recently. On one hand, it's to be expected. Politicians sue Google for child porn with no evidence. They support telcos' demands that they be allowed to start charging companies like Google for the amount of traffic sent over their precious phone lines. Google will someday be facing anti-trust suits. What choice does the company have?

Still, it's a shame. Sergey and Larry wanted to stay out of politics. They see it as a corrupt system, and certainly PACs are the most corrupting part of the system. This is a black diamond slippery slope.

Sergey and Larry are avowed Democrats. When Larry's father died a few years ago, the family requested that people make donations to the Democratic party in lieu of sending flowers. Sergey and Larry hired like-minded people at Google. Well over 90% of political contributions made by Google employees have gone to Democrats. Now the company has to hire Republican lobbyists and donate to Republican candidates in order to keep them on Google's side. It's not that Republicans are any more evil than Democrats, but Sergey and Larry are clearly going against their personal ideals in making this move. Like biting the bullet and setting up shop in China.

I had a conversation a few years ago with a Silicon Valley exec who insisted that Google's ideals would have to suffer once it went public. The pressure from Wall Street is too great. The need to compromise search results in order to favor revenues and keep the Board and partners satisfied becomes overwhelming. I argued against the idea, for the simple reason that it seemed to me that Google's idealism works. It gives better search results, gets people to trust Google, keeps the focus on customers rather than on profits, and that focus results in more profits.

But maybe the exec was right. That saddens me. What kind of an indictment of capitalism is it to say that you cannot be a successful capitalist and maintain your ideals? Does every politician have to become corrupt, does every capitalist have to be driven by greed? There's something wrong with a world in which that's true.

Maybe it's why I'm too soft on Google. I want to believe that an honest, idealistic company can exist, can thrive. Despite my baser instincts, I'm rooting for Google to prove the skeptics wrong.

Google and Wall Street

It's amazing to me how poorly Wall Street evaluates Google. Yahoo says ad revenues are down, and everyone assumes that means trouble at Google, too. Despite the fact that Google's most recent quarter showed a 100% increase in revenues and profits over a year ago (Wall Street was predicting an increase of about 80% or so.)

Finally, analyst Rob Sanderson at American Technology Research tells Forbes that Yahoo may be suffering because of Google's success, not because there is a big downturn coming. Duh.

I don't understand why there is so much skepticism over Google's ad policy. Donna Bogatin, my favorite naive Google skeptic, is convinced that Google's auction system for advertising is doomed to failure. Advertisers are used to negotiating rate cards, but they have to keep bidding up Adsense ads. Soon they will rebel, she says, and go back to standard rate card models.

Nonsense. An auction does what no other form of advertising does--sets prices at true market value. If advertisers don't think they're getting value, they'll stop bidding so high. Further, they can measure the results through click-throughs, indicating that people at least see the ads. When I was in the magazine business, we all knew rate cards were a joke. They were priced according to the magazine's circulation, on the theory that every one of the mag's readers see every ad. It's inherently a lie, and inherently unmeasurable.

Google's percentage of the internet advertising market keeps going up, and the market keeps going up. Until there's evidence otherwise, this hypothetical "future revolt" is like speculating that Intel will start losing market share because some startup has a better chip design, even though there's no software for the new chip.

Nick Carr assumes that google has a conflict of interest because it sells advertising. That pressures the company to keep people on its own sites. In the first place, Google has always been dedicated to moving traffic to other sites, no matter what. It's the principle on which the company was founded, and is why the company never became a prtal like Yahoo, creating its own content and trying to keep people from leaving. In the second place, Google gets more ad revenues from AdSense than from ads on its own site. Again, quit the idle speculation and show me the evidence!

Google has the right model. It's working. It's a better alternative to anything else out there. My prediction: When Google announces next quarter's results, its stock will rise again. Unless Wall street finally gets a little sense and bids up the stock in anticipation of strong results.

Of course, the stock market must be fundamentally flawed, too. There are no rate cards.

Are Google's cookies evil?

Peter Dawson pointed me to an interesting site today. A Harvard Ph.D. candidate with impressive credentials, Benjamin Edelman, who does a lot of research on spyware and cookies and related software, did some research for Clicks2Customers.com to determine what advertising cookies different anti-spyware programs detect. Clicks2Customers allowed him to publish his data.

He tested 11 spyware programs' ability to detect cookies from 50 advertising firms, and found that the best anti-spyware program for finding ad cookies, Spyware Doctor, picks up cookies from just half the advertisers.

The most interesting category to me is for the pay-per-click advertisers, Google and Yahoo. These companies use cookies to determine which people clicking on ads are actually converted to sales. Those cookies are certainly valuable to Goolge, Yahoo, and their advertisers, raising the question of whether they should charge higer rates to advertisers who actually make a sale from their ads. Cookies could be used to determine the conversion rates.

At least, they could for Google. Not one of the anti-spyware programs detected Google's conversion cookies! (There were a few other advertisers in non-pay-per-click categories that went undetected.) But Yahoo's conversion cookies were detected by 6 of the 11 programs. He suugests this may be because "Google's cookies use arbitrary names that are hard for scanners to identify."

Are such advertising cookies evil? Do you mind if Google can tell what you buy? So far, I feel that the tradeoff between personalizing my online experience and protecting my privacy is worth it. I'll change my mind when advertisers start spamming me based on that data.

At the very least, it indicates that Google is better at this advertising game than Yahoo.

Google, Apple, Disney?

A week ago, there was a lot of speculation about the significance of Eric Schmidt joining Apple's Board. It's hard to say what it means. My friend Shel Israel thinks the announcement was overrated. Jobs, he points out, is now spending time in Hollywood as a member of Disney's Board, and perhaps he just needed more help with Apple's Board.

It's possible, but I think there is something going on behind the scenes. At Google's last shareholder's meeting, one stock owner asked about the future of partnerships with other companies, and specifically asked about Apple. Sergey and Larry perked up over this, and Sergey insisted, "We LOVE Apple." He promised we would see something in the future.

The question is what? Having a member on a partner's board definitely helps relationships. Look at the news that movies from Disney will now be available on iTunes 7. But there's also a danger with getting too cozy with bedfellows. Apple has 75 films available, all from Disney companies, while Amazon's Unbox has thousands to films and TV shows available, from studios such as 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Maybe other studios think Apple and Disney are TOO close.

Jobs is turning Apple into a consumer products company focused on entertainment. Google wants to help make everything digital available to everyone. Will they do something together in entertainment? Or will they just integrate Google into Macs? Or even collaborate on a new, c0-branded PC (my favorite speculation)?

Google doesn't create content, it distributes it. So does Apple. But I'm not sure why Apple would need Google for help searching a few thousand titles. What do you think?

Microsoft CAN beat Google

I surfaced from the blogoshpere for a while and started asking entrepreneurs and other pundits about Google's flaws. Customer service was a big one, as well as (of course) Google's secrecy. Close behind was its neglect of existing products.

I had previously assumed that Google would be diligently upgrading its products until they worked well. After all, it can afford to, and it releases them early and collects a lot of feedback from online beta testers. But I may be wrong. I think about Froogle, which for some reason has never worked very well. I get better results just using a standard Google search.

That's where Microsoft comes in. One thing it has is tenacity. It may not innovate very well, but whenever it goes after a category it bangs away at it until it gets it (mostly) right. That's how Microsoft has taken over market after market in the past.

Now, Microsoft is not likely to take over search from Google. Google's too experienced. But there is increasing buzz about excellent alternatives to Google Search. Microsoft could either emulate the best or buy them.

The real problem is Google's other products. The mediocrity of Froogle leaves a big hole in that area. Gmail has been improved, but it seems slower to add new features than it should. Google purchased Blogger, which seems like a second-rate system, and it hasn't gotten much better.

As Google moves into desktop applications, Microsoft's home turf, can it really carve out a strong position? Microsoft's Ray Ozzie is a very smart guy, and Microsoft is fighting for its life here. I can envision a perfectly plausible scenario in which Microsoft moves ahead of Google in Inernet-based applications out of sheer tenacity.

Google started out as very innovative, but it's now mostly reproducing online products that others have pioneered. It has a spectacular team of computer scientists, but this kind of person wants to create new stuff, not upgrade the old ones. Microsoft will not make that mistake.

Of course, Google's real advantage is AdSense. As Microsoft moves its apps online, will it figure out how to make money from them? It has always been lousy at the advertising business. Of course, if Google doesn't figure out how to get its new apps powerful and broadly accepted, people may be willing to buy subscriptions to Microsoft's online products.

That would stifle Google's ability to create more markets for its ads through new products. And it might give Microsoft a boost in developing advertising models for its own products.

There is still a long way to go in perfecting search engines, and if Google stays ahead there, it will provide plenty of revenues for years to come. But it could be leaving a hole. Future scenario--Search: Google. Most other online apps: Microsoft. Then it becomes a much tougher fight.

(ADDED NOTE:) For differing opinions, read Phil Wainewright's "Why Microsoft can't best Google" and Tim O'Reilly's follow-up.