12 reasons Chrome OS will fail
Yesterday, Google held a press conference at its Mountain View headquarters to provide the world with an update on its new operating system, Chrome OS.
A lot of new details were forthcoming, which have have been well-covered by others. The questions on everyone's mind: is Chrome OS the real deal? Where does it fit in? How will it impact the OS market. My answers: it isn't, nowhere, it won't. Here are 12 reasons why Chrome OS is going to fail.
Google fights scammers with one strike and you're out policy
Malicious ads are on the rise and just as AdWords is an appealing platform for legitimate advertisers looking for a massive audience, Google's self-serve ad service is a juicy target for scammers looking for the same.
From ads that hawk scammy get-rich-quick products to ads that lead users to web pages infested with malware, malicious ads pose a significant threat to Google. After all, if users come to fear where Google's results (paid or unpaid) might lead them, Google risks losing one of its most valuable assets: the trust and confidence of its users.
3am site goes from swearing off SEO to keyword stuffing in 3 months
The Daily Mirror's 3am.co.uk gossip site has gone from disavowing SEO and promising to concentrate on building a loyal audience - to stuffing its HTML titles with as many keywords as it can think of. And then adding some more. Before finally making sure Britney is in there.
Google's trademark policy change worries retailers this holiday season
Google changed its policy on trade marked key words in the U.S. this May, and while it's still too early to fully monitor the implications of those changes on brand marketers, the holidays may become a proving ground for the switch, if the price for search ads goes up as much as some marketers are fearing.
Brand searches go up during the holiday season and Google's self-policing new policy means that key word violators will have more opportunity to buy branded key words and disparage, criticize or otherwise overtake brand searches from trademark owners.
According to ClickZ:
"The holiday season will be a real proving ground, to see how quickly Google responds to issues," Jeremy Hull, account leader at Range Online Media, told ClickZ. "Do they have an adequate team in place, with policies and procedures that are scalable for the holidays?"
Google gets free advertising for Google products by hiring ex-Microsoft employee
Don Dodge was a happily loyal Microsoft employee until last week, when he got laid off with a group of around 5,000 other staffers in a broad reduction of staff. The well-known "Ambassador to Startups" was quickly poached by Google (within 90 minutes no less), where he is now set to work.
The move highlights the differences in culture at the two companies. And Dodge's fairwell note serves another purpose for Google, as an ad for how loyal Microsoft devotees can switch to Google products.
Load time: coming soon as a Google ranking factor?
Google's algorithm looks at a significant number of ranking factors when it decides where a site should be in the SERPs. These ranking factors, and the weight they're each given, change over time.
Last week at PubCon, Google's Matt Cutts revealed a new ranking factor that may debut in 2010: page load time.
Can Tim Armstrong make AOL king of content by 2010?
AOL's new CEO Tim Armstrong has been quickly buying up talent and increasing AOL's media properties in the lead up to the company's tkt from parent Time Warner later this year.
At the Roosevelt hotel in New York today, Armstrong went into AOL's continuing strategy.
AOL's CEO announced that online content can be "much better."
"That's why we are making such a big bet there," he said during a keynote appearance at the annual Media and Money conference, hosted by Nielsen and Dow Jones.
It's true that content online has a long way to go. But is AOL the one to make it happen?
Can News Corp. win its game of chicken with Google?
The rumors are true. Rupert Murdoch is taking News Corp. content out of Google search.
The media mogul set off a storm last week when he responded to a question about opting-out from Google with the words "I think we will."
And today, News Corp.'s chief digital officer confirmed it. News Corp. content will be off of Google search within the next few months.
But is this a game of chicken that News Corp. can win?
Google: expect a Caffeine jolt after the holidays
Google's Caffeine update is coming. Billed by Google as "the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions", Caffeine is not your regular Google update.
When Caffeine was announced, Google did something it had never done before: it offered up a sandbox so that the public could preview search results with Caffeine and provide Google with feedback. While that sandbox is no longer available, you won't have to wait long for your Caffeine jolt: according to Google's Matt Cutts, Caffeine is coming after the holidays.
Google Go: was the name already taken?
Yesterday Google announced that it was releasing Go, a new open source programming language that's designed to aid in rapid development while at the same time supporting the latest technologies, like multi-processor CPUs.
There's only one problem: there's apparently already a programming language named 'Go'.
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Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
