However, Microsoft is Big. And Microsoft has a Lot of Money. And Microsoft is looking for New Sources of Earnings. Because Microsoft makes all of its money in One Place (well, two). Sound familiar?When an organization gets as successful as Microsoft or Google in one market, it has lots of cash and time on its hands to play around in other markets. Ever see a cat play with a mouse? It's fun... for the cat.
What twigged me was the Google Latitude announcement (incidentally, thanks CBC, for the scary technology story last night). Hey, mobile social networking... just like Loopt!
How did it go down? Like this?
Google: Hm, we've got maps on Android and iPhone, we can get location, we should use this for social networking. Hmm, Loopt is already doing that.Or maybe like this?
Google: Hey Loopt! Wanna be bought?
Loopt: Sure, that'll be $100M.
Google: Are you insane? In this market? Try $10M.
Loopt: But our investors are already into us for $10M...
Google: Sorry, thems the breaks. We can build it ourselves for less than $10M, if you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more.
Loopt: *sob*
Googler A: Let's build a mobile social networking site!Really, no matter how the story goes, it ends up with the notional value of Loopt shares falling by 50-80% on the day Google Latitude is announced.
Googler B: And then play some beach volleyball!
Googler A: Yeah!
Loopt: *sob*
And the investors who dropped their millions into Loopt? What are they going to think the next time someone comes with a great technology idea, maybe a little ahead of its time, but a chance to build out and be ready to rock when the pieces fall into place. Maybe they'll think: yeah, this could grow into something huge, but as soon as the market matures enough to be valuable, Google is just going to steal it anyways. Pass.
8 comments:
I don't always agree with you, but your posts crack me up. The bit about volleyball was hilarious.
My gut feel is that this is more about advertising than social networking. If they can get users to agree to send their current location, then this allows micro-geotargetted advertising. Social networking is just hook; the free services that gets users to agree to use it.
If you browse through the Loopt website, you'll see that they are backed by Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Sequoia is already snuggling with Google which really makes you wonder if Latitude is part of something much bigger that we don't know about? Companies like BK and Loopt make a lot of their $$$ by selling usage stats , specifically user locations, to other businesses (Starbucks, Walmart, etc). If 2009 is going to be the year of the map, this is definitely an interesting start...
Adam
Google knows where I am, now.
And really? I don't care. I don't mind geotargeted advertising. Most people, in fact, don't mind advertising in principle; it's random advertising that has no relevance to the viewer that sucks.
If Google can figure out how to get me ads that actually matter to me, well, more power to 'em.
Why do I get the feeling this kind of thing, regardless of whether it was motivated by market dominance or a good game of beach volleyball, is going to incur a backlash composed of equal part EU/US regulators and privacy advocates?
The suggestion I have heard for heading this off that seems most likely to work (and least likely to happen), is a kind of active, radical openness on the part of Google that would be unlike any other company. And do it before you make too many enemies close to the Justice Department.
Well they'd also like you to give them all your data so they can sell ads on top of it. I suppose in these hard times, Google has no money to pay for data so it is up to the community at large to step in and rescue the Google.
http://contentcentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/taking-in-view-introducing-googles.html
Paul, I agree 100% with you on this one.
You have hit an issue that has been *the* concern for many startups lately.
http://geodump.blogspot.com/2009/02/protecting-your-startup-compromising.html
Instead of 'Don't Be Evil' a more honest slogan would be 'Less Evil' or 'Think Different Evil'. At least they've never called open source 'cancer' or 'communist'(not that there's anything wrong with that to any cancers or communists that might be reading :)
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