2012年3月30日 星期五

Google 愛拼才會贏

Google Heightens Rivalry With iPad

Google is planning to market and sell tablets directly to consumers through an online store later this year, Amir Efrati reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.
Google Inc., GOOG -1.11% undaunted by a short-lived attempt to market and sell smartphones on its own, is now trying the approach with tablet computers in a quest to capture market share from Apple Inc.'s AAPL -1.69% iPad.
The Internet search company will sell co-branded tablets directly to consumers through an online store like rivals Apple and Amazon.com Inc., AMZN -1.03% according to people familiar with the matter. The move is an effort to turn around sluggish sales of tablet computers powered by Google's Android software.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, an Android-powered tablet that will go on sale later this year.
Google went this route with Android-powered smartphones in 2010 when it offered a device called the Nexus One made by HTC Corp. 2498.TW -0.50% But the effort was scrapped after several months amid better sales of other Android-powered smartphones.
Like the Nexus One, some future Android tablets are expected to be co-branded with Google's name, said people familiar with the matter. The company is expected to sell devices from a variety of manufacturers. Google won't make the devices and its existing partners such as Samsung Electronics Co. and AsusTeK Computer Inc. 2357.TW +0.18% will be responsible for the hardware, these people said.
One co-branded tablet that may be sold in the online store is due to be released later this year by Taiwan-based Asus, said one of these people.
Details of the project remain unclear, including when Google plans to unveil the online store. Google is expected to release the next version of its Android software, called Jelly Bean, in the middle of this year, people familiar with the matter have said.
Google will soon manufacture its own tablets, due to its pending $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., MMI -0.03% which has been approved in the U.S. and in Europe and is awaiting approval by Chinese authorities. People familiar with the Google's plans said Motorola tablets are expected to be offered in the online store.
A Google spokesman declined to comment, as did an Asus spokeswoman.
By selling tablets directly to consumers, Google is upping the ante against Apple, which debuted its market-leading iPad two years ago. Android-based tablets made by Samsung and others have been slow sellers by comparison. Last fall research firm Gartner estimated Apple would capture 73% of the tablet market versus 17% for Android.
Google also faces competition from Amazon.com, which last year jumped into tablets with its $199 Kindle Fire, in a move to scoop up the less-expensive side of the market.
Google is seeking to increase adoption of its Android software so that its search, maps and other services—which generate the vast majority of its mobile revenue through the sale of ads—become mainstays in the mobile-device world.
While that revenue is small compared to PC-based ad sales, it's a fast-growing category for Google, and tablets can command better ad prices than smartphones. Google Chief Executive Larry Page said last fall the company was on pace to generate more than $2.5 billion in revenue from mobile devices, largely through selling online ads on smartphones.
Google believes the current model for selling tablets is broken, said people familiar with its strategy. Google has watched as wireless carriers, who helped Android become the No. 1 mobile operating system for smartphones, have struggled to replicate that success with tablets.
While some wireless industry executives said Google's Nexus One smartphone effort was a failure, Google Android chief Andy Rubin said previously that the company sold more than 100,000 of these phones in three months and "broke even" on its investment.
Mr. Rubin said Google stopped the effort because other new Android-powered phones were on par with or better than the Nexus One. Google also couldn't figure out how to sell the Nexus One online on a global scale, he said, and its resources would be wasted in trying to line up wireless carriers in foreign countries to sell plans for the phone.
This time, however, Google won't have to worry about pairing with wireless carriers because tablets are primarily used with WiFi connections in people's homes.
To boost the prospects of its new online tablet store, Google was considering subsidizing the cost of future tablets in order to compete on pricing with Amazon's Kindle Fire, said one person with knowledge of the effort.
In addition, Google will lend huge marketing support to the online tablet store, said people familiar with the effort. Since the Nexus One experiment, Google has honed its mass-marketing skills, spending heavily on TV ads and other marketing to promote services other than its Web-search engine.
The first tablet running Android software optimized for tablets, Motorola's Xoom, went on sale in February 2011, nearly 11 months after the first iPad arrived. Motorola has said it sold about one million Xoom tablets in 2011, below its expectations. Several other Android-powered tablets, including two versions of Dell Inc.'s DELL -0.03% Streak tablets, have been discontinued.
Other manufacturers have noted the disappointing results. "Honestly, we're not doing very well in the tablet market," Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung, said at the Mobile World Congress conference earlier this year.
Physical stores will still remain an important sales channel for Google.
Some U.S. retailers are anxious for an Apple rival to emerge in the market, said people familiar with the matter. Some retailers that sell iPads have chafed under Apple's rules that require stores to promote its products more prominently, these people said, and the retailers generate less revenue per sale of Apple products versus other electronic devices.
Google has taken other steps to be a consumer electronics brand. The company is directly overseeing the manufacturing of a Google-branded music and video streaming device, to be used in people's homes, which it is expected to sell to consumers later this year, people familiar with the matter have said. It is unclear whether Google will offer the device as part of its new online store.
Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com

2012年3月27日 星期二

Google Inc. 廣告 街景旅遊導覽「日本櫻花季」

Google街景旅遊導覽「日本櫻花季」服務上線,動動手指就可暢遊日本關東和關西共26個賞櫻勝地。這項服務有英文、韓文、繁/簡體中文和日文版本,讓旅人可在出發前作完整規劃。 Google表示,「日本櫻花季」街景旅遊導覽服務是 ...

 After years of touting the superiority of online advertising, Google Inc. is taking a decidedly different approach to promote itself in areas where its rivals dominate. The Internet company is spending big sums on TV, magazine and ...

2012年3月15日 星期四

Google to Revamp Search


Google to Revamp Search


Search queries will provide answers in addition to external links.


 
《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)獨家披露, Google正開始一項大規模的新實驗:以語意搜尋(semantic search)技術取代關鍵字搜尋,這不僅僅是Google成立以來最重要、規模最龐大的一次技術創新,更將影響到變數以萬計依賴Google網頁排名的 網站與搜尋廣告市場。
語意搜尋和關鍵字搜尋有何差異?其實不難理解。使用關鍵字搜尋,搜尋結果頁面的網站排列順序是依照網站是否包含使用者輸入的關鍵字、與其他網站連結的頻率、以及其他計算指標。
如果是語意搜尋,系統會判斷輸入的關鍵字的意義,可大幅提升搜尋結果的精準度與參考價值,而不僅是列出包含有這些關鍵字、但完全沒有參考意義的網站。
例 如:當你輸入「麥金山高度」(height of Mount Mcckinley)關鍵字之後,系統會判斷你想要知道的是山脈的高度,因此排名最前面的網站,都是有提供麥金脈山正確高度資訊的網站。這就如同 iPhone 4S的Siri技術,具有一定程度的人工智慧,可以成為使用者的知識小幫手。
這項實驗計劃,事實上已開始進行多日,眼尖的網友或許已經發現,最近以來Google搜尋結果和以往有些不同。不過,這樣的技術仍未完成熟,因此Google並未正式對外宣布,目前也沒有時間底限。

2012年3月2日 星期五

Google+

Google+能否後來居上?
來自第三方的數據顯示google+的表現差強人意,並沒有谷歌宣布的那樣光鮮亮麗。或許谷歌應該更加專注於搜索引擎,他們在社交網絡方面仍有很漫長的路要走。




2011/7
谷歌推出社交網站 Facebook面臨挑戰
谷歌推出社交網絡產品Google+﹐該服務功能更強大﹐加上谷歌Gmail現有的龐大用戶基礎﹐Facebook很有可能被迫處於守勢。



Google+ Improves on Facebook

By DAVID POGUE

Google+, Google's social network, has easy-to-use privacy controls and allows video chats with as many as 10 people.



Google+ Added $20 Billion To Google's Market Cap
Washington Post
By TechCrunch.com, How much is social worth to Google? Investors added $20 billion to Google's market cap the first week after the launch of Google+ on June 28. A Morgan Stanley downgrade on Friday, brought the total down to $15.8 billion because of ...


***

Google+ says it has fumbled business pages; blogs unhappy

July 22, 2011 | 7:01 pm

After pulling the plug on Google+ pages set up for businesses on Thursday, Google laid out some details (and a bit of regret) on what it has done so far and hopes to do next to get companies, nonprofits, bands and other entities into the social network as soon as possible.

Almost two weeks ago, Google asked businesses eager to get started on Google+ to stay out of the fledgling social network. The reason? Google said current Google+ pages were designed for people to network, not companies or other groups.

The tech giant promised that it would roll out pages for businesses and other entities later in the year and began taking applications from groups interested in trying out test versions of such pages.

But the response to Google's call for business-page testing partners was more enthusiastic then even the Mountain View, Calif., company expected, and now Google is working to speed up the process and get its act together faster.

, the advertising lead on Google+, said in a post on the network that Google has received tens of thousands of applications:

With so many qualified candidates expressing intense interest in business profiles, we've been thinking hard about how to handle this process. Your enthusiasm obligates us to do more to get businesses involved in Google+ in the right way, and we have to do it faster. As a result, we have refocused a few priorities and we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months. There may be a tiny handful business profiles that will remain in the meantime solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.

Oestlien also reiterated his call to businesses to stay out of Google+ until Google has a proper offering.

Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.

In an interview with the website TechCrunch, Vic Gundotra, who is leading the Google+ project, said that the company has dropped the ball on this aspect of building a social network so far.

"We underestimated the rate at which we were going to grow," Gundotra told Alexis Tsotis of TechCrunch in an interview. "So if we had known that we were going to be this attractive to people who want audiences, we would have probably prioritized some of the brand work earlier. So, in that sense, looking back in hindsight, uh, it was probably a mistake. And if anyone is to take blame for that, it's me. And we're working to correct that."

Tsotis took Gundotra, and Google+ Product Manager Bradley Horowitz, to task in the interview for what many at TechCrunch and other blogs believe has been unfair treatment of certain brands that broke Google's rules on Google+.

For example, after Google directed all business pages to be switched over to a person from a company or they'd be deleted, TechCrunch created a profile for a fake person it called Techathew Cruncheri. Google removed Tecathew's page. The blog Search Engine Land, as well as Ford and Sesame Street, each had Google+ pages (not named after fake people) and those were deleted too.

The blog Mashable also had a page with more than 109,000 followers, but that page remains in action because it was transferred in name to the site's CEO, Pete Cashmore. But Cashmore already had a personal profile page of his own, with 40,000 followers, which he's now ditching to run the new personal page.

The moves have left some in the tech blogging community feeling burned, so much so that Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, wrote an open letter to Google about the ordeal. He argued that all business pages should be restored or all should be wiped out, writing:

I know you have great plans to have super wonderful business profiles eventually. But if you're going to only let a "tiny" number of businesses operate before that, then you taint them and yourselves with favoritism.

At least when you announced applications for business profiles, there was a sense that anyone interested would have some type of a fair shot. Now that's gone.

Don't try to put the genie back in the bottle. Restore the business profiles you have closed. Drop the rule you silently added that blocks business profiles. Let businesses use profiles here just as regular people do. Works just fine on Twitter. Then upgrade those accounts when you're ready.

If you're really into doing things right, that's what you should do. Otherwise, you're just further doing it wrong.

Google didn't follow Sullivan's suggestion, so he wrote a follow-up statement on Google+:

The experience has led me to think that ironically, Google+ is perhaps the worse place to talk about issues with Google. The posts people seem to like are "Hey, check out today's cool logo" or nice pictures or cheerleading for Google+.

I think that's kind of sad, especially when there are so many people who actually work for Google who read what's on Google+. Today's experience has just given me a personal chilling effect that I have never, ever felt with Twitter or Facebook. And I'd have never, ever expected that to be the case with a Google social network.



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