Today, when I opened up Google, I saw something new. In the past Google has used the space directly below the search box to notify users of holiday events, privacy policy updates, tributes to industry legends – such as the Steve Jobs tribute, among other things.
Google's tribute to industry legend - Steve Jobs
Today however Google is using this spot to advertise its new feature, which lets you follow the journey of an email: ‘The Story of Send’.
Google advertises 'The Story of Send: Follow an email on its journey.' on its homepage
When you click the link, you are taken to a page on Google’s Green website (.google.com/green) which tells you how you can
“Take a journey through Google’s data centers by following an email along its path.”
Click ‘Start the story’ and the journey begins! Google takes you through an interactive journey of a Gmail email, from when you hit send on your device, to when it arrives at its destination.
The tour takes about 5 minutes (around 50 if you watch all the videos) however, as we all know, the journey of a real email, takes seconds – if that sometimes.
It is evident that the project is meant to be promotional for Google, as it points out all the good points along the journey. For example, how they have ‘built an extensive Internet backbone across the U.S.‘ to speed things up; how they ‘protect your message with a wide range of security measures‘ and how their data centres use ‘50% less energy than typical data centers‘ etc.
What the journey fails to point out is the less desirable things that go on. One example being how your email is read (or spidered) by Google Bots/Spiders, keywords are picked out, and then relevant ads are displayed alongside the message. Another being how Google want not only to own the systems which deliver your emails, but also the infrastructure (the cables and power) which gets it there – is that not a bit of a monopoly?
I like Google, I think it does a wonderful job, and it is great that it offers us all so much for free, however they do also do a good job of covering up the stuff they don’t want us to here.
Check out the video below for more. I found it and tweeted about it a while ago, however never really found an article for it to go in.
So, have you taken the journey yet? Aside from the obvious PR (public relations not PageRank) stuffed in, it does make interesting viewing.
More interested in talking about the ethics of Google? Add your view below 🙂
I image that you have probably seen the Apple ads which are based around the two characters: Mac man and PC man. They have been released in various different countries with different actors playing PC and Mac.
The campaign which was known as the ‘Get a Mac campaign‘ was broadcast in North-America, the UK and in Japan, as well as on the web. In the USA Mac was played by Justin Long, whilst PC was played by John Hodgman. In the UK, comedy duo David Mitchell (PC) and Robert Webb (Mac) took the role.
Not sure what I am on about? Check out the video below:
Apple have now removed the ads from their site, but they can still be found all over the internet. If you do a YouTube search for ‘Get A Mac’ or ‘Mac vs PC’ you get hundreds of results.
The interesting thing is, Mac only own about 7% of the computing market at the moment, that’s only around 2% up on four years ago.
Windows however owns more than 90% of the computing market, meaning that most of us have a Microsoft PC.
So why is is then that if you scroll down past almost any of the Mac vs PC ads on YouTube you see that the ratio of likes to dislikes is usually around 5:1. This means that if 1,000 people like the ad, just 200 dislike it. So despite most of us choosing to use a PC, we seem to support Apple, rather than Microsoft.
The Battle of the Giants
The computing industry was once dominated by the Apple-Microsoft rivalry, however in the last 5 years, Google has become a serious contender, making it a three way battle. Google is not only a more viable contender because of its new chrome operating system, but also because its search and other services are so popular.
Google has the most websites within the top 100 most visited online of any company in the world. Google.com, Google.co.in, Google.de, Google.com.hk, Google.co.jp and Google.co.uk all ranking among the top 25 most visited sites on the net. Google hold 6 of the 25 most visited sites, whilst Microsoft have just one (MSN.com) and Apple don’t have any.
Microsoft’s Ads
Microsoft have recently tried to mimic Apple’s hugely successful ads, but in order to attack Google. Google is one of Microsoft’s biggest competitors, if not its biggest, so after being ‘slagged off’ in Apple’s ads, it would appear that Microsoft hoped to produce the same effect, but this time with Google in the loosing position.
Below I have included one of their ads, entitled Googlighting.
UPDATE: Seems like Microsoft realised the ad didn’t quite work… it’s been taken down from their official YouTube channel, however there are a few others still hosting it if you search around.
Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like that ad. I think it looks like more of a pathetic dig at Google, rather than a cleverly designed way to boost one companies brand, whilst demoting the competitions – as Apple’s ads did.
It turns out I am not the only one who didn’t find that ad all that amusing, the ad is published on Microsoft’s own YouTube Channel, and yet has received just 5,117 likes, but a staggering 12,734 dislikes. That is a 5:13 ratio against Microsoft’s ad.
So we will stand by Apple when they attack Microsoft, but when Microsoft try to attack Google, we stand by Google. Why? Is it because we see Apple and Google as two trendy, current companies, and Microsoft as an outdated one, which we are loyal to out of convenience not choice? I like Windows 7, but I don’t like Bing, Google has to win for me. iPad vs a Windows tablet, iPhone vs Windows phone, I think I would prefer the iDevice.
Google’s Ads
I thought I should give Google’s ads a mention too. Google hasn’t yet (to the best of my knowledge) made any ads aimed at attacking the competition. Google show very few ads on television, and largely rely on their online dominance to help them promote their products.
Something I have found about both Google and Apple’s ads is that they often appear to be very well thought out, and the more modern ones are often extremely well recorded/directed and are very clean. Microsoft’s ads aren’t quite so chic, so is that where their downfall lies?
Who Do You Stick By?
Personally, I would rather say that I am a Googlite, or loyal to Apple, than say I am loyal to Microsoft.
UPDATE: I’m not so sure that I am loyal to Google or Apple anymore – and haven’t developed any more a loyalty to any other competitor either. Use the service which provides the best solution to your needs at the time.
Even though I am annoyed at Google, as it hit Technology Bloggers in the Penguin update quite badly, and as far as I am aware (and I have asked in the Webmaster Central forums) we, as a blog have done nothing wrong. In fact we have been doing what Google want, creating great, original content, look at some of the articles Jonny is producing to see awesome, original content, all our writers do, but he is really outstanding at the moment.
“We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites.” – Google Webmasters Central Blog
I am sure we will soon recover, and will continue to strive to be an outstanding blog. Despite being (unfairly) hit, I am still loyal to Google, I believe that in the most part it is a very good, ethical company.
UPDATE: I am not quite so loyal to Google anymore, and am less convinced that it is all that ethical. A new philosophy: choose the best device/search engine/browser etc. for the time, loyalty doesn’t seem to pay dividends in the world of technology.
What about you though? Who do you stick by? Anyone, or everyone?
Hobbies have always been an inspiration for many successful people. While most of us attempt to pursue “safe careers” by going for occupations that may bring us monetary benefits, pretty often we lose sight of our hobbies in our busy lives.
However, with the internet boom many people can now change that. There are many success stories, from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates who ruthlessly pursued their goals and didn’t follow the bandwagon. But in this article I am going to explore a few more down to earth examples.
What is to follow is a list of five e-businesses that started as a hobby or a small idea that brought immense success to their owners. While the below examples might not contain websites as famous as YouTube, Twitter or Facebook, they are examples that we can all relate to, and maybe borrow a few ideas from!
The Million Dollar Homepage
I still remember watching a report about the guy who set up The Million Dollar Homepage on the news (can’t remember if it was BBC or CNN). The founder of The Million Dollar Homepage (Alex Tew) sold pixels of his website for $1, to raise money for his University expense. The site was such a success that it turned out to become a website that is nothing more than several pixels of small ads. I hope by now you would understand what I meant when I said, “examples that we can all relate to”.
FindAGrave.Com
When it comes to novel ideas that made people money, this website takes the cake. It provides a service that I wouldn’t have comprehended, had I not learned about this website.
Find A Grave is a website that helps people locate the graves of a famous people. It turns out that Jim Tipton liked to visit the graves of famous personalities and used this idea to create a kind of search engine that helps people locate graves of famous people.
So if you have a hobby of visiting famous places or areas that can help, say vacationers, then you might be the next big success story.
PickyDomains
PickyDomains is another idea that got me scratching my head. The founder of the site was good at coming up with interesting names, so he started a crowdsourcing service that allowed people to seek help in finding interesting domain names and slogans.
The idea was to let a community of people provide novel names and not to rely on bots, which arguably lack imagination. If you have been looking for vacant domain names in a domain search engine, then you will know what I mean.
So if your friends, family and bots have failed you, then it might be time to seek advice from a community of people, who just like coming up with cool names and slogans.
Gawker Media
While the Gawker Media website itself is successful enough, it is worth pointing out that this media groups is perhaps the world’s most famous blogging network.
The reason I have included the Gawker example is because one thing that most of us can do easily is blogging (something I’m doing right now).
Gawker Media has the world’s most successful blogs ranging from Lifehacker, Gizmodo to many others. The Gawker network was started by Nick Denton who is a journalist and an entrepreneur. While he claims that blogging isn’t that profitable, he has still made millions from his successful line of blogs.
Amazon
I know I said there will be down to earth examples in this post, but I have to add this one. I have been following Amazon since I was a child and have seen the company grow beyond belief.
What started as an online book store was soon to become one of the first e-stores in the world. But it was not just a good idea that made Jeff Bezos the world most successful e-retailer, but the fact that he took risks when it mattered.
It is said that the company did not expect any profit for five years, which also made shareholders a bit edgy. Nonetheless, the internet gold rush paid off and Amazon, which diversified, became one of the most successful companies in the world.
The above mentioned examples are just a few of many success stories that made people successful because they dared to use their ideas to materialize them into something successful (even if someone enjoyed visiting graves).
The point is that it might not be too late for any of you try out something that may allow you to turn your abilities into something successful, and to let you in on a secret, I’m already trying out something myself, guess I don’t want to regret not trying my hands at the internet gold rush either.
