Tag Archives: Internet

The Google (and GIM and GMail)

Given the attention Google receives, including from techies, investors, and media-types, it is surprising to see how little attention and analysis there has been regarding Google’s integration of Google Talk (or GIM) with GMail.

In general, Google uses sophisticated models and data-mining techniques to deliver more relevant advertising to users. Increasingly, however, the company is microscoping those techniques down to a user-specific level. The bait to tie advertising to a specific user (e.g., me), rather than a general type of user (e.g., people who perform a search for “glass + composer + ‘tour dates'”), was/is GMail. To use the service, people log in and have a specific account. In its initial form, e-mails were scanned and relevant advertising provided.

But that crude method, which was and to some degree remains the standard method, only provides a one-dimensional (i.e., e-mail) information/revenue stream. Steadily, Google has increased the number of services/revenue streams that improve/adjust when a user is logged into what was his or her GMail account and is now more generally referred to as a Google account. These includes News.Google, Base.Google, Images.Google, Groups.Google, and (Search.)Google.

While the Google (nee GMail) account was, and remains, the bait for attracting users to create trackable/information-creating accounts, GIM’s incorporation into GMail–which is done adequately, although not impressively, well–is the hook that keeps users logged in, trackable, and able to be advertised to in a personal (rather than customizable or typed) manner. That’s because GIM requires you to be logged in constantly and because there are people who only access their e-mail account when checking for new messages (as opposed to running it continuously and being notified when there is e-mail). The combination of the two is a significant barrier to Google’s efforts to collect user-specific data, but a barrier that is overcome because of GIM’s always-logged-in character. Important to remember is that once a user remains logged in the other personalizable Google services are activated, thereby generating not just the GIM and GMail information/revenue streams, but also a number of others (e.g., News.Google). That one GIM/GMail door opens up many worlds of new information gathering and advertising potential.

In fact, GIM’s integration with GMail may be one of the most important new products/developments the company has rolled out, and yet it met with little discussion and fanfare from the tech and investment community.

Online Shopping Safer Than Brick-And-Mortor?

I just ordered shoes from Shoes.com (where else?). In checking out, they included this reassuring note:

Using your credit card at Shoes.com is safer than using it in a store. All information is encrypted and transmitted without risk using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.

First, it is funny I am posting this, about 10 Internet years after this discussion was first had. Second, I do not understand how it is safer than visiting a store, unless the store being visited is doing something blatantly wrong. At best, I see online shopping as secure as adventuring into the real world.

Media’s Coverage Of Search Engines And Privacy

A significant news story these last many hours has been Google’s refusal to hand over search-related data to the Department of Justice. We can debate the methodological issues associated with the DOJ project for all of the five minutes it takes to realize it’s fundamentally flawed, but I want to focus on the news coverage.

In every press account I initially saw, the headline focused on Google’s refusal, not on the other search engine’s (e.g., MSN and Yahoo) compliance. Is that bias a result of the popularity of Google? Is it reflective of what I perceive to be tendency to support enforcement over privacy issues?

Before asking those types of questions, however, it is important to make sure the facts are straight. Is Google receiving a disproportionate share of the attention of this story?

In support of this is the fact that the media did not pick up on the story until Google made it’s latest refusal, rather than when the other search engines complied. This, however, can be explained away by the fact that the press relies on the government to report the news before they report on it.

A better method would be a large-n study of news headlines. Thanks to the Internet, we can do that with news aggregators. I began with News.Google, the news aggregator I use most often. At first, I searched for each of the major search engine companies in the titles of news stories. Doing so yields these results (at 1210a, January 21):
Continue reading →