Philipp ran a great post asking a bunch of bloggers what their most popular post was, and I was one of those featured. Mine was at InsideMicrosoft, a video I posted that wound up making it to number two on YouTube (in the early days of YouTube, natch). Incidentally, my most popular InsideGoogle post was when I had Google Earth launching about ten minutes before everyone else did. How’d I do it? Let’s just say a major search blogger kinda screwed up, and I took the ball and ran.
November 14th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
YouTube, Blogs, Google Earth, Products, General |
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Google announced today that it has finished the YouTube deal, trading merely 3,217,560 shares of Google stock for the top video sharing site. The deal also included restricted stock units, options, and a warrant that can be converted at a later date into an additional 442,210 shares of GOOG. Google also paid $15 million in funding to YouTube when the deal was announced a month ago.
At today’s price, of $482.88 a share, the 3 million+ shares are worth $1,553,695,372.8. The warrant tacks on an additional $213,534,364.8, taking it at least $116 million over the original intended purchase price of $1.65 billion. Add in the other items, and the good few weeks Google stock has had may push the total purchase price closer to $2 billion.
An interesting note: 12.5% of the equity issued in the transaction will be held in escrow for a year “to secure certain indemnification obligations”. Gotta pay off those copyright holders.
Full press release after the jump.
November 14th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
YouTube, Stock Market, Services, General |
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The US government has issued its report derived from all the user search histories it subpoena’d earlier this year. Seth Finkelstein says the findings include: “About 1 percent of the websites in the Google and MSN indexes are sexually explicit. About 6 percent of queries retrieve a sexually explicit website. Nearly 40 percent of the most popular queries retrieve a sexually explicit website.” I’m thinking this proves that adult sites have very successfully targeted the top search queries, and that Google has been unsuccessful in stopping them.
Google OS writes that there are ways to customize the Google Video Flash player, including a “simple” PlayerMode that removes most of the UI while the video is playing. I’m hoping Google releases a method for fully skinning the player in the future.
Google UK and Canada ran this logo for Remembrance Day, which commemorates the sacrifices in World War I:
Nick Douglas left Valleywag. Damn, I’m gonna miss him. He really turned the blogosphere on its ear. Hopefully his new gig, whatever it is, will be as interesting. In the meantime, Gawker bigwig Nick Denton writes the blog, while looking for a new head gossip. Who will it be?
Finally, Orkut has joined the Google Network, as evidenced by this AdWords landing page, which means we should probably expect ads on the social networking site. Now I see why Orkut’s been getting a major push lately. Well, that and the absurdly high Alexa ranking.
November 14th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Video, Culture, Controversy, Doodles, History, Blogs, Orkut, Advertising, AdWords, Search, Services, General |
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Google added Google Maps to Search History, so you can now track those searches. Maps joins web search, images, news and Froogle in Search History (how about Blog Search?).
Google and Yahoo are asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to review the fees charged for stock quotes and other market data. The NYSE recently raised its fees, which make up 10-20% of its revenue, and the net companies want there to be a review of whether the fees are fair and reasonable.
Looks like Google disabled (and later reinstated) the AdSense account of Ionut Alex. Chitu, who writes the Google OS blog. The didn’t like that it had “google” in the blog URL, but after a little talk with some Googlers, the whole thing was sorted out an all was well. Gee, I hope google.blognewschannel.com has nothing to worry about…
Skype was added to the Google Pack. It is the second IM/VOIP client in the Pack, although it is used by most for phone service, while Google Talk is used more as for IM. Still, the two will likely be competitors in the future, so Google promoting Skype seems almost short-sighted.
Finally, Gmail has a bunch of new features. They include a link in the top right hand corner that drops down some handy options, and helps clean up the interface, notifications of new items in a conversation while you are replying to other items, as well as some new icons. There’s also a feature that “mutes” a mailing list by hitting the “m” key, sending future emails straight to the archive. Philipp points out, rightly so, that Gmail’s interface is suffering from overload, and needs a housecleaning.
November 14th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
AdSense, Stock Market, Talk, History, Finance, Google Pack, Products, Services, Gmail, Email, Advertising, Search, Yahoo, General |
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Google linked Orkut and Google Talk, letting Orkut users links their Orkut account to their Google Talk account and see presence status. The presence icon (a Googly round ball) can be clicked to start a chat/voice session. Also, Google Talk users can send scraps back to their Orkut friends, and Google Talk’s toast* now shows Orkut scrapbook notifications, just like it shows new Gmail emails.
The Google Video blog Google Group, which reposts everything from the Google Video blog, and makes it easy to subscribe to that blog (and other Google blogs) via email, says somehow the W32/Kapser.A@mm got sent out to a bunch of their email subscribers. Big oops, but next time you have a security vulnerability, don’t use the opportunity to pimp the Google Pack.
Word was Google is looking to buy a billion dollars of Clear Channel ad inventory. Quite the gutsy move. Google would have to resell all that inventory at a profit, a billion dollar beta test of its Dmarc/AdSense Audio system, putting a ton of money where its mouth is. Hope the new system is up to snuff.
Peter Abilla did yet another aquistion mashup/timeline, this time putting Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s aquisitions on the same timeline. I only wish it went further back than 2001.
GAYD (Google Apps For Your Domain, or WPNE, Worst Product Name Ever) rolled out its customized start page, letting those running GAYD create a branded homepage, complete with Google Gadgets.
* - the toast is the little notification box that slides up from the bottom of the screen and then goes away. So named for its similarity to toasted bread, popping up from a toaster.
November 14th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
AdSense, Products, Blogs, Google Video, Talk, Orkut, Services, Advertising, Security, Microsoft, Yahoo, General |
no comments
