InsideGoogle

News For April 9, 2008

Google Letting Apps Run On Their Cloud
Google has announced a new service, Google App Engine, which lets web developers build their internet applications on top of Google’s technology. Developers will be able to use the Google File System and the Bigtable distributed data storage system in their applications, resulting in a strong backbone to compete with Amazon’s S3 service.

It’s free during the preview period, but the number of accepted applications and available resources are limited in the beginning. Let’s hope Google doesn’t leave it in a beta limbo for four years and make things impossible for some budding Web 2.0 companies.

Ex-Googler Bret Taylor has a very interesting article about opening up data sources so application developers can better take advantage of them, and so they can be free for innovation. Google could make App Engine a no-brainer for app developers if it has access to data source normal Web 2.0 companies normally go through hell to get access to.

Google Selling DoubleClick Performics
Google has made a very popular decision, announcing it will be selling off the SEO business of Performics, a business of DoubleClick it received in the recently completed acquisition. Performics handled SEO and affiliate management for its clients, and a search engine doing SEO would have created a giant conflict of interest. The reaction has been almost nothing but positive, as many are glad to see Google eliminated this before it becomes a problem. However, Performics affiliate business will remain at Google, possibly creating a new area of the market for Google to dominate.

Googlers Leave For Facebook (and other places)
Some Googlers are jumping ship, heading for seemingly greener pastures (with stock options that aren’t already underwater), like Facebook. About 40 Facebookers, or 10% of Facebook’s entire workforce, used to be Googlers, showing that a definite shift is underway. Google’s director of social media, Ethan Beard left the company become Facebook’s new director of Business Development. Facebook’s new chief chef is Josef Desimone, formerly one of Google’s makers of free food, but Valleywag’s hearing that he won’t be missed.

A much bigger move than a chef changing jobs is that of Douglass Merrill, Google Chief Information Officer. He’s leaving for music giant EMI, becoming their new president. Now, leaving from a major exec position at a top Silicon Vallley company to become president of a big music company is almost certainly a step up, but given the music industry’s woes, you’d think Google could have had more to offer him than a top company in a failing industry could.

I guess it should come as no surprise that FuckedGoogle has started up again.

New Version of Google Talk in Testing
Google has finally remembered it has an IM client, releasing a Labs test of a new version of Google Talk. The first version of Google Talk was released over 2 and a half years ago, but Google has barely updated it at all in the meantime. The new version, dissapointingly, drops the calling feature, implying that Google has abandoned the original intent of the “Talk” name, but it does add tabbed browsing. I still use Talk every day, but I have no faith at this point in Google actually maintaining the software like it should.

Google Finance Adds Stock Screener
Google Finance now has something called a stock screener, essentially a type of sort/search site for the stock market, letting you narrow down through criteria to find stocks with specific attributes. For example, you can specify stocks within a range of market caps, dividend sizes, 52-week gains or losses, and others, and combine the criteria to discover the perfect stock. This being Google Finance, it’s all accomplished with fancy AJAX sliders.

I used it to discover that there is only one company on the market bigger than Google that also does not pay off a dividend: Berkshire Hathaway. Good company to be in, but Google hasn’t been as good at the market as Buffet in many months.

April 9th, 2008 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | DoubleClick, Facebook, Talk, Controversy, Products, Culture, Advertising | 2 comments