Google cofounders' wealth dwarfs newspaper business [Death Of Print]

Sur le même thème que "Google cofounders' wealth dwarfs newspaper business [Death Of Print]"

Google founders’ wealth dwarfs newspapers

You have to admit, we’ve been on good behavior lately with stories beating up on the newspaper industry. But we can’t resist this triple-link exchange. ValleyWag says the combined personal wealth of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin is $32 billion — $12 billion more than the estimated value of the entire [...] [lien] [EN]

In another of the seven signs, the New York Times launches its own social network [Death Of Print]

TimesPeople is a new feature on the Times' website that lets logged-in members "share articles, videos, slideshows, blog posts, reader comments, and ratings and reviews of movies, restaurants and hotels." It's been in beta as a Firefox plugin for months, but will go live as a built-in website service and a Facebook app Tuesday morning. Having not tested the real thing yet, I have no witty insights to add. Read More: CBS head honcho Les Moonves wants those newspaper ad dollars , Google cofounders' wealth dwarfs newspaper business , Rocky Mountain News ends deadly boring funeral Twitters , Newspaper websites reap windfall traffic as drought hits Wall Street [lien] [EN]

Opposite Trajectories: Rush and The Newspaper Business

Rush Limbaugh’s new deal with Clear Channel, as flashed by Drudge (also covered or addressed here and here at NewsBusters; here at the New York Times; and here in a very long New York Times magazine article), is north of $400 million for the next eight years. Good tax planning too: Maharushie will get his reported nine-figure signing bonus this year before a possible President Obama does his hundreds of billions in damage. Limbaugh’s tax savings, if the bonus is $100 million and Obama gets everything he wants, would be a hair under $17 mil (12.4% Social Security on all but $148,000, plus the 4.6% planned increase in the top rate). One conclusion you can reach, based on what newspaper industry watcher Newsosaur told us earlier this week, is that Old Media covering the Limbaugh story is like zombies covering the living (link in excerpt was in original): Newspaper shares slid $23B in 6 months The value of 11 newspaper companies traded on the public market since 2005 dove a combined $23.7 billion in the first half of this year, falling almost as much in six months as they had in the three prior years put together. Wall Street's intensifying repudiation of the industry means that the companies in the group have lost a cumulative $49.7 billion in market capitalization in 3½ years, vaporizing 51% of shareholder value since Dec. 31. 2004. To date, the decline in newspaper shares has not had a commensurate impact on the compensation (details here) enjoyed by the chief executives of several of the affected companies. ….. Journal Register Co. and the Sun-Times Media Group (nee Hollinger) suffered the worst losses in the 3½-year period, respectively shedding 99.1% and 96.9% of their value. You really must go to Newsosaur’s link to see the “Newspaper Rout” table he has created, but here are a few other lowlights: · The McClatchy Company and Lee Enterprises are both down over 90% since the end of 2004. · Gannett Co., Inc. owner of many metro papers as well as USA Today, which is one of the few papers not losing circulation, is down 73% in the same time period. · The New York Times Company, down “only” 60.4% in that same time frame, is the fourth-BEST performer on the list. Limbaugh got to where he is by being entertaining, informative, and 98%-plus accurate. He also famously didn’t jump on to the Internet until it could be proven that he would at least break even. How many publishers can say that? Therein lie the reasons why Limbaugh and the newspaper business are heading in opposite directions. Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org. ________________________________________ UPDATE: If I had been trolling the Internet last night shortly after midnight, I would have realized that Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer scooped Drudge on this by nine hours. Nice job, guy. UPDATE 2: The NYT Magazine’s text treatment of Limbaugh is very good, but the pictures, assuming the ones at the site are the ones going into the mag, are horribly, and without doubt deliberately, awful. All black and white, with a sinister tinge. They should have been all green — with envy. UPDATE 3: While we’re on the subject, assuming he’s listened quite a bit, which appears to be the case, how out-of-it does NYT Mag author Zev Chafets have to be to NOT realize the following? – (Limbaugh) does, however, keep up a running conversation with an unheard voice. I always assumed that this was just imaginary radio shtick. Now I saw that the voice was attached to a human interlocutor, (Bo) Snerdly, who banters with and occasionally badgers Limbaugh via an internal talk-back circuit. UPDATE 4: With the LA Times, San Jose Mercury News, and other industry layoffs, maybe the numbers in tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report should be expressed in two ways — with and without print media. [lien] [EN]

In 1999, Google cofounder dreamed of a second startup [Google]

Ubergizmo writer Karsten Lemm visited Google headquarters in 1999 — Apt. 106 in a building on 555 Bryant Street, Palo Alto — and sometime during the interview, Google cofounder Larry Page handed him this card, printed from an inkjet printer. Check out the Google logo and its exclamation mark — an artifact of a time when the brightest future Page and cofounder Sergey Brin could imagine was "to be on par with Yahoo, or Amazon, AOL." In recognition of Google's 10th anniversary, Lemm republished the entire interview. My favorite part is when he asks the cofounders, "Where do you see yourselves in, say, five years from now?" and Brin answers in a way that reminds you Google wasn't always the obvious success it is now. That's a long way down the sea. There are a lot of benefits for us, aside from potential financial success. The experience, for example. If we want to start another company at some point, that would be fairly easy because we have all the contacts in the industry. Also, it's been very exciting. I really enjoyed being a Ph.D. at Stanford, but at Google, we do lots of really different things involved in setting up a company. We take care of very many things you don't get to see if you're just purely focused on creating technology. There's one more important thing, and that's to bring what we've done to the world. That's very exciting, too, of course. And we think this does have a potential to really change things forever. [lien] [EN]

Newspaper-killing Google aims to hire newspaper-saving programmer [Adrian Holovaty]

Adrian Holovaty is going to save journalism, darn it, if the industry likes it or not. And he may soon be doing it at Google. The search engine has long suffered from a tin ear in its relations with writers and editors — the people who create the content it indexes. Holovaty gained fame for linking up Google Maps with local crime statistics to create chicagocrime.org, one of the first mapping mashups. And he gained cred in the journalism world by melding programming and reportage at the Washington Post. Most recently, he's been pursuing the same goal at his own local-news startup, EveryBlock, which he funded by winning a contest held by the Knight Foundation. And now Google wants to buy Holovaty's startup, we hear. Holovaty says that he's had no conversations with Google, but did have lunch with a friend at Google's campus last week, which he stresses was "a social matter." The effort to buy his venture — there's no "deal," Holovaty tells us — has hit some kind of unusual hitch. It's not clear what the holdup is. Google's such a natural home for Holovaty, it's hard not to see the deal going through. Besides his journalism work, Holovaty's also the creator of Django, a set of tools for coding in Python, a programming language that's strongly preferred at the Googleplex. (Guido Van Rossum, the creator of Python, already works at Google.) If Holovaty does land at Google, expect him to transform Google News into a site that's more of a database of information than a news archive. He's long been critical of the newspaper industry's focus on stories, rather than information. A police-blotter news report, for example, is not as useful as a website which displays crimes on a map by type and date. If Holovaty's going to save journalism, he may have to do it at a search engine that many believe is killing the newspaper business. They can't say he didn't warn them. [lien] [EN]

Digg CEO and Google cofounder smiling so hard, it's like they just wrapped up a deal [Nerdspotting]

This year's Sun Valley retreat, put on as usual by investment bank Allen & Co, will be Digg CEO Jay Adelson's second. But it marks Adelson's third or fourth trip around the block trying to sell Digg — with Allen & Co's help, naturally. Most of Digg's prior suitors — IAC, News Corp. and Al Gore's Current TV among them — are regulars at the Idaho resort. Glancing at Dealbook's photo of Adelson and Google cofounder Larry Page, we wonder: After months of lobbying from Google VP Marissa Mayer, has Google's top management finally decided to buy Digg and relieve the New York-based Adelson of his wearisome bicoastal commute? Adelson and Page's all-smiles body language in this photo strongly suggest it's so. (Photo by Reuters) [lien] [EN]

Google Apologizes For Killing Newspapers [Print Is Dead]

All these people who accidentally destroyed the newspaper industry feel so bad about it! Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist decimated the classifieds sections of the nation, endowed some chair at Berkeley's journalism school to assuage his guilty conscience. Now Google, whose ad company is destroying the revenue model newspapers depend on, is hopping on the "we totally love journalism" bandwagon. Google head Eric Schmidt claimed that their DoubleClick ad service will aid newspapers! In getting more online revenue, obv, not with the whole "saving newspapers themselves" thing. "It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Eric said. Too little, too late, Google! ONCE A WHORE, ALWAYS A WHORE. Without providing specifics about how it might be accomplished, Schmidt said DoubleClick's system for serving up online display ads could generate "significant" revenue online for newspapers. Still, he acknowledged the boost probably won't be enough to restore the hefty profit margins that newspaper publishers historically have enjoyed from print advertising. It's sad to see the people who killed print have these regrets so publicly. They probably wake up in a cold sweat after terrifying dreams of bloody broadsheets calling their names—"you killllled meeee!" But seriously, it's too late, Eric. Not only is this ad thing a slap in the face, but Google has a nasty habit of aggregating and indexing lots and lots of newspaper content without paying anyone. So give it up and embrace your role! You are become death, destroyer of print! You made $16.6 billion in revenue last year! At least Craig bought the newspaper industry a little going-away present. This empty talk is just sad. Google CEO: "Moral Imperative" To Help Newspapers [HuffPo] [lien] [EN]

Google may have finally figured out what to do with Google Apps

Om writes that Google has inked a deal with satellite ISP, WildBlue, that puts Google’s “Office Suite” in the hands of average users — the right place for it. There are many reasons Google Apps works much better for personal use than for the enterprise — in fact, after over a year using Google Apps, the company I work for has decided to pull out their checkbook to hop onto the exchange bandwagon. There are just far too many “but can it do ” business needs that Google doesn’t offer and would never estimate when it will. Not to mention the limited, high level support that never really helps you. The right place for Google is at the consumer level — until it can take greater steps to cover the majority of needs enterprise users have, they should focus on doing exactly what they did with WildBlue. [lien] [EN]

Google cofounder funnels money to wife's startup through Michael J. Fox charity [23andme]

Google employees must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the company's code of conduct. But Sergey Brin is exempt from such bureaucratic trifles. The cofounder skirted ethical lines when he loaned money to 23andMe, a genetic-testing startup cofounded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and later had Google repay that loan in the course of investing in that company. The Google board's audit committee and CEO Eric Schmidt blithely signed off on the deal, however. Now, Brin has found a new way to route money to 23andMe, this time through a charity — thereby boosting, at least notionally, the value of Google's investment and his wife's net worth. Brin can claim it's all for a good cause, but the deal stinks to high heaven. Brin has a personal foundation, funded with some of his Google fortune. One of the largest recipients of his largesse is the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an organization founded by the Canadian actor and dedicated to researching Parkinson's disease, from which Fox suffers. In May, 23andMe announced that it was signing up Parkinson's patients for its genetic-testing services. The tests would be paid for by a $600,000 grant from the Fox foundation. Wojcicki described the approach in a Huffington Post op-ed as "Research 2.0." To our ears, this sounds more like a good old-fashioned back-scratching arrangement. Here are the questions people ought to be asking: Was Brin's donation really a donation, since some of it ended up going into his wife's pockets? And should the Fox grant count as revenues for 23andMe, since the money can be traced back to Brin, the cofounder of Google, an important investor in the startup? If IRS and SEC officials don't start looking into the deals, then they're not doing their jobs. How can Brin make this right, if he really believes in his company's code of conduct and the "don't be evil" culture he helped foster at Google? Google should immediately sell its shares in 23andMe, at cost. 23andMe should return the Fox grant. And the Michael J. Fox foundation should return Brin's donation. Brin, whose net worth was recently estimated at $18.5 billion, can easily afford to invest personally in his wife's startup. And there's no conflict in doing so; he'd merely be seen as a supportive, if indulgent, spouse. The problem comes when he starts using other people's money to fund Wojcicki's ventures. Google shareholders shouldn't be funding her experiments; neither should the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Nor should U.S. taxpayers be footing the bill. Especially considering that 23andMe's tests may not even be legal, according to the state of California. Google's success has persuaded Brin that he doesn't need to listen to other people's advice, or follow their petty little rules; his gut instincts have made him fabulously wealthy, so why should he? He may not have crossed any legal lines in this latest episode of self-dealing — but it shows that he's on a path to do so. Sergey, stop now, before you really embarrass yourself. [lien] [EN]

If newspapers dropped their print product

Assume a newspaper has revenue of $100 million a year operating on a 15% margin with 60% of its costs and 90% of its revenues tied to print. Alan Mutter of Newsosaur runs the math: “If the company abandoned print but were able to double its online sales to $20 million, it would lose [...] [lien] [EN]

Google Airwaves Inc among list of 700mhz bidders

It isn’t a surprise that Google bid on spectrum in the FCC auction for the 700mhz spectrum, however I found the name it filed under interesting — Google Airwaves Inc. There has been speculation that Google and Apple entered the auction together, and maybe this is the reason for incorporating a separate company on November 26th. Anyway, a complete list of accepted entrants was published yesterday by the FCC — bidders include both large and small companies, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. As TechCrunch reports, one of the more interesting things about the applicants is that lots of companies that should know how to fill out these forms screwed up their initial application and have until January 4 to fix it. These companies include: · Alltel Corporation · AT&T Mobility Spectrum · Chevron · Cox Wireless · Frontline Wireless (aka Licenseco) · Qualcomm · Verizon Wireless (aka Cellco Partnership) [lien] [EN]

New version of the Google Talk client disables voicemail and more

Several people have noticed a new version of Google Talk (1.0.0.105) in the wild that is available to download from here. We’ve been waiting since January for a new version, and it’s unfortunate to see that when we finally get one, it removes several features that I thought were really great — including voicemail. In previous versions of Google Talk, if someone tried to call and you didn’t pick up, the caller would be asked to record a mesage. That recording would then appear in the recipients Gmail as a voicemail message. I guess it would be fair to ask, how many people actually used the voicemail feature? I liked it, but I’ve personally never received a real message, or left one — maybe this is the rationale behind its removal? Besides voicemail, it appears Google has also removed Orkut integration, and the “show what I’m listening to” feature. It would be nice to see a new version of the Google Talk client which includes great new features — it’s been far too long since we’ve see anything new in this application. This version does have some minor updates though — David Hetfield from the Google Blogoscoped forums noticed the following: · Now, when you click the green phone icon, it opens a new window, and initiate a call. · After you’ve closed a chat window, and got back to it, the history will get a gray color. · After you hover a contact, you no longer get options for this contact, just a window showing the contact’s name, status, and email. [lien] [EN]

Share your knol with the world, with Google Knol

Google just announced their newest service tonight that gives users an easy way to share their knowledge — Google Knol. The service is still in testing and accessible by invitation only, but it looks pretty interesting. You can almost guarantee that information written inside of knol’s will find their way to the top, or at least scattered throughout, search engine result pages. Not only that, but authors of these articles can expect to make a healthy chunk of revenue generated through the ads that appear next to the content. It’s hard to say if this will take off, or if it will provide any real competition for Wikipedia, but it definitely seems to be poised to step on a few toes. Take this sample article on insomnia for instance — I can see this being a very useful piece of information for many people. I can’t wait to see if this actually takes off and becomes the standard for sharing and finding real, and useful information — it won’t be easy, but I think it’s possible. Wikipedia has enjoyed much success, and a loyal base of users, but there is no way for the authors of those articles to be compensated like what Google is proposing. Will deep pockets prevail? [lien] [EN]