Google blacklists the German BMW site. And the German Rocketboom protests.
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Queen Google
If you get a chance, listen to this panel from the just-ended Burda Digital Lifestyle Day (which, sadly, I couldn’t attend, having too much work to do at home) to hear Marissa Meyer, the head of user interface and much more at Google. She made quite the splash on her recent cover of Business 2.0 — smart, beautiful, powerful, rich… enough to make her the geek goddess of all times — and so it’s interesting to finally hear her (and her endearing, humanizing little honk, a small badge of geekiness). It’s revealing, I think, of Google and its plans. She talks about things that come after blogs, about Google’s ambition to answer your question about how to cook a recipe with a video reply, about the devices that will take over home entertainment (she wished the home-entertainment Mac Mini had been one of Jobs’ announcements and said she and friends — not necessarily Google friends, note — thought about making it themselves). She also told about an employee who begged for help with SEO because she didn’t want the first thing to appear on a search for her name be her victory in a math award; with that, she’d never get dates (Meyer said they were having her post a lot on the Google blog since it has Googlejuice). She may be the most powerful woman in technology and because she’s so rarely heard, it’s revealing just to get this chance.
: Here’s what Meyer said about blogs:
I think there is a huge appetite for people to be able to publish easily to the web. I think there is a question in my mind as to whether or not blogs as they exist today are in fact that medium. I think they come today with a lot of conventions: You need to publish every day, you can’t retract or revise things, you have to publish another post. There’s a lot of religion around blogs that makes it not a great tool for, say, someone like my mother, who’d love to publish things on the web… I think there is a huge opportunity for blogs to broaden their perspective in the way they view some of their conventions and make themselves a lot more palatable for the public at large.
Sure to be a best-seller
O’Reilly has a GoogleMaps Hacks book. Can’t have a web site without one these days.
Google sells the world
Watch out: Google will become the auction marketplace for advertising in any medium. They just bought a radio ad company:
Google Inc. agreed to acquire dMarc Broadcasting Inc., a radio advertising firm, for $102 million in cash and additional payments that could be worth up to $1.14 billion if performance targets are met over the next three years.
Newport Beach, Calif.-based dMarc’s technology connects advertisers directly to radio stations. Its technology helps advertisers purchase and track radio ads and lets broadcasters automatically schedule ad spots. Google, Mountain View, Calif., said it plans to integrate dMarc’s technology into its AdWords advertising program.
“Google is committed to exploring new ways to extend targeted, measurable advertising to other forms of media,” said Tim Armstrong, Google vice president of advertising sales, in a press release.
“We anticipate that this acquisition will bring new ad dollars and accountability to radio by combining Google’s expansive network of advertisers with dMarc’s talented team and innovative radio advertising technology,” he said.
Google “news”
About a year ago, GoogleNews got in trouble for selecting a neonazi site as “news.” After a small furor, the site was taken down. Now MediaGuardian is reporting that Google is putting up “news” from the far-right British National Party, led by a man often accused of inciting racial hatred, above the news of reputable sources. My problem with this remains one of transparency: Google does not reveal its policies or sources and should. Because Google won’t reveal its sources, blogger Private Radio began compiling a list and it’s now fascinating reading, by the way.
