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Really, we're doing "Alphabet’s Google" now?
by onedev 11y ago
Really, we're doing "Alphabet’s Google" now?
- maxerickson 11y agoA business publication would want to include Alphabet as clickbait.
- wittekm 11y agoSeriously, that's ridiculous. Alphabet's Nest, for instance, would make sense - it's not a household name.
- eropple 11y agoConsider that the target audience of the WSJ is much more "investor" than "technologist". You really think investors wouldn't want mention of a company that might be in their portfolio? 'Cause that company isn't "Google", it's "Alphabet".
- jinst8gmi 11y agoIf you've invested in Alphabet without knowing that it's the company formerly known as Google you probably aren't someone who reads many articles about them.
- eropple 11y agoIf you thought Alphabet is the company formerly known as Google, you would be wrong. Alphabet is a conglomerate created to hold Google and was created first as a subsidiary of Google, to which a separate dummy subsidiary was created with which Google merged to convert Google stock into Alphabet stock. Alphabet is not Google. Alphabet never was Google. Alphabet owns Google, and the performance of Google is tracked under Alphabet's own stock (which still uses GOOG, but is a concretely different stock). There is a difference, and these are people to whom it matters.
- jinst8gmi 11y agoQuite a convenient way of structuring things if you're worried about anti-monopoly regulators? In practice everyone knows it's everything which was previously under the Google umbrella.
- eropple 11y agoAnd what "everyone knows" is not relevant to WSJ's audience. The company is Alphabet. It is not Google. I don't think this can be stated in simpler terms. The WSJ's news section can be considered jargon of its own. I'm sure you would not react in the same way if a "business guy" criticized a piece of technical reporting for things you expected to be in it.
- gohrt 11y agoGoogle is a company. Alphabet is a company. Alphabet owns Google.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> The company is Alphabet. It is not Google. I don't think this can be stated in simpler terms. Those terms are simple, but not accurate. The company this story is about is Google. Alphabet is the public traded corporation in whom WSJ readers may wish to invest (or disinvest) that owns the company the story is about. (Google and Alphabet are both companies, but Alphabet isn't taking any action that is being reported in this story.)
- eropple 11y agoSure, you are that most important kind of correct: technically so. And so I'll amend it: "the company that matters to the WSJ's audience is Alphabet because they're where the money is." The mixture of pedantry and willful vagueness in this thread is weird.
- melvinmt 11y agoThe stocks are still listed as GOOG and GOOGL.
- eropple 11y agoIf your point is "that's the same thing", it's not, see elsewhere in this subtree. If your point is "that would be clearer", I agree; if the WSJ's standards for prose in reporting meant that they put stock ticker names in the headline, I'd guess that they would have (I don't recall ever seeing them do so before). But consistency, in technical publications, is generally valued. The name of the company in which readers hold stock is "Alphabet"--therefore, call it Alphabet.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tomphoolery 11y agoNest is actually a name in 100% more households than Google, considering it is nailed to a wall. One time I tried to nail a Google to my wall. Larry was pissed.
- RickHull 11y agoLarry Wall would approve.
- eropple 11y agoOffices, on the other hand? Marginally more competitive. My last office had a Google Mini lying around! Not nailed to a wall, though I suppose it could have been and provided the same utility. No, that's not true. I was using it to shim a monitor for a while. Nest still reigns supreme.
- nostromo 11y agoIt'd like to see them do a story about Alphabet's Google's YouTube.
- jinst8gmi 11y agoOr one about Alphabet's Google's use of Alphabet's Google's Google+ for comments on Alphabet's Google's YouTube Red videos.
- nostrademons 11y agoSomehow this feels like I'm writing C code but am unable to take a pointer to anything but the top-level object.
- steckerbrett 11y agoGOOGLE PLUS GOOGLE ALPHABET
- HillaryBriss 11y agoIt's much more beautiful if you use Android SDK: private boolean googleSubsidiaryConnectionSuccess = false; private boolean googleSubsidiaryConnectionInProgress = false; private GoogleSubsidiary googleSubsidiary = null; private GoogleVideoHostingManager googleVideoHostingService = null; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { GoogleApiClient.Builder builder = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this) .addSubsidiary(AlphabetSubsidiaries.GOOGLE_SUBSIDIARY); GoogleApiClient client = builder.build(); client.connect(); googleSubsidiaryConnectionInProgress = true; } @Override protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data /* ignored */) { if (requestCode == GoogleSubsidiary.EXISTS_AND_IS_PROFITABLE) { // actual value is -11 if (responseCode != Activity.RESULT_OK) { Log.w(TAG, "could not get subsidiary"); googleSubsidiaryConnectionSuccess = false; if (!client.isConnecting()) { Log.v(TAG, "calling googleApiClient.connect again"); client.connect(); } } } else { Log.w(TAG, "Google subsidiary may be out of business. Not sure."); if (!googleSubsidiaryConnectionInProgress && !client.isConnecting()) { client.connect(); } } } @Override public void onConnected(Bundle connectionHint) { googleSubsidiaryConnectionSuccess = true; googleSubsidiaryConnectionInProgress = false; GoogleSubsidiaryToken googleSubsidiaryToken = GoogleSubsidiaryUtil.getToken(activity, GOOGLE_SUBSIDIARY_TOKEN_REQUEST_SCOPE); try { googleSubsidiary = (GoogleSubsidiary)GoogleSubsidiaryUtil.getSubsidiaryObjectFromToken(googleSubsidiaryToken); googleVideoHostingService = (GoogleVideoHostingManager)googleSubsidiary.getService(GoogleSubsidiary.YOU_TUBE_SERVICE); if (googleVideoHostingService == null && !client.isConnecting()) { client.connect(); } } catch (SubsidiaryTokenOutOfDateException ex) { googleSubsidiaryConnectionSuccess = false; if (!client.isConnecting()) { client.connect(); } } }
- jburwell 11y agoWhile it looks odd in a technology context, for investors it makes sense because Google is listed officially listed as Alphabet. Therefore, the association between the two concerns is useful for less technically savvy business and investment readers which represent WSJ's primary audience.
- icoder 11y agoIt took me like 10 times before I got the title. The rest of the sentence doesn't help of course.
- lallysingh 11y agoI'm guessing WSJ always wants to include the name of the stock involved.
- bobbyi_settv 11y agoIt's helpful for all the readers who are familiar with Alphabet, Inc., but have never heard of its Google subsidiary.
- IgorPartola 11y agoMaybe they could Google it :). I don't think Alphabet will ever be as popular as Google. That's like knowing that Comedy Central is owned by Viacom. Yes, that's true, but you probably don't care and don't really think about Viacom at all.
- oxide 11y agoViacom's Comedy Central doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
- blockspiders 11y agoWhat about Viacomedy Central?
- OrwellianChild 11y agoI see what you did there... It's going to take some time for news organizations to get used to this brave new holding-company world, eh?
- jeffehobbs 11y agoThis made me crack up.
- jahewson 11y agoAwkward phrasing from News Corp's Wall Street Journal.
- eropple 11y agoAwkward, if you're not considering it as a technical source (and it is, in its field). If your primary concern, as a reader, was monitoring potentially important information as it pertained to your investments, would you not prefer that they lead with the actual thing in which you may be invested? Is it not a lot easier to scan for "News Corp" than to have to make the associations in your head that "Wall Street Journal" is something that one of your investments owns? IMO it's just "consider your audience" writ large.
- coliveira 11y agoGoogle asked for this, why are you blaming the media?
- dredmorbius 11y agoActually, I applaud the WSJ's bold new vision of fully revealing the full chain of ownership of all corporate subsidiaries, components, shell companies, and other mechanisms and methods for hiding true oligarchic control.
- tracker1 11y agoIt's especially funny considering they confuse/conflate Chrome (a web browser), ChromeOS (an operating system where all apps run in Chrome) and Chromebook (laptop running ChromeOS).