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"The bulk of Google's revenue comes from leveraging the openness of the Web" Does not compute. Google makes its money selling ads. Those ads appear mainly on G

"The bulk of Google's revenue comes from leveraging the openness of the Web" Does not compute. Google makes its money selling ads. Those ads appear mainly on Google's website, which is very much closed. Nobody knows how Google comes up with search results and why specific ads are shown. "were there only Facebooks and Twitters there would be no Google Search because there would be nothing to index." Google existed before social media: before Myspace, before Friendster, even before LiveJournal. When Google started, 'blog' wasn't even a word and Geocities was one of the most popular sites on the web. Social media is still a small part of what happens on the web. But imagine, were there only Facebooks and Twitters, surely Google would be offering ads there.

bambax 14y ago
Google displays ads on search results that are possible because it indexes the open web. No open web > no index > no search results. Were there only closed systems, there would be no way of building a transversal search system.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  If it's displayed on a networked computer, it can be indexed – Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort. But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads. Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort. It's not really about effort; it's about the fact that FB & Twitter don't really want Google indexing them. But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads. What makes you think they'd be successful in finding such places?
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      Google would buy them, like they've bought many such companies before (YouTube, DoubleClick, AdMob, DejaNews, Zagat, Frommer's, etc). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...
      - unclebucknasty 14y ago
        This may be true, but I think you are turning the discussion in another direction. The talk here is of Google's current/primary business model. It is, in fact, based on the open Web as was stated previously. Sure, they could buy other properties. But that just implies a changing business model (ex: content destinations). For that matter you could extend the argument and say that they might buy Facebook or Twitter. But the need for them to buy such destinations in order to continue their advertising business actually itself speaks to the closing of the Web.
        SoftwareMaven 14y ago
        And that's pretty much what Yahoo! Tried to do without so much success.
  - ithkuil 14y ago
    I guess OP meant that if you could see only a part of the web available to you as a logged in user of some service, then you couldn't build an index which globally scans a whole website, since it cannot log in. NOTE: well spiders could technically log in and index public shared stuff, but those services could forbid that via terms and conditions and sue any company violating them
  - olalonde 14y ago
    > Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company. I would avoid defining a company by its current monetization strategy especially in an industry where monetization is frequently an afterthought (it was for Google). Furthermore, it doesn't do much to define a company since there are only so many monetization strategies. What if we'd start defining companies by whether they are "for-profit" or "non-profit" instead? We'd end up with such non sense as "Google is a for-profit company, not an Internet search company." Or with, "B2B" vs "B2C": "Google is a B2B company, not an Internet search company." If you are going to pick only one thing that defines a company, at least pick something that really makes them stand out (Google - search, Apple - consumer electronics, Facebook - social networking, etc.).
  - pconf 14y ago
    > Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company. Those were perhaps the good old days. Today's Google makes less and less from ads and more from big data i.e., spying and selling (and trading) ever more extensive information about individuals, business entities, governments and other organizations. This is where the New Google (post "don't be evil") is competing Any service or app that doesn't return it's investment in PII (Personally Identifiable Information), Corporate Espionage (as it used to be called before there was Big Data) or state secrets is at best a loss leader.

bambax 14y ago

Google displays ads on search results that are possible because it indexes the open web. No open web > no index > no search results. Were there only closed systems, there would be no way of building a transversal search system.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
If it's displayed on a networked computer, it can be indexed – Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort. But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads. Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort. It's not really about effort; it's about the fact that FB & Twitter don't really want Google indexing them. But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads. What makes you think they'd be successful in finding such places?
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    Google would buy them, like they've bought many such companies before (YouTube, DoubleClick, AdMob, DejaNews, Zagat, Frommer's, etc). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...
    - unclebucknasty 14y ago
      This may be true, but I think you are turning the discussion in another direction. The talk here is of Google's current/primary business model. It is, in fact, based on the open Web as was stated previously. Sure, they could buy other properties. But that just implies a changing business model (ex: content destinations). For that matter you could extend the argument and say that they might buy Facebook or Twitter. But the need for them to buy such destinations in order to continue their advertising business actually itself speaks to the closing of the Web.
      - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
        And that's pretty much what Yahoo! Tried to do without so much success.
- ithkuil 14y ago
  I guess OP meant that if you could see only a part of the web available to you as a logged in user of some service, then you couldn't build an index which globally scans a whole website, since it cannot log in. NOTE: well spiders could technically log in and index public shared stuff, but those services could forbid that via terms and conditions and sue any company violating them
- olalonde 14y ago
  > Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company. I would avoid defining a company by its current monetization strategy especially in an industry where monetization is frequently an afterthought (it was for Google). Furthermore, it doesn't do much to define a company since there are only so many monetization strategies. What if we'd start defining companies by whether they are "for-profit" or "non-profit" instead? We'd end up with such non sense as "Google is a for-profit company, not an Internet search company." Or with, "B2B" vs "B2C": "Google is a B2B company, not an Internet search company." If you are going to pick only one thing that defines a company, at least pick something that really makes them stand out (Google - search, Apple - consumer electronics, Facebook - social networking, etc.).
- pconf 14y ago
  > Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company. Those were perhaps the good old days. Today's Google makes less and less from ads and more from big data i.e., spying and selling (and trading) ever more extensive information about individuals, business entities, governments and other organizations. This is where the New Google (post "don't be evil") is competing Any service or app that doesn't return it's investment in PII (Personally Identifiable Information), Corporate Espionage (as it used to be called before there was Big Data) or state secrets is at best a loss leader.