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Google Will Eat Itself
- brubaker 13y agoWhat 13 year old made that site/idea?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Aqueous 13y ago"Current Google Share Price : 495.01 USD" This hasn't been updated since GOOG was a bit more than a third of what it is now. But if they actually own 819 shares that is almost a million dollars of stock right now. Edit: http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter1.html http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter1.html
- Chronic26 13y agoA million dollars of Google stock is nothing my friend.
- karangoeluw 13y agoHow about a translation?
- judofyr 13y ago"click here english translation": http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter_e.html http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter_e.html
- Lerc 13y agoSo has it been operating all this time since 2006? Most interesting would be a graph of proportion of Google owned. Are they gaining or losing ground toward their goal of getting it all. I could see them gaining at an ever diminishing rate. While this is probably fraud, it's preying on advertisers, which I'd be prepared to allow provided it did the advertising industry permanent harm.
- mcv 13y agoWhy would it be fraud? It sounds to me like they're using their advertising revenue to buy Google shares. What's wrong with that?
- kreilly 13y ago"We generate money by serving Google text advertisments [sic] on a network of hidden Websites." They are not really ads that are viewable by consumers. Most likely bot traffic.
- mcv 13y agoI thought Google was pretty good at detecting that sort of thing.
- smartician 13y agoPossibly related: http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering-advertising-fraud-scheme.html http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering-adv...
- YZF 13y agoI thought the share class structuring of Google was such that you can never own Google by buying its publicly traded shares?
- leoc 13y agoUnless Eric Schmidt is secretly behind this of course. ;)
- jusben1369 13y agoRight. Based on the erroneous theory that every single share of a company is publicly available and in the float.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rgbrenner 13y agoYou're right.. Class A is traded publicly. Class B is what's owned by Sergey and Brin, and it has 10 votes per share (vs 1 vote per share for Class A), and allows them to outvote all Class A shares.
- Spone 13y agoSergey and Brin or Larry and Page? ;)
- adventured 13y agoSchmidt also owns Class B shares. I believe at the time the B shares were issued, between Brin, Page, and Schmidt they held over 50% of voting control (it was something close to 20/20/10 on voting control). edit correction: "Mr. Page, Mr. Brin and Mr. Schmidt collectively already control 66 percent of the vote through special Class B shares." http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/stock-split-for-google-that-cements-control-at-the-top/ http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/stock-split-for-googl...
- jojopotato 13y agoNeat idea, but it looks like the site was last updated in 2005/6.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Thirdegree 13y ago"202.345.117 Years until GWEI fully owns Google." So close!
- jusben1369 13y agoIt seems based on that web design we could probably strike 6 - 8 years off the wait. But agree still a fair way to go.
- DigitalSea 13y agoThis is actually a pretty genius idea, but as pointed out by others this site looks old (evident by the design and inaccurate stock price). I also think the way Google shares work is that you can never truly own a meaningful share of Google via public shares.
- terhechte 13y agoIt is really old, I think the first time that I saw it was in mid 2001
- laureny 13y agoI doubt it, Google went public in 2004.
- ama729 13y agoIt date back at least to 2005-2006 if you look at their press release: http://gwei.org/pages/press/press.html http://gwei.org/pages/press/press.html The letter from google is also dated 2006: http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter1.html http://gwei.org/pages/google/legalletter1.html
- coreymgilmore 13y agoEspecially with the impending stock split. It is more for capital gains than controlling a voting percentage of shares.
- brubaker 13y agoNo it isn't. It sounds like it was created by someone with down syndrome.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- woah 13y agoFYI, in many European countries periods and commas in numbers are the reverse of how we use them in English- 405.413,19 is actually 405,413.19
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- heinz 13y agoNo shit, Sherlock?!
- maaaats 13y agoThanks for your contribution.. This , vs . is often a problem, because my bank will issue tables with , used as decimal separator, but copying that into some tool everything breaks because it expects . to be used.
- pinaceae 13y agohis frustration stems from the fact that even after at least 50 years of software development the handling of number formatting (and add in dates for fun) is still something where time and time again software developers fuck up. it is amazing, all those CS and other courses and still every new generation of (predominantly) US developers discover the fact that there is a world outside the US. the most dominant data point to prove that software creation is still far away form being called a form of engineering. it's hacking, children throwing shit together then calling it "working".
- Aardwolf 13y agoImpossible to easily solve programatically. E.g. 400,123: what is it? You cannot know unambiguously. And using OS language settings won't help either. Im from Europe but would not want to require using "," for the decimal separator enforced by OS settings, or anything related to programming or communicating with people on the Internet would become difficult. I'd much rather have just everyone use the same convention for this. The C-locale convention for example. But for dates, please don't use the non-sorted American order. For dates the Japanese have it right :)
- lclarkmichalek 13y agoWoo click fraud!
- gcb0 13y agowhich is incredible easy to do and very hard to prosecute... so guess what is the life blood of the industry
- fiatjaf 13y agoIf it is so easy why there aren't still millions of people doing it? Why there are still robbers on the streets?
- hobs 13y agoPlenty of people are doing click fraud. It takes some effort, its not just push button receive ill gotten gains, but it works. It is just not nearly as lucrative as other methods of driving illegitimate traffic nowadays, because most people dont do pay per click. I dont have a spam website to push, but I know people who were making anywhere from 1-3k a month based on exploiting different advertising rings looking for traffic. Usually they would setup a campaign with an advertiser and wash dirty traffic that they were buying through the advertiser's site, paying 1/10-1/20th of the cost of each conversion or click, and most of the time those would just be botnet operations anyway, they didn't care. It usually doesnt last long per identity, but those are a dime a dozen.
- coreymgilmore 13y agoThis is a pretty genius idea. Use Google to buy Google stock. With the current share price, buying shares isn't exactly cheap. But collecting cash from their service is an effective way to reap the benefits of corporate growth in another way. Similarly: buying Tesla (TSLA) stock when it was cheap because you couldn't afford the Model S....and now you can afford it. That being said, it would seem that there would need to be a rather large network of sites and AdSense links to earn enough money to buy a share. Reminds me of the cost-benefit ratio of mining bitcoin.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoRight, and the sites have to be profitable, and they have to not be spam (otherwise, your revenue stream will likely eventually be shut off).
- dictum 13y agoI can't find it now, but I remember seeing a picture around the time AAPL was rising fast (~2011-2012) that showed how much money you'd have if you had bought the equivalent amount of Apple stock that a given Mac cost when released. So, if you had bought $2000 of AAPL instead of a snazzy Macbook Pro, you'd have X now.
- _nedR 13y agohttp://abstrusegoose.com/264 http://abstrusegoose.com/264
- toomuchtodo 13y ago> Similarly: buying Tesla (TSLA) stock when it was cheap because you couldn't afford the Model S....and now you can afford it. This is how I'm funding my Model S purchase.
- LukeB_UK 13y agoSo they were committing fraud to try and kill Google?
- ivv 13y agoTheoretically, isn't it the case that the more successful they are in generating clicks, the more successful Google becomes, pushing the share piece higher and further out of their reach?
- mcintyre1994 13y agoGiven how long it's been since this was last updated, I wonder if they're still having any success. It seems Google are probably getting better at fraud handling quicker than they can innovate their fraud - and close to 10 years seems like Google would have a huge advantage by now.
- noname123 13y agoFor every impression/click payout that the clandestine "GTTP" network garners, Google the company will also have earned some profits off advertisers which'll be transferred to Google's bank account or used to build more infrastructure. However, suppose GTTP compromise a significant or even 100% of GOOG's total ad payout; there are three possible scenarios: a) if Adwords is operating at a loss (a la PS3, unlikely), the shares of GTTP will decrease massively, thereby depressing the shares of GOOG. However if GOOG wants to facilitate the transfer of the company of GTTP, it'd continue to operate at extreme loss by transferring more money to GTTP via Adwords loss until the shares goes down minimally $0.001 on OTC market (a la LEH). Then GTTP can acquire a worthless asset. b) Adwords is generating a net profit more than the payout to GTTP. Net profit not in terms of net income but in the sense that the profit/intangible valuation of Google's use of revenue from GTTP's generated ads to build out infrastructure and human resources. GTTP's activity will then boost the shares of GOOG, given that GTTP generate a fixed amount of money for GOOG; using discount cashflow model, that means whatever GTTP's income cannot outpace the GTTP-GOOG Adwords unit's constantly rising valuation. (Think of this using a shareholder's dividend to cannibalize the company; or using a child's allowance to buy his/her parent). c) Adwords is generating a net profit but less than the payout to GTTP. Basically a company distributing the bulk of its net profit to shareholders as dividend than using it to reinvest in R&D/infrastructure. In practice, GTTP's internal shareholders would likely revolt given GOOG's business model of growth (vs. say sleepier industries such as utility). But let's suppose say for the sake of the argument, that GTTP shareholders are agreement to cannibalize GOOG, they can do it! Given that the accumulated annual income generated by GTTP outpaces the market valuation of GOOG. (Think of WhatsApp founders cash out of 16B of FB stock or Mark Cuban with Broadcast.com at the height of YHOO's valuation, and the valuation of GOOG or FB decrease enough and/or they kept siphoning income to buy the company at a later time.)
- camillomiller 13y agoThe point many of you are probably missing here is that this is not a proof of concept but a work of net/digital art, exhibited many times in the past (even at transmediale 2008) but fixed in a defined moment in time (~2006). I've been a student of one of the authors (Alessandro Ludovico) in 2008, at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara (Italy).
- sentenza 13y agoFor all of those who speak German, there's an old episode of CRE [1] in which Tim talks to Hans Bernhard and lizvlx from Austria. They were involved with the project and elaborate a bit about its motivations. [1] http://cre.fm/cre132-ubermorgen-com http://cre.fm/cre132-ubermorgen-com
- fiatjaf 13y agoA public-traded company is not the same as a public company. Larry Page and Sergey Brin can still hold all of their stocks and stay at the control of Google.
- nostromo 13y agoThis reminds me of stock buy-back programs. The company, using company revenues, to buy the company. Although now I understand them, when I first heard of them I immediately thought it would lead to a stack overflow...
- thatthatis 13y agoIf you find this amusing, you should read the book "devil take the hindmost," particularly the section on the south sea bubble. Tldr: in the south sea bubble it did eventually lead to a stackoverflow
- dllthomas 13y agoHow did buy-backs figure in that?
- raldi 13y agoJust think of them as issuing a negative amount of new stock.
- eru 13y agoShare buy backs are equivalent to dividends, modulo taxes and accounting.
- pdkl95 13y ago"No return, no make amends Is this the future or this is how it will end?" /everything's cool
- markmassie 13y agoI see what you did there. http://www.lyrics.net/lyric/29594334 http://www.lyrics.net/lyric/29594334
- rgj 13y agoReminds me of the Ren & Stimpy episode where Stimpy enters his own belly button and disappears.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoNonsense by people who don't understand free market economics and therefore choose to ridicule it. Calling themselves artists (as another pointed out) shields them from the criticism they would receive if they clearly stated their point of view.
- karangoeluw 13y ago<!--Fireworks 8 Dreamweaver 8 target. Created Sun Dec 11 16:07:50 GMT+0100 ( ) 2005-->
- Bud 13y agoNow, let's stop telling Google it's going to eat itself. You're going to give it a googleplex.
- sysoppai 13y agoWhat a retro look, I dig it. As for the actual content, whatever.
- omni_ 13y agoThat background is incredibly distracting.
- HillOBeans 13y agoSo, in essence, they have worked out a way to be paid in stock shares instead of currency?
- tqi 13y ago"We deconstruct the new global advertisment mechanisms" The ad supported model isn't ideal, but if these guys have a better idea I'm all ears.
- rhapsodyv 13y agoSorry, but I couldn't stay in this site for more than 10 seconds.. My eyes hurt..
- lhgaghl 13y agoI was listening to this song while reading the page, goes good with the flashing background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBb8e7G4dBk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBb8e7G4dBk
- yc-kjh 13y agosomething unexpected will happen long before 202 million years from now.
- marincounty 13y agoI'm waiting for duckcuckgo to get some money. If Duckduckgo gets a little bit better--I will just use google's free Api's.
- Buge 13y agoI don't get it. They're paying for the servers for their websites and the content on the websites. They could just as easily keep the money from the ads. So essentially they're just buying the shares out of pocket.
- Springtime 13y agoAppears this was created as an art/media installation by Ubermorgen in 2005 [1] that ran for a few years. Some believe it was a hoax [2], although it may have just been a brief but curious experiment. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubermorgen#Life_and_career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubermorgen#Life_and_career [2] http://linearfix.tumblr.com/post/21838753641/is-google-will-eat-itself-a-hoax http://linearfix.tumblr.com/post/21838753641/is-google-will-...
- pa_toulou 13y agoThis is quite old and has been defunct for years now. It is a collaboration between Ubermorgen and Paolo Cirio & Alessandro Ludovico For Ubermorgen it was part of a trilogy[1] of art/hacks displayed in art galleries with amazon noir [2] and the sound of ebay [3]. For Paolo Cirio & Alessandro Ludovico it was part of The Hacking Monopolism Trilogy[4] with the same amazon noir and face to facebook[4] stealing a million facebook accounts and auto-populating a dating website with them [5]. They have more info and pics about gwei [6]. [1]: http://www.ubermorgen.com/EKMRZ_Trilogy/ http://www.ubermorgen.com/EKMRZ_Trilogy/ [2]: http://www.amazon-noir.com/ http://www.amazon-noir.com/ [3]: http://www.sound-of-ebay.com/ http://www.sound-of-ebay.com/ [4]: http://www.face-to-facebook.net/hacking-monopolism-trilogy.php http://www.face-to-facebook.net/hacking-monopolism-trilogy.p... [5]: http://www.face-to-facebook.net/ http://www.face-to-facebook.net/ [6]: http://www.face-to-facebook.net/gwei.php http://www.face-to-facebook.net/gwei.php
- hellbreakslose 13y agohas anyone around this project realized that every time you click google adds google is getting money for it as well? and obviously their revenue is 80% while they give you 20% for each click... with that said, no sir google won't eat itself your just making google richer.
- level09 13y agoThey missed one important point though, hidden network of websites needs to run on servers, and servers cost money. more traffic means scaling and even higher costs.
- sharemywin 13y agoI didn't think a majority of Google preferred stock stock is for sale?
- govilk 13y agoIt seems like the same situation when Porsche kept buying Volkswagen shares till 2009 and in the end losses.
- TomMoses 13y agoGoogle Will Eat Self is part of a trilogy: http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hacking-monopolism-trilogy.php http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hackin... Those guys hacked also Amazon and Facebook, actually there is much more behind that. Those Italians are crazy and geniuses.
- TomMoses 13y agoGoogle Will Eat Itself is part of a trilogy: http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hacking-monopolism-trilogy.php http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hackin... Those guys hacked also Amazon and Facebook, actually there is much more behind that. Those Italians are crazy and geniuses.
- TomMoses 13y agoGoogle Will Eat Itself is part of a trilogy: http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hacking-monopolism-trilogy.php http://paolocirio.net/work/hacking-monopolism-trilogy/hackin... Those guys hacked also Amazon and Facebook, actually there is much more behind that. Those Italians are crazy and geniuses.