Email, Search, News

That is what most surfers spend time on, in that order. And Google leads Yahoo by a wide margin in search, 46 to 23 per cent. Yahoo still leads on email, but then Gmail is still in beta, and you can't get an account just like that, you have to be invited in by someone who already has one. Both compete on news, although I think Yahoo leads, but I personally prefer Google, although I also use Yahoo heavily. I could not imagine doing my political work without the help of Google News.

As for search, I have always preferred Google. Search is central to the whole idea of the internet itself, and Google is one company organized around search. That is what makes them the premier internet company.

If I were Google, I would closely integrate the top three services. So I sign into my Gmail account and stay signed in while I do other things on or near my computer, and it should feel like I have access to the main Google search page and the Google News page at the same time. And when I am on the Googe News page, it should feel like I am in my Gmail account, it should be that easy to forward stories to others: only the link gets sent, just the web address.

Such integration would spike up the use of all three. Many people would literally never log out. They would stay glued.



I think blogging is going to catch on also. So Google ought to integrate not three, but four of its properties. And within blogging itself, it needs to integrate text, audio and video. Right now they act like three separate properties. And whatever happened to MathML?

Email, search, news, and text-audio-video-MathML blogging. Integrate the four.

Wait, there is a fifth. The idea of offering all books, fiction, non-fiction, and textbooks, free, ad-based. Integrate all five. And Google would zoom off. I think the books idea is very doable. Say you approach people who write college textbooks. And you offer them the option. Boom, they are all going to end up making big bucks. College students would stop buying textbooks. And the rest of the industry would follow.

Email, search, news, blog, books. In one seamless offering.

Search engines dominating use of the Internet PC Pro, UK
Search becomes No. 2 Web activity CNET News.com, United States
Search is now number two web activity Silicon.com, UK
Search engine use is spiking, study reveals San Jose Mercury News, USA
Search Engine Use Edges up on Email Techtree.com, India
Search Overtaking Email as Most Popular Online Activity Search Engine Watch
Search Usage Spikes As A Daily Online Habit ClickZ News, NY
Search engine use, soon to be as popular as e-mail Playfuls.com, Romania
Search rivals e-mail as top application ElectricNews.net, Ireland
Search Closing On Email As Top Activity WebProNews, KY
Search engine use in US increases 23% year on year Telecom Paper (subscription), Netherlands
Search engines rev up Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX
Search Engine Use Shoots Up in Past Year, Edges Towards E-Mail as ... AScribe
Search Engine Use Edges Towards the Primary Internet Application LinuxElectrons, TX

Memo To Bill Gates

A memo from Gates has been leaked where he says Microsoft is "at risk" from Google. I figured I would respond, so here is me composing a memo to that other Bill from the 1990s.

Mr. Software Architect.

Part of your problem is simply ageing. There was IBM, and then Microsoft came along, and Microsoft eclipsed IBM itself in market capitalization. You might be IBM, and Google might be Microsoft. Empires come and go. So at some level, just make peace.

I am a huge fan of your foundation though. I wish you were 10 times richer, I am so impressed with your work for health care in the poor countries. And of course you are a terribly smart, creative guy. I am easily a fan.



At some point I think a company like Microsoft should just plough in all that extra cash into becoming a venture capitalist firm, or at least growing a wing in that direction, I think. It is young scientists and the entrepreneurs who come up with the cuttinge edge ideas, or at least in most cases.

I think your problem is that you thought you woke up to the internet in 1995, and you did not. Then you thought you did it in 2000, and you did not. Now you think you are doing it in 2005, and you are not. For good or ill, Microsoft remains a Windows company. Microsft never really became a dot com.

But if Microsoft were to reinvent itself, what might it do? Here are some suggestions I offer.

• You don't have to ditch Windows outright, but shift focus to the online world. That is the present and the future. Down the road, Windows either disappears, or becomes invisible.
  
• Could you take word processing online, and could you make it ad-based? Do you even want to?
  
• Could you take the lead on becoming a digital publisher? License Google's ad program if you have to, if you can't replicate it. But noone is taking publishing online. Maybe you can take the lead. All books - textbooks, fiction, non-fiction - should go online and be free, as in ad-based. Could you take the lead on that one? You are the leader in word processing offline. Could you go online?
  
• You have had some interesting thoughts on speech recognition technology in the past. What is the progress there? Keep working there. Noone seems to be competing with you there. Down the line people should be able to talk to their computer in any language.
  
• Put as much work into your browser as you have been putting into your Windows and Office. Because W and O are passe. The browser will go far.
  
• You have done good with non-PC devices. Maybe you should work on the software for "free" cellphones that will work in a citywide soup of wireless broadband.
  
• The internet and wireless broadband are not one and the same thing, just like webpages and blogs are not one and the same. Don't get too hung up on the internet. Think wireless broadband.
  
• Expand your facilities in India. It's not just about cheap, smart engineers. India is going to be a huge market on its own.
  
• Google itself has said there is room for more than one player in the search market. Search is the center piece of the Google magic. Get in the action. Keep working at it.
  
• See if you can imitate Google. They like to offer web services that are online and ad-based. If those two parameters are too narrow for you, you are not competing with Google. Wean yourself away from the habit of asking people for money directly.
  

More later.

December 7: Microsoft To Invest $1.7 Billion In India (BusinessWeek)

xMax

WiFi was wireless but not broadband, and not large area. Broadband over power lines was broadband but not wireless. WiMax was both: wireless and broadband. And today I read about xMax. It is wireless broadband without the WiMax hassles, it seems like. It looks like power to the people to the power of x. This is delightful. This is real good news. The basic thrust is towards wireless broadband. For a city in a wireless broadband soup, cellphones should become free. Cellphones that are ad-based. This is a brave, new world.

• XMax aims to spark low-power wireless revolution Globe and Mail, Canada
• xMax ™ Demonstration Sets Higher Bar for Broadband ClickPress (press release), United Arab Emirates
• Could xMax change the world of broadband? ZDNet UK, UK
• xMax sparks low power wireless revolution Techworld.com, UK
• XMax in pictures ZDNet UK, UK
• xMax - is it real? Techworld.com, UK
• xMax's First Long-Range Field Test A Success LinuxElectrons, TX
• XG Technology conducts first public demonstration of xMAX MRT (subscription), IL
• New Broadband Standards Set CCN Magazine, CA
• First public demo of 'disruptive' wireless broadband ZDNet UK, UK

Free Wireless Broadband, Reenergized Microsoft

• Google begins limited test of Wi-Fi service Reuters ...... "....the company was considering building a U.S. broadband network capable of targeting specific advertising to users based on the location of their Wi-Fi..."
• Microsoft Corp. reorganizes to compete better with Google, Yahoo Canadian Business

I had been thinking municipality provided wireless broadband. But Google has trumped me on that one. It has come up with an even better idea. Google provided nationwide wireless broadband. All the user have to do is download a Google toolbar onto their laptops in return. If that were to materialize, Google would grow even more like it were a hot startup. Kudos.

Bill Gates complained during the whole anti-trust legal fiasco that instead of competing with him on products, his competitors were taking him to court. Now he does not have to say that no more. Google is competition. Big G should be happy.



I think he had the option in 1995 to take the lead when a school of thought emerged within Microsoft that company should move from being Windows-centric to being browser-centric. Gates missed that boat. It is said if you learn Newton's theory of gravity too well, that actually prevents you from coming to grips with Einstein's theory of gravity.

Microsoft now has taken a step in the right direction, but it is still hesitant. Software should be online, free and ad-based. That is the leap Google is making and Microsoft is not. That is why Microsoft is not Google.

Google's To Do List Keeps Growing

This New York Times article echoes my blog entry from months back. (Google: Poised To Be The Number One Software Company In The World) That whole IBM to Microsoft to Google succession chain. I think it is inevitable. Empires rise and fall, and that is okay, as long as the tide keeps rising for the average consumer boat.

"Google has already added free e-mail, mapping, news aggregation and digital-photo management to its offerings, bringing it into competition in each case with two or more rivals."

Just look at some of the items on their laundry list:

1. Instant messaging.
2. Services for mobile phone users.
3. Online payment.
4. Internet based phone system.
5. Browser.
6. Software to compete with Microsoft Office.
   

That last one caught my attention. I hope they do not make the mistake of competing with Microsoft in that segment offline. If they do, they will be beat. They should offer an "Office" that is totally online and builds on their, well, Blogger. If they take it online, they win. Message: get away from Windows, stay away from Windows.

Google has the vision, the culture and the resources to tackle absolutely any software challenge on the horizon. They need to stick to the online space, though. They come down to the operating system level, and they are game. Why stoop down when you don't have to?

But first integrate MathML into Blogger. I should be able to do 2+2=4 using a Google online calculator and publish the entire thing at Blogger, the way I can add links and photos right now. And also more complicated stuff like sine, cosine and calculus stuff. Take the calculations and publishing part out of my equation, take them to your equation.



And, yes, their "Office" will also have to be ad supported. Don't start selling software. That would be a big mistake.

Stay within the online and ad supported parameters, and there is no stopping Google.

Every company worth its salt should be able to state its mission statement in one simple sentence. For Google it is "to organize the world's information." Everything on its agenda, real and speculated, fits into that.

China, India And The World

I mean I was born in India. This pertains to me. People who live on a dollar a day are people in my personal circle. I know quite a few of them: some of them have nicknames for me, from my homevillage.

BusinessWeek has come up with a fabulous story cluster around the big topics of the economic resurgence of the two Asian giants. But perspective has to be maintained. Look at the per capita income. The PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) for 2004 for China is $5,600. For India it is $3,100. Fro Nepal it is $1,500. I had to throw Nepal in because, well, I grew up in Nepal.

The same figure for the US is $40,100.

My point being it will be a while before India and China jump over to the $50,000 range.

But the GDP figures, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, are US $11.75 trillion, China $7.262 trillion and India $3.319 trillion. At that level the differences are less stark.

The 19th century was Britain's, the 20th was America's, this one is Asia's. Cisco's Scheinman: "We came to India for the costs, we stayed for the quality, and we're now investing for the innovation."

Africa could compete. Both India and China are living testimonies to economic unions and free trade. A China that were 20 different countries would be less efficient. Africa could compete by becoming a single economic unit, a single market. Snuff out civil wars, introduces democracies, and work towards becoming a single market. The recipe is no rocket science.

In Defense Of Google Digitizing Books

It would be flat out wrong to get in the way of technological breakthroughs that bring the cost of books down. And make their reaches wider. It is just that a way has to be found to ensure the authors do make money in the process.

I think Google should consider becoming a publisher itself. So you publish your book on Google property. Revenue is generated through ads. You and Google split the money made. For the reader it is free books. For the author there is money.



The library concept hit the snag. Because the money part was not handled well. On the other hand, if it is okay to read a book at some library for free, why is it not okay to read that same book in digital format?

The publishing industry feels the threat, and rightly so. Because of the web, the barrier to entry to getting published is literally zero. As to whether or not you get read is another thing. As to whether or not you make money is another thing.

I think this free for consumer revenue through ads model would work also for other media, audio and video. Prices come down to zero, but volume goes up, way up. You could have consumers all over the planet.

This model preserves the copyright thing.

• Google's online library runs into trouble Sify, India
• Google Delays Book Scanning Washington Post, United States
• Google Print put on pause Register, UK
• Google's Plan Doesn't Scan BusinessWeek
• Google suspends effort to scan copyrighted content San Jose Mercury News, United States
• Google Suspends Copyright Copies InternetNews.com
• Google Alters Plan for Searchable Library Databases New York Times, United States
• Dispute forces Google rethink on book scans Financial Times, UK
• Schmidt's Google Puts Library Project On Ice Forbes
• Google Halts Scanning of Copyrighted Books San Francisco Chronicle, United States
• Google Makes Change to Google Print/Library Scanning Program Search Engine Watch
• Google pauses indexing of copyrighted books from libraries TechWhack, India
• Google Print on Hold for 3 Months 24x7updates, India
• Google Print Halted Amid Publisher Copyright Concerns Search Engine Journal
• Google Print: Latest Inovation From Search Engine Giant Blogcritics.org
• Google Suspends Copying Protected Books; Publishers Unimpressed InternetWeek.com, NY
• Google Print Takes a Break Softpedia

Google's Corporate Transparency

It's all right there, online. Too bad they don't have this one webpage that links to all the stuff. Instead there are separate starting points.



They did not have an easy start either. Earnly stage investors were not easy coming by.

Their corporate culture to me is as fascinating as their technology. The two feed on each other.

These people, they are just starting out. They are growing to grow, grow, grow. They invent challenges for themselves. They realize their competition is with themselves.

"Despite the dotcom fever of the day, they had little interest in building a company of their own around the technology they had developed."

Google And Languages

And I am not talking Visual Basic and C++ here. I am talking Bengali and Maithili. "The goal is to make the Internet language-independent." Wow. That would be cool, real cool. Google's on it. It also is in news that it will offer something in the PayPal category. Cool. Well, folks, what about MathML! "At the UN, it doesn't matter whether you speak only French and the orator is waxing eloquent in Chinese. The Web will be the same way." Wow.

Vonage And WiMax

• Marry Vonage to WiMax, and what do you get? Internet-based cellphones? That would be a dream come true. TowerStream seems to be gearing to take the leap: "has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second." But so far it is just marrying broadband to phone. The mobile thing does not seem to be in the works. I guess before it happens we will have to see the emergence of citywide WiMax.
  

• Yahoo is going to compete with Google to provide ads for small blogs. I hope that means Google is going to pay out a larger proportion of what they charge advertisers.
  

• There's web services, and then there is open source web services: that's a twist.
  

Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds

I think social networking the internet way is even younger than the internet, and has more places to go, many more. The metaphor that comes to my mind is that of a tornedo touchdown. The internet is the tornedo. When you use it for social networking purposes, it is a touchdown. The results can be positively "devastating."



Look at MeetUp.com. I have some history with this site. My early enthuse for Dean got me to the site. And I got hooked. Dean moved on, I stayed on. So imagine my utter surprise when I bumped into the CEO of MeetUp, mid-westerner Scott, close to my age, who has since invited me to his office, not long after I moved into the city. I met this guy at a MeetUp. To me it was like I ended up at some party where I met a Hollywood star, something akin to it. And he is so self-effacing in presence. I guess he is one of those never-lose-your-cool, big-picture visionaries. I mean, what did I expect him or someone like him to be? Obnoxious? Look, I got the big idea! The guy is MIT Innovator Of The Year. He hosts the Tech meetup in the city.

I have told him, eBay is people meet stuff, MeetUp is people meet people. MeetUp could potentially end up the Yahoo of social networking. It is like you grow big, early, fast, then you go public. And you grow bigger. Then you conduct a lot of smart buys, like a frog eats up dragonflies.

The quicksilver market that the internet is, it is not guaranteed MeetUp or any other one site will get there. But MeetUp has the broadness that few other social networking sites have. For one, it has this definite offline component. Social networking sites that are all screen time and no face time have something fundamental lacking. But then there are some that are doing quite well. Look at these three that took up a lot of my time today: Flickr | 43Things | Delicious.

Flickr is a good example. Curiously Scott had something that was earlier than Flickr, and quite like it, but I guess Flickr is smoother in operation, sexier, and so it got bought up by Yahoo and made two people very rich very quick.

There is this another, 8minutedating.com. Speed dating, I think it is such a cool concept. I went to one, if I did not get a second date does not mean my enthusiasm for the concept is any lesser! But my point is it is another of those tornedo touchdown concepts.

I think MeetUp's future lies in attempting to become the Yahoo of social networking.

And then there are a whole bunch of Friendster type companies.

In short, there are all these great ideas that started out as great companies that still have a lot of people, especially investors, people who count a little more than the rest of us, believing in them, but the breakthrough has yet to happen. One obvious criterion therefore is those who will patiently stick it out will stand a chance.

But more important than that might be the quality of a rabid hunger for rapid expansion. It is a race in time. If you do it almost as good, but are about a year late, that might be a little too late.

Since I made my trip to Scott's office, I have played with the idea of getting involved in some way. I couldn't afford to do it full time, not to get a job, because I have these ideas that I am cultivating. There is the IC idea, there is the online marketing idea, and there is the political involvement to do with Nepal. Maybe I can consult for them.

I do not pretend to be an engineer, although I have a pretty good intuitive feel for concepts in physics. But my strength is group dynamics. I think the winner social networking site will tackle the challenge from the High Touch end rather than the High Tech end, although tech is very important, after all what you are offering is a site. A web service.

I think, for MeetUp, the key is to further decentralize. To make localization more possible. Used to be there was this one golden day someone had chosen when people on one topic met all over the country. Now local Organizers can monkey with the meeting dates. That is good. What would further localization look like? It goes from the city to the group. From the group to the individual.

Broadly speaking.

Internet based social networking is a young market. It will likely see many upheavals. There will be pendulum swings from common sense to sophistication and penetration and back.

What can I say, all the best Scott.

Social network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wait a minute. Guess what I found out this very minute: Scott has been profiled by my former rival Rediff! Now I know why we Chaitime people lost: we never discovered Scott!

Wi-Mesh

I just bumped into the word. A search for the term on Google News brought forth only seven results.

Wi-Mesh extends the reach of Wi-Fi. So the expansion is coming from both ends.

In The News

• Wi-Mesh Moves Toward IEEE Standard TechNewsWorld, CA "You have to take the right steps in the right order, and a standard for WiMax should come first."
• Wi-Mesh to compete with WiMax TechWhack
• Wi-Mesh standardisation process begins VNUNet.com the Wi-Mesh Alliance made up of Nortel, Philips and others, and SEEMesh (Simple, Efficient and Extensible Mesh) backed by Intel, Nokia and Motorola.
  
• Nortel Pushes Wi-Mesh Standard NewsFactor Network
• Wi-Mesh Alliance Presents Proposal for IEEE 802.11s Converge Network Digest
• Intel expects WiMax to become a broadband standard by 2006
  
• http://www.wi-mesh.org

Superfast Cable Broadband And The Rest Of The Daily Soup

• A jump from the current 2 MB to 100 MB as early as next year is highly desirable. There is no way to go but up. Personally I would like to follow World Cup Soccer games online. For one, I don't own a television set. Two, I don't want to own a television set. There is this double whammy of speeds going up and the prices going down. Connectivity prices need to go the hardware and the software route: down, down, down. The competition sizzles up. There is DSL (1.5-3), cable (4-16) and fiber (30). When you cut prices, you gain market share, like DSL companies have shown; when you raise speeds, there is a similar effect. Municipalities geting into the fiber network business is another pop up. Why wait for the market to seep it in! This Louisiana victory goes against the current of other defeats where the big companies bullied the small and not so small towns.
  

• A 10 year old Pakistani is in news for getting Microsoft certified. She got to meet Bill Gates, an experience she describes as "second only to visiting Disneyland." Gates' got company and competition, both. Another curiosity: bike powered internet in Uganda. Wow.
  

• Like WiMax has been moving towards standardization and mainstreaming, so has broadband over powerlines.
  

• Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken are both podcasting. Looks like both have arrived. Podcasting needs to go video. So media pyramids come down like in tetris games. I personally am waiting for Evan Williams of the Blogger.com fame to release his Odeo. I am into audio but not podcasting yet. To tell you the truth, I prefer text, but audio and video components embellish the offering. Here are some more interesting talkers than Lim or Frank. And this Mark Cuban foray into blogosphere search.
  

• iPod for movies anyone? The need is sure there. That darling of a company Skype is off into video phones.
  

• With all this talk of text, audio and video, I keep thinking, why are not more of these people working harder on MathML?
  

• Looks like Amazon is already searching inside hundreds of thousands of books before Google.
  

• HTML to microformats. From computers talk to humans to computers talk to computers. This is on a Wharton site, by the way. XML, XHTML, RDF, iCalendar, vCard.

• Microsoft feels the jitters. Used to be Sun sued Microsoft. Now it is Microsoft is suing Google. Looks like Google has managed to create a more exciting work environment. It is an innovation at the corporate level, it is a group dynamics thing. In another industry, Citi also shed some.
  

• There is this news about China's 9% economic growth, apparently a slowdown. That reminds me. The Chinese leadership has been buying hundreds of billions of dollars in American debt, money that goes to pay for tax cuts for America's richest. Such a distortion. That money should be going to China's poor, into human capital and infrastructure and small business investments. Good reason why the Chinese should ditch their communist party monopoly on political power. These bigwigs there are on this big ego trip at the expense of doing good by their own people.
  

• That brings me to FDI, China and Taiwan. Apparently China gets most of its Foreign Direct Investment from Taiwan, but look at its saber rattling on Taiwan. Such a disjunk between economics and politics there too.
  

• China's insisting it will not float its currency. That is a high mark to currency stability. And a pointer to monetary unions. Currency fluctuations: what economic good are they?

• This article on the global economy paints a somber picture. Productivity growth might not lead to higher wages if there is not a total emphasis on continual education and training.