44 posts categorized "Google"
February 16, 2012
January 15, 2012
Rupert Murdoch Calls Google a "Piracy Leader"
My comment: mind-boggling numb-skullness:)
"News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has only been on Twitter for two weeks now, and I’m now dubbing him the new @ShitMyDadSays. He holds nothing back on the social site, and has already stirred up some stuff by admitting MySpace screwed the pooch.
via thenextweb.com
July 05, 2011
Google + : funny video about 'circles'
Love it - nice to add some humor to this topic. Google + does seem to be taking off like a fire cracker - add me to your circles if you want :)
June 16, 2011
Very cool Google image search update: just drop an image into the search box!
... could be potentially very powerful for my research work: just drop an image into the Google Images search box and find lots of related stuff. Nice.
March 23, 2011
A must-watch cross-cultural ping-pong: Musicians@Google: Google Goes Gaga (video)
This is a really interesting and often hilarious video of Google's Marissa Mayer interviewing Lady Gaga, found just now via FastCompany. Now, I don't care a whole lot about Lady Gaga's music (or did you really expect me to?) but this is indeed a very interesting and unique setting: über-celebrity-pop-cult meets micro-celeb-business-tech-super-girl. Note the slightly different outfits, to start with :). Nice, Google.
September 12, 2010
A lesson via Google: always add value at a very low cost (gMail priority inbox)
Google is the master of keeping us happy by constantly rolling out new features that add serious incremental value to our experience - but probably don't cost them very much: see the latest innovation in gMail, the priority inbox. I will add this to my future presentations on The Future of Business.
June 16, 2010
The Future of Marketing in a Broadband Culture (presentation at FoDM London)
Here is the PDF from today's presentation at EConsultancy's Digital Marketing event in London: low resolution / quick download version (use slideshare to get the high resolution download, 25MB):
Download Future of Marketing in a Broadband Culture FoDM LowRes Gerd Leonhard
The Future of Marketing in a Broadband Culture (FoDM Conference London)
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.
June 10, 2010
Selling 2.0: The Future of Commerce in a Mobile World (today's presentation at Google Zuerich)
Here it is - video to follow soon.
Selling 2.0 The Future of Commerce: Gerd Leonhard at Google Zuerich
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.
May 21, 2010
Google TV is coming (comments and video): total Web & TV convergence is imminent. TV in the Cloud?
Everyone: this is a biggie. Check out this video below and the announcement on the Google blog. Here are some quotes from the blog, and some comments from my end:
- "Google TV is a new experience for
television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom
and power of the Internet. With Google
Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and
easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a
few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV
and the web..." My comment: this is the total web-tv convergence, at last, and this development should certainly scare the wits out of most major TV Networks. The gloves are off, guys! So far it has been quite hard to have TV-like, living-room centric experiences using the web; obviously this is just about to change. And the advertising-dollars will migrate along with our viewing (or rather, engagement -) habits! Friction will soon be Fiction, indeed. Welcome to Media
as a Service (MaaS); Content in the Cloud: TeleMedia here we come.
- "Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. In our announcement today at Google I/O, we challenged web developers to start coming up with the next great web and Android apps designed specifically for the TV experience. Developers can start optimizing their websites for Google TV today" My comment: Google is betting on OPEN SYSTEMS to win this game, which imho is totally the right move. Yes, there is some room and argument for closed systems (Apple, PS3 etc) but almost all major successes will be fueled by open technologies, interfaces and platforms, i.e. networked and interdependent ecosystems. Going forward future, it's win-win-win-win or nothing (sound familiar?)
- "We’re working together with Sony and Logitech to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale this fall, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide" My comment: very smart move by Sony - they missed the boat on digital music, and on ebooks (at least to some extent, I'd say), so this is their chance to catch up.
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February 12, 2010
Google kills some music blog sites - another story from within the dysfunctional music industry
Good coverage of this latest twist in 'change to digital' confusion, via Paid Content, below: Google has killed several blogs - hosted by the Google-owned Blogger platform - that were allegedly infringing on copyright by posting MP3 files. A long-standing tradition of music journalism online is severely endangered. To me, this is yet another example of why we urgently need new legislation in digital music, i.e. the creation of realistic, web-native standards and reliable permissions. Because this is the problem: while the marketing people at the labels love these blogs because they clearly spread the word very efficiently and reach the perfect target groups, the legal people at the labels file DMCA claims and want the sites to remove all MP3 files.
But to me, it also looks like Google is now, increasingly being forced to police blogger-powered sites for unlicensed music postings because executives across many sectors of the traditional media industry are now pointing their fingers at Google for the use of content that is not based on a clear-cut license, i.e. exists in what I call a gray zone - some use of content that is legally uncertain (yes, based on pre-Internet laws, mostly) but has become accepted social-cultural practice. Check out the debate via the Twitter Hashtag. Image: Gorilla vs Bear music blog.
"In what critics are calling “musicblogocide 2010,” Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has deleted at least six popular music blogs that it claims violated copyright law. These sites, hosted by Google’s Blogger and Blogspot services, received notices only after their sites – and years of archives – were wiped from the internet..."
via paidcontent.org
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January 16, 2010
Umair Haque on Google, China, Control and 21st Century Business Paradigms
Another brilliant post by Umair Haque via the Harvard Business Review - he spells out a lot of stuff that keeps coming up in my presentations, as well; so here's a bit of a remix of this juicy post, my comments are [...]
"On one side is the old high ground of the industrial era capitalism; on the other, the new high(er) ground of next-generation capitalism. The yawning chasm in between them is the gap between the 20th century and the 21st" [I call this the EGOSystem vs the ECOsystem, see more here and here]
"Currency intervention, breaking Copenhagen, crackdowns , collusion, corruption, coercion, and censorship: China's ongoing bad behavior as global citizen is, when we connect the dots, the gigantic elephant in the world's boardroom. What's driving it? The quest for monopoly, monopsony, and control" [I wrote about something quite similar in my 2007/2008 blog-book "The End of Control", check out the free online chapters here, and a related presentation, here]
"That's yesterday's high ground, and China's focused like a laser beam on it. China's moves are the textbook stuff of b-school's blackest arts. Through larger distribution, fiercer litigation, greater exclusivity, cheaper and faster production, a bigger cash pile, advantage is gained. But the high ground has shifted. The new high ground is an ethical edge. It's
not about having more; it's about doing better. It's not about
protecting exports, pressuring buyers and suppliers, price
discriminating against the powerless, and programming consumers to buy,
buy, buy — it's about making people, communities, and society
authentically better off. It's not about caring less — but caring more.
It's not about ruthlessness. It's about mindfulness" [Couldn't have said it better, myself; here are just a few things I would add: in this new ecosystem that Umair is describing, we will need to develop web-native economic models and entirely new metrics for evaluating them, friction will indeed be fiction (to a very large degree) and the importance of control will be utterly eroded by the steadily increasing power of trust, engagement and transparency]
"The old high ground was built for 20th century economics: sell more junk, earn more profit, "grow" — and then crash. An ethical edge operates at a higher economic level. It is concerned with what we sell, how profits are earned, and which authentic, human benefits "grow." It's a concept built for the economics of an interdependent world" [A key term, imo: an interdependent world, i.e. not a broadcast world but a connected and networked world]
"An ethical edge just might be the ultimate cause of advantage. It's how better distribution, production, marketing, and pricing — all just proximate causes of advantage — ultimately happen. Jim Chanos's investment thesis says: without an ethical edge, new value cannot be created — old value can only be shuffled around (hi, Wall Street)....So here's the single question everyone should be asking. The old high ground is the new low ground. Yesterday's mountain is today's valley. Are you ascending to the new high ground?"
via blogs.hbr.org
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January 04, 2010
Via the official Google blog: the meaning of Open (a definitive must-read)
There are a ton of really great kernels of wisdom and learnings in this open letter by Google's Jonathan Rosenberg. Be sure to read the whole thing; but here is the most essential part:
"Closed systems are well-defined and profitable, but only for those who control them. Open systems are chaotic and profitable, but only for those who understand them well and move faster than everyone else. Closed systems grow quickly while open systems evolve more slowly, so placing your bets on open requires the optimism, will, and means to think long term. Fortunately, at Google we have all three of these"
Coincidentally, in 2008, one of my my most popular speaking topics was "Open is King". Check out these resources, below.
Open is King (video), presentation at the Experience Economy Lab in Amsterdam (January 25, 2008, get the pdf / slides here)
Gerd Leonhard Futurist At Jakarta Broadband Summit "Open is King - The Future of Media
View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.
Futurist Gerd Leonhard on Open is King - The Future of Music, Canadian Music Week 2008
View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.
And here's a German video (Telekom Trendforum 2008)
Link: 
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December 05, 2009
Announcing my new book on Lulu: "Friction is Fiction" - write a review and get the free PDF!
I have been very busy compiling my best essays, blog posts and other writings from the past 3 years, and have finally uploaded the most recent version to Lulu (my favorite print-on-demand book store). The new book is now called 'Friction is Fiction' and is available in 3 versions: 1) 158 pages, 6x9 inches / U.S. trade format, full-color, for $60.40, here (yes, it's quite pricey because of the cost of printing 4-color, on-demand) 2) the same dead-tree version, but in black & white only, for $19.98, here (much cheaper but a lot less cool;) 3) as a PDF, for a token price of $7.50, here.
I would be delighted if you would consider buying whatever works best for you - what better Christmas present could you possibly think of! Please note that this book will be updated every 3 months, to include my latest writings. If you want to share the book page please just send people to www.frictionisfiction.com - thanks.
As to giving away the free PDF, here is the deal: you can contact me anytime (via email, Facebook or Twitter) to request a free copy of the PDF if you just don't want to (or can't) spend the $7.50, and I will send you the download link. In return, what I ask from you is to pay me with attention, i.e. to write a review on Lulu, a blog-post, or a tweet about my book, with a link (all 3 is best;). Deal?
As to the title: I used to simply call this compilation 'The Best of Media Futurist' but while looking through all those posts - and spending a lot more time revising them - I found an important thread that goes through almost all of it and which therefore has become the new title: Friction is Fiction. So what does that mean? It means that if you are currently basing your success on maintaining or even constructing hurdles, difficulties or other bottlenecks somewhere in the system - i.e. if there is something that impedes the flow of information, or a transaction or purchase so that a higher price point or some other form of control over the can be obtained - then you are very likely to face diminishing revenues in the next few years. Building obstacles for users (fka consumers) used to work just fine but... no longer. Building walls is the fastest road to suicide in the digital economy.
The web has been utterly ruthless about finding these glaring points of friction, such as paying for eMail (remember that?), paying a ton of money for long-distance phone calls (remember those pre-skype days?), or consumers not having any access to travel booking systems, flight information or seating. These hurdles are being removed, one-by-one, and those 'people formerly known as consumers' are getting more powerful every single day. Banking on friction to increase your revenues has become like throwing matches into the river and asking it to stop - it's useless.
Friction was, of course, the main money-maker in the media, entertainment and content business, for a long time: certain CDs were only available in certain stores at certain times in certain countries, DVDs with those movies you really wanted were only available in certain countries and within certain 'windows', books had to be printed and shipped, and ring-tones could only be purchased from your operator. Basically, at every turn the consumer encountered have-to's and must's which essentially allowed a substantial level of control by the media and content companies - and thus, higher prices. In many cases, the more friction the higher the price you could ask for.
No longer. Read the book!
Related: my blog-book "The End of Control": download the first 6 chapters here. Also: My Music 2.0 book is available via Lulu, here
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November 02, 2009
Google Map Navigation for Android Mobile: again, Google makes things better - and free!
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October 21, 2009
Crucial Intelligence: the latest Internet & Economy Trends by Morgan Stanley (via Web 2.0 summit)
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