Google Destroying Intellectual Value?

Today I had a discussion with a Professor of Economics and an Economic Researcher. Both had wonderful view about Google. They say, Google is destroying the Intellectual Value of the Information Creaters.

In their Own Words:

• After Google has come, all the focus has gone from the Information Creation to the Information Integration and Publishing.
• The Print Media is dying, and all the focus has gone to the on-line publishing where Intellectual Property is not protected.
• The free information distribution mode including blogs are creating so much of buzz where they are hardly of any value. Most of the information present in these formats are junk.
• People can copy and reformat, and republish same material creating so much of redundancy.
• The concept of Knol where a portion of revenue is shared with the Writer is hardly of any value to them. It just pays off very little. And all the profit goes to the platform and not to the writers. Google just benefits from it.
• Blogs and Knol provides platform to anyone to judge and reward. This creates a difficult situation for great researcher as the common man hardly understands it.
  
• Information collectors, Interators and Good presenters are highly rewarded. This is making people to believe in searching and copying rather than in doing serious research.
  

I just have one thing to say to them. They don't understand business and are not able to cope up with the changed situation.

Professors and Researchers will have to understand business logic and need to create value readers. They cant just run away with saying people are stupid, who don't understand or value their findings or writings. This is just not done. They will have to find wrong inside themselves and have to respect the people's views. Need to digest the Information Area, and not blame Google.

Google's Knol is one of the best platform for any underdog to put his views. This has made World more flat and now the information world is not dominated by few Media agencies and so called intellectuals. But by the group of the entire mass who is interested in the information. Everyone in the world is in the same plane, and one needs to build his profile in the open market to be successful in the long term.

I however don't say, Professors are totally wrong. There are problems with the free information distribution. Most of these websites and blogs are filled with advertisements. It really pisses off sometimes, but readers have the right to punish them. They just need to do is to learn on how to punish them.
e.g. They can mark "Don't Like" in StumbleUpon.

The other weakness I see is that of the profile and linked profile. It is the disadvantage of extreme freedom and democracy in all areas, and it has entered Information Space too. A new guy who thinks to blog from company like Google can quickly have good traffic, if his friend bloggers link his website from theirs. But I doubt he can really sustain with just help, if he does not have quality.

I support Google's fight for right to information to all. They have done a remarkable job. But few points that Professors have put up are alarming. We need to make sure how good researchers and information creaters are rewarded. If they are not valued and left behind, it will hurt the World. World will just become a place of smart players trying to fool each other.

--
Wonderful follow up by Deep Sherchan. Thanks a lot Deep.

Google Analytics User Review

Google is so kind to offer Google Analytics for free. I have been using it for few months now and I have much praise for it. But that does not mean, it is out of any short comings.

Let me first list out what I like in Google Analytics.

1. User Friendliness

Google Analytics is one of the best site/software to use. I found it very easy to browse in and out of the site.

To know any of the information given, only thing that is required is to click in the word. The link will take to the desired page.

2. Excellent graphics

This picture is self explanatory.

3. Concise and Complete

This table made me feel how complete the information is. It is simply awesome.

4. Excellent use of Graphic Tools

The use of line diagrams, maps, pie chart, bar diagram is simply awesome. I can think no better.

5. Well Detailed

Right from continent, the user source can be traced till the individual city. I was excited (dont know whether you will also).

There are many logical insights that GA gives and many people have earlier discussed about it, so I chose to tell what additional GA has added to the Web Analytics World. So are the features mentioned above.
These features may be neglected by many while chosing the tool but it is prime important to get these features. I would say almost equally to the presence of metric. Understanding a metric is a one time work, while using it is recurring. With ease in using, some time is saved each time the tool is used, and thus increase in work efficiency is obvious.
Also, with better look and feel, the chances of error decreases.

Well, I will stop good words here. There are something that GA lacks. Let me list them too.

1. Cross Attribute Significance
I sometime feel, GA is more like a presentation software than Analytics. It digs into all the major attributes that define a visitor but cross attribute significance check is lacking.

What if I want to know the behaviour of people in US using Internet Explorer? This is not answered by GA. (If it does, please tell me)

2. Actionable Segmentation
It would have been very nice, had GA provided the actionable segments. The segments well characterized by relevance factors like high conversion or frequency of revisit etc. and well described by natural parameters will be the best.

In the absence of such profiled business motivated natural segments, the natural segments of visitors or the major objective segments will be good addition in the present form.

3. Predictive Analytics
GA is all about data mining and presentation. The predictive part is not yet added.

Here ends my evaluation. Please correct me where wrong. And also, please add your evaluation through comments.

Google is no GOD

I could find some problems in Google products.

1. Technical problem in Spyware Doctor available in Google Pack
Let me straight away show the picture that I captured while the problem happened.

While updating the Spyware Doctor, the system hung and the problem remained even when I restarted. Ultimately I had to remove the Spyware doctor once and may be for always.

2. Logical Problem with Product Integration (With Orkut, Email Address does not remain private)
Just follow the following steps to know email address of any Orkut member.
a) Use gmail address to log in to Orkut.
b) Browse to the target user profile and ignore the user.
c) Log in to gtalk, using the same gmail id.
d) Check the blocked email address list.
Now, you can find the email address of the target person.
This makes Google Integrated Product scheme extremely vulnerable. It does not guarantee our privacy.

Hope Google comes up with some viable solution for both of these problems. This is very important for the Google's product users.

Google Vs Non-Google

Today news surprised me. The talks are on for the largest merger in the IT history, the Microsoft and Yahoo merger. The long time rivals are coming closer day by day, and Google is going strength to strength.

Last time when Balmer was in India, he was asked who actually his primary rival is. His answer was very harsh. He went forward saying just Google is just a search engine, and iPod is an island. So, his primary rival is Apple. No one was satisfied, me too.

Ballmer was asked again, whether Google poses any threat to Microsoft dominance. He said, "NO". According to him, there were many companies who came in the history too who were thought to take away leadership from Microsoft like SAP, Yahoo etc. But they had to stagnate at a point. They actually did.

Well, just few weeks after Ballmer's India visit we got news, an agreement between Yahoo and Microsoft on web. They were to facilitate their customers with more flexibility in using each others product. We could add MSN id in Yahoo messenger and vice versa. It was surprising news for me and many others. The question was what made the deal happen?

The answer is nothing but "Google".

Krishna Gopinathan, Global Analytics' CEO, had an interesting story to tell. Once he made a visit to his parents with his son, Keshav. Keshav's grandmother asked Keshav, "Who knows everything?". While Keshav was thinking, she gave him a hint. "G", she said. Then she gave him another hint, "O". Then Keshav said "Google?". She, of course, was expecting, "God."

“Google” by all means is the strongest brand name on Earth today. It has broken all records in a very short period of time. And it is all because of their strong social commitment and far sighted business model. They are still far behind Microsoft in terms of product strengths but the difference is, people admire Microsoft and love Google. Love is always the major driving force for any individual whether he accepts or deny. And Google has been able to place itself there.

I was an MSN user few years back. My regular email Id was a Hotmail one and I used to chat with my friends on MSN Messenger. Later I had to migrate to Yahoo due to some additional features like offline message and more space. Then Hotmail account just had 2MB and Yahoo had 25MB.

Later in 2002-03 people started talking about GMail with 1 GB space. I was excited. I needed one. One of my friends sent me an invitation and I joined. Then no looking back. I got all I wanted from Gmail and Orkut. Then I went forward using Blogger for blogging. Now I am using most of Google’s product including Youtube, Google Reader, Google Notepad, Picasa Web Album, Google Adsense etc.

Now the scene has changed for mailing. Almost everybody is providing lots of space. But I am not ready to go back to Yahoo or Hotmail. Simply because I love Gmail, and my association with Google is so strong that I can hardly imagine my life without it. Many of my friends feel the same.

Now coming back to Google being just a search engine, I would say Google’s revenue source is just the Search Engine (majority) but Google is much more. If anybody else gives the same benefit or more, it is simply because of Google. They don’t have any other way.

I have one bitter experience with Sony. I bought a Sony Vaio Laptop with Windows. Many software packages were given for free including Windows, some from Sony, some from Microsoft and some from Sonic. But while I use that software I often got messages like license expired, buy full version, update software etc. and all these required some dollar from my wallet. I didn’t have enough to buy all those, and I decided to go to Google. Google and its partners (from open source) had all for free. Now, I use Mozilla Firefox, Avast Antivirus, McAfee Firewall, Google Package etc. I am happy with these packages now.

Google has actually empowered the Open Source while keeping its business fundamentals strong. And there is nothing for Google to lose. It can only gain from partners or from competitors.

Now, a war is going in the web space. And it is not between Microsoft vs Google or Yahoo vs Google, but it is between Google and partners vs Non-Googles. And Microsoft and Yahoo merger is going to make it more intense. But I can hardly see MS Yahoo winning this war. If economy of scale was the factor then even today Microsoft and Yahoo both are ahead of Google in terms of revenue. So they can do many more than what Google does.

Microsoft and Yahoo have different strengths, and their business models are different. The merger will bring best of both worlds. But the path will not be a cake walk. It will have lots of integration problems. I remember Coke buying Thumps up in India (then Thumps Up was number one drink in India and Coke number two) just to make Pepsi number one. So I expect a hard path ahead for MS Yahoo, if the merger takes place.

Whatever happens in the corporate circle, we the customers will benefit. MS Yahoo will have lots to offer to us to down play Google. I won’t be surprised if one day Windows and MS Office become free under the brands Y Windows and Y Office, and we see advertisement on the side bar of a Word or Excel. Then MS versions will be the paid versions for the Yahoo ones. Well speculation can be many. Lets wait and watch. All the best MS Yahoo, and thanks Google.