Re: talk.google.com

[Dan Margolis <dmargoli+lists () af0 net>]

On Aug 24, 2005, at 5:51 AM, Andrew Smith wrote:

> Interesting,
> http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html especially, giving you  
> other options.
> How could they possibly make a profit off this? I guess it's just  
> an extension to gMail which they will certainly make a profit with.
> Perhaps they're trying to beat skype on the VOIP market?
>
> > On 8/24/05, Stuart Carter <Stuart.Carter () bbcel co uk> wrote: Hey  
> > ho - more opportunites for people to happily surrender their privacy!
> >
> > But it's just another jabber server - one that I will not be  
> > using, but will no doubt attract Joe Sixpack as usual.
> >
> > Personally I find GAIM and GAIM-encryption to be a happy  
> > combination :)

GMail allows POP and SMTP access, which, since it doesn't tag message  
bodies like Hotmail et al., means you can use GMail without ads, too  
(there's also a Greasemonkey plugin for stripping the text ads from  
GMail, if you're into that sort of thing). I don't think any of this  
really hurts the bottom line that much, since all of these simply  
build the Google brand. What's the cost of running a Jabber server if  
you're Google? If you're Google, you can afford to do stuff like this  
(or like News, or Summer of Code, or Code Jam, etc.) just to build  
the brand. And in fact, that may make a lot of sense; the only thing  
Google really has that Yahoo! or MSN Search or A9 or any of the other  
competitors don't is the brand--just like a TV network, Google makes  
money not by selling units but by being a popular media conduit, and  
just like a TV network, the only real resource that sets one network  
apart from the other is brand (sure, content, too, but in TV, and in  
search, the way to generate good content is largely public knowledge).

How does that answer your question? It means that not everything  
Google does has to have its own revenue, because servers are cheap,  
shipping software is easy when it's just a Web service, and name  
recognition is everything.

While I'm at it, I wanted to take a stab at Stuart's comment, too.  
Because I hear more and more of this "Google Watch" nonsense, and I  
think a lot of it ought to be laid to rest. And my main complaint  
with all of it is, people who are worked up about this seem to ignore  
the fact that this is nothing new--how much do you trust your ISP,  
for instance? Why isn't there a AOL-Time-Warner-watch, when this  
conglomerate (until AOL gets spun off) controls the Internet access,  
the TV access, the movies, the magazines, the newspapers, even the  
published books accessed by so many people? With companies like AOL- 
Time-Warner, all your media can literally come from a single source.  
And people are worried about Google storing their e-mail!

AIM is not secure (who here chats on it over WiFi at Starbucks?). E- 
mail? Sure, if you use GPG you might feel safe, but I know I don't  
encrypt things when I chat with my family and friends. And your ISP,  
just as well as Google, has access to your entire search history (in  
fact, more so, since they know what you search for at MSN and Yahoo!  
and Lycos and HotBot...). (And under new laws, it's entirely possible  
the Feds have access to your search history, too, with little  
judicial oversight.) Why are people suddenly flipping a shit over  
Google? What's new? It reminds me of a NYTimes article I just saw  
today, "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain" (http:// 
www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/technology/24valley.html). The gist? When  
you get big and successful, people start to hate you. Now I'm not  
saying that big corporations aren't bound by the same rules as the  
rest of us, and regardless of the size of your IPO, you still have to  
be a good citizen. I just don't see why Google's anything new.

Feel free to correct me or flame me, though. I'm curious if I've  
totally missed the mark.

Cheers,
Dan
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