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Searching for Realistic Expectations – Consumer
Electronics Show Letdowns
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.
January 9 2005
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A full weekend has passed since Larry Page made the last of what was
assumed to be three major speeches from the heads of the three major
search engines at the 2006 CES convention in Las Vegas. Page’s lackluster
announcements on Google Pack and Google Video followed similar underwhelming
performances by Yahoo’s Terry Semel and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
Perhaps expectations had been placed too high by the press. Scheduled
fresh on the heels of the Christmas-New Year’s slump, commentators
and observers wrote highly speculative pieces, mostly about Google.
By Friday afternoon however, what might have been, simply was not.
CES is supposed to be about consumer electronics, the sort of things we
find in our kitchens, living rooms and offices. The sort of things Google
and Yahoo have never made, manufactured or marketed (aside from search-servers).
MSN’s parent company Microsoft has a well-earned place on the podium
but Google and Yahoo are services, not manufacturers, both relying on software
running on hardware created and compiled by other firms. Last week, commentators
were speculating Google was going to announce the development of a low-cost
personal computer that directly threatened more than a few of Microsoft’s
near monopolies.
That, of course, never happened. As a matter of fact,
the search engine marketplace is not very different this week than it
was last week, just
a bit more competitive. Unfortunately for anyone expecting a defining
moment, last week did not provide it. What was announced isn’t bad,
just not very big. Each of the Big3 had something to say and each relied
on A-list
celebrities to help them say it. Going into the conference, the highest
expectations were placed on Google.
Google
For sheer performance power, Google did not disappoint. Using the talents
of Robin Williams to humour the audience and shield Page from difficult
questions, the Google presentation scored high however some of William’s
material included riffs on Chinese and European accents and a few dreary
jokes about the French. Luckily for Williams, the Adult Entertainment Expo
running next door provided extra ammunition to make juvenile jokes that,
while racy, did not always devolve into racism. The pokes at Chinese accented
English and Europeans were discouraging as was the use of Williams’ acerbic
tongue to belittle those who lobbed difficult questions towards Page. Google
is supposed to be better than that. So is Robin Williams.
Page used his speech to announce and debut a bundle of free software known
as Google Pack. According to a new story spun by Marissa Mayer, Google’s
Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, Google Pack was developed
after founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin spent the better part of an afternoon
adding software to a new computer purchased for their office. The want for
a faster solution led to the creation of Google Pack, a case of necessity
being the brother of branded bundling. Most of the components offered in
the bundle are made up of proprietary Google software but there are a few
interesting items made by other firms.
Google Pack revolves around the Google Updater, which downloads, installs
and automatically updates components included in the Pack, or prompts when
updates become available. The following pieces of software are available
in the bundle:
Google Software Included:
- Google Earth – (3D satellite images of virtually anyplace on Earth)
- Google Desktop – (Desktop workspace organizer)
- Picasa – (Google’s photo and image editor/organizer/sharing
space)
- Google IE Toolbar – (Search toolbar made for Internet Explorer w/auto-fill
features, pop-up blocking)
- Google Pack Screensaver (takes photos from Picasa collection and converts
them to screensavers)
Additional Software Included:
- Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar – (Alternative web browser
with Google Toolbar built-in)
- Ad-Aware SE Personal – (Lavasoft’s free antispyware utility)
- Adobe Reader 7 – (PDF reader for Acrobat documents)
- Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition (with six month subscription
to critical updates)
The install page offers the option to add or remove any of the nine pieces
of software included in the bundle. A Google press release issued on Friday
Jan. 6 stated Real Player and Trillian would also be included in the download
but as of today (Jan 9), neither is mentioned on the Google
Pack homepage or on the download page. Curiously, both are noted in support
documents accessed via the “help” button in the top right of the GP homepage.
RealNetworks, the maker of RealPlayer is also mentioned in the Terms and
Conditions license agreement. After spending twenty minutes downloading
and installing the bundle, we did not find either Trillian or RealPlayer
software. When revisiting the Google Pack homepage, we were redirected to
a prompt to download Trillian, RealPlayer, GoogleTalk and GalleryPlayer.
In other words, these pieces of software are included in Google Pack, just
not in the initial download.
Page also used his speech to announce the development of the Google Video
Store, in the process issuing an indirect challenge to Yahoo. According
to the press
release, Google is launching a “Video Marketplace”.
Google Video Store will allow users to “buy and rent a wide range
of video content from a major television network, a professional sports
league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers.”
Google claims its Video Store will be available soon. When it is, it will
contain classic and contemporary TV content, feature NBA games, music from
Sony BMG, feature length indy-films from Greencine.com, ITN historic, news
and educational footage, classic cartoons, CLEARVUE children’s programming,
short clips from the Getty Archives, and interviews by the ubiquitous Charley
Rose. Contemporary content will include shows from the CSI franchise, NCIS,
Survivor and the Amazing Race.
“There will be thousands of titles for sale in the Google Video Store
with more titles added everyday. The list of content producers will also
include a broad range of entertainment and educational partners including
among others, BlueHighways TV, CareTALK, Fashion TV, Here! TV, HDNet, HilariousDownloads.com,
Image Entertainment, iWatchNow.com, Kantola Productions, MediaZone, Plum
TV, Porchlight Entertainment, SOFA Entertainment, Teen Kids, Trinity Broadcasting
Network, WGBH, Wheels TV, and Wilderness Film India Ltd.” (source:
Google
press release)
Google wants to create an open marketplace for video and music content
producers. Earlier today, Marketwatch.com released a short
interview with
Jennfier Feikin, Director of Google Video about the Video Store. Gary Price
from Search Engine Watch captured a few quotes from the video,
“It's actually quite a different model. It's the first open video
marketplace where content owners of any sort can have their content owners
store and can decide how they want to sell it, for what price, and also
gives users a very wide variety of content...” and,
“We really wanted this to be an open marketplace. So, different content
owners are going to decide on different prices and they're also going to
figure out different models of different genres of content. What we really
felt is that we're in the first minute of a 24 hour day of video content
online and content owners should be able to experiment with different prices,
different type of business models for different genres of content...”
Though Google Video Store isn’t actually ready-for-prime time and
is not yet available for public or even beta release, the timing of the
announcement to coincide with the end of the CES makes sense as a move in
the endless game of one-ups-manship between the major search engines. Google
has a habit of stealing the fire from its competitors. The Google Video
Store announcement came less than 24-hours after Yahoo’s Terry Semel
made his keynote speech to the Consumer Electronics Show.
Yahoo
Yahoo’s Terry Semel used his speech at CES to announce Yahoo Go,
a suite of products and services designed to allow users to access personalized
image, music and broadcast information via their PCs, mobile devices and
televisions. Basically another series of bundled services, Yahoo Go will
be pre-installed in Nokia Series 60 phones and is immediately available
for download in 10 major countries. In the US, customers of Cingular and
AT&T can sign up immediately.
Yahoo Go Mobile includes Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, photo sharing, a
calendar, address book, Yahoo web and image search, Yahoo news, sports and
finances (as well as the ability to personalize information sources).
Yahoo Go Desktop is another set of bundled software and services made for
the PC. Designed to act as a desktop dashboard, Go Desktop provides instant
access to Yahoo web search, Yahoo news, Yahoo Flickr image files, Yahoo
messenger, Yahoo address book and calendar. It also offers access to and
updates from blogs, photo files and other social network items included
in the Yahoo 360 network.
Yahoo Go TV, which is scheduled for release by the end of March, is designed
to work with PC enabled (or connected) TVs, basically allowing content
on the PC to be displayed on the larger TV screen. This is likely the
first stage of Yahoo’s plan to capitalize on the distribution transition
in broadcasting media.
Yahoo pulled on the star power of Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Cruise, both
of whom delivered well-rehearsed examples of technical difficulties. DeGeneres
delivered the opening monologue and Cruise was introduced to save the day
when the Internet connection to Semel’s presentation mysteriously
failed for a short time.
In his remarks, Semel noted, “We think the Internet isn't a Web page
anymore, it's a vehicle for delivering ... it's about connecting the
devices that all of you are manufacturing." (source: engadget
blog coverage of CES). Yahoo is targeting convergence of delivery vehicles, trying
to make search services available for the three primary information devices
people use, cell phones, television and PCs.
Microsoft
Bill Gates was the opening speaker at CES. Calling the 2Ks the decade of
the digital lifestyle and workstyle, Gates used his time to re-introduce
the long-awaited Vista operating system and to show how Microsoft does
not consider Google any form of competition. Last week, I wrote a longer
piece
on Gate’s CES presentation.
To paraphrase Chairman Bill, Microsoft is not irrelevant. Microsoft is
primarily a software maker and the “magic” of good software
will never go out of style. Gates gently reminded the audience he was the
first to start talking about convergence over a decade ago while strongly
suggesting Microsoft Vista will substantially raise the bar on operating
systems. Gates said he sees IBM as a much more frightening competitor than
Google.
All in all, the three major speeches from the heads of the three major
search engines, while high in pre-event expectation, were light on major
announcements. The landscape has not changed in any noticeable way though
Google might have gotten yet another leg up over its competition by speaking
last and presenting the Google Video Store announcement.
Google is clearly ahead of the pack in grass roots, direct to consumer
services. Yahoo clearly demonstrated it understands where the various media
are heading and is providing crossover software to enable user’s ease
of access. Clearly, Microsoft might have created the best operating system
ever, or it might not have. Actually, that one is still rather murky. We’ll
have to wait almost another year to find out.
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