Wednesday, August 12, 2015

How Google may be looking at different markets ?


<This was written a year back or so.. but I never remembered to push the publish button>

Let’s take a more near term view of Google’s vision first which is around organizing information and making it accessible. 

Near-term

Google's main monetization model today is digital advertising.  Between overall advertising market growth and digital advertising taking share from traditional media, there is plenty of headroom for Google to grow.  Google’s digital advertising dominance needs eyeballs. You get eyeballs at the gate (entry point) or while people are engaging with the content (engagement point) ) once they get to it.

If I get my information from outside of Google search like social networks or from other mechanisms like on mobile devices, then Google can be challenged for the eyeballs at the gate. From an content (engagement point) perspective if people are engaging in social networks or watching content in places other than google properties like Youtube there is threat to that revenue. 
So clearly Google needs to stay as the gatekeeper to the information access and needs to become the content hub of the future. Simple enough.

Android, Nest & DropCam and other "Internet of Things" plays are  ways of owning device platforms of the future so that Google can  continue to play the gatekeeper role. From an owning the engagement experience perspective - Youtube, Social Networks, Messaging, TV (Chromecast) apps are an obvious places to tap into.

But in terms of total opportunity, from what I have heard, an average person spends 4 hours on TV daily and 48 minutes on Facebook which leaves 19 hours of the day still available to engage the users and potentially in very productive and meaningful ways.

Cars are a great place to engage users, Family time is a great opportunity. How google can enrich the time i spend with my kids must be something Google is considering. How Google can enrich my vacation by engaging me more deeply while I am sipping Pina Colada in Hawaii? Flying is a crappy experience today and offers a great  opportunity for engagement.  How Google can engage users at work (8 hours out of 16 hours of awake time) gives a completely new perspective to what Enterprise/Business market means for Google. It is just a share of time.  Google has arguably captured a tiny fraction of 24 hour day so far and they have lots of room to grow. 

Long-term

The long-term brings even more promise to what Google can do with its burgeoning cash reserves and an abundance of digital expertise - both human and infrastructure.

If you look at all the big problems that need to be solved in the world and work with the assumption that companies that solve big problems will create and capture incredible value, Google's future looks even more bright. Healthcare, as an example offers, opportunities that include Affordable Healthcare, Higher Quality healthcare, cures to incurable diseases.  Arguably most big problems and their solutions now depend more on processing bits than atoms and google has a huge advantage on that front.  Moonshots are a great strategy of taking google vision of making information useful and not just accessible. In meeting this larger vision, Google will go beyond its advertising driven business model. So I think the best days go Google are ahead of it. 

Friday, February 20, 2015

Who’s who ?

Who’s who ?



The beast is desperate.
Fear of starvation,
Sharpens his senses.
Ears to the ground,
Body taut and prepared to leap and clutch,
Nostrils flaring to catch the scent of prey.
Patience of a rock,
Freezing time and space,
A survival necessity;
For not killing means death.


The prey satiated in the gut.
Tip-toeing;  no rustling of the dry leaves.
Slithering through the darkness.
Excited. But not enough to betray fear.
Toying with all the senses:
An aural mirage,
Hallucinating shadows,
Hint of a smell.
Prey or wily temptress.


Alas the cruel sands of time melt into the dawn.
The prey lives to recount the game.
The beast starves - broken mortally scared.
The prey - the perpetrator.
The beast - the victim.
What seems isn’t so.

All a storm in a teacup.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Non-Linearity




Non-linearity

Moments last forever.
Decades pass in a jiffy.
Light memories from long back linger and live
Heaviness from yesterday is distant. Forgotten.
Time sails. It comes back in waves.
Out of order. Scattered and frothy.
A song, presque vu - words fail.
A tune, circling the vocal chords. Elusive. Slippery.
An ache, a tug, felt in the heart. Mind rummages for the root.
Cause trying to catch up with the effect.
Out of order. But not out of order
Galaxies chide glaciers to slow down. Why the glacial haste? 
Reason, in vain, tries to bound experience
Some battles won. Pride, but little joy
War not. War is experienced; not won or lost
Expression is experience. Experience is expression
All a storm in a teacup

-Vijay Ganti