Is Google Invincible?

Google is powerful. Of course. But is it invincible? According to Hitwise, Google accounted for 64.49% of all U.S. Searches in the four weeks ending October 27, 2007. According to RimmKaufman, Google controls 79% of the pay-per-click ad market. Google derives 99% of its revenue from advertising.

Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

As we have discussed, Online Travel is a large category, and active in entrepreneurship. Web 1.0 produced giant companies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline), and in Web 2.0 we have a couple of vertical search engines that are pulling ahead. Kayak, the world’s largest travel search engine, receives more than 6 million unique visitors per month.

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Web 3.0 & Google (Part 3)

Web 3.0 Framework discussion Below is a quick overview of the Web 3.0 framework for the Google sites. This is, in fact, an interesting analysis, since Google’s horizontal approach is pretty much against the grain of the vertical nature of my Web 3.0 framework.

Vertical Ad Networks: A Trend to Watch for 2008

I talked about Audience Fragmentation and the Rise of Ad Networks recently. At the moment, the Ad Networks are in the business of amassing large volumes of fragmented traffic, and offering a channel to advertisers to access the publishers who own this traffic. Expect, in 2008, a trend towards these “mass” Ad Networks gradually becoming

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Casual Games – Everyone Can Play

By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author By now, many of you have undoubtedly heard of casual games as part of a revolutionary change in the way people play. Casual games have evolved from their humble origins as “interstitial entertainment” to take their place alongside the biggest segments of the industry as a $2Bn+ category in its

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Web 3.0 & Yahoo! (Part 4)

Acquisition Strategy Yahoo! has made several acquisitions this year, primarily in display advertising. The key acquisitions were MyBlogLog, Right Media, BuzzTracker, Rivals.com, Zimbra and BlueLithium. Of these, RightMedia and Blue Lithium are good moves to consolidate its Ad Networks position, but Zimbra, in my opinion, is not a good acquisition. I feel Yahoo! can improve

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Audience Fragmentation

Here are a couple of charts from Imran again, showing Audience trends for big portals: “While portals were once the dominant source of news and information, Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft only accounted for ~29% of total minutes spent online in August 2007 vs. 42% in 2002. A similar trend can be seen in page views

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Google Loses a Great Executive

I have been a violent critic of Google AdSense, but not of its product manager, Gokul Rajaram, who I think is a great guy. It looks like Gokul is leaving Google, and venturing out on his own. My AdSense posts: * Google Great at Monetizing Crap * Google’s AdSense Revenues Vulnerable * Watch Out Google,

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