Gooooooooooogle

Google – the miraculous word...Google has reached basically every corner of this world and has been even integrated into our daily vocabulary. Nowadays people “google” for information in the world wide web – meaning: Google has become the synonym for obtaining information – actually for all online search engines. Even though there are other providers, no one has reached the same scale of success like this American Inc. It has clearly a monopoly position.

Google was founded in 1998 by the two “Google Guys” Larry Page and Sergey Brin and has experienced unbelievable boom. According to Millward Brown Optimor BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report Google is the “world's most valuable brand” (http://www.news.com.au/business/google-worlds-most-valuable-brand-millward-brown-optimor-survey-finds/story-e6frfm1i-1225859877377) - it is worth $US114 billion.

A crazy amount of money – 114 billion US Dollars, which are almost 93 billion Euros. Respect “Google Guys”, respect! But at the same time it is not surprising: they manage to reinvent themselves over and over again, and that is, I believe, one major key aspect in their self definition. One might thin to himself, it is only a search engine, what else can they offer, and how in the world can they make money of it?! Well, with never-ending new features, topics and endless products.

When thinking about Google, I guess many people have the same first association. Wow, even though I don't really understand what they are doing all day long, if I only could work for Google. At least that is how I react. Anyone who has ever seen pictures of Google offices all over the world or has heard that their employees are spoiled with Gourmet food every day or has read ratings about the happiest workers, shares my longing and knows that Google is a pretty good address to work in. So one more important point here – Google is a greenhouse for innovators. By supplying their employees all basic (and way beyond) needs, Google is making sure that they will all be focusing on one thing – Innovation.

If one tries to broaden one's own ignorance and narrowness and read about what Google is actually doing, one will find a pretty funny description about their technology published by Google themselves. They claim to have the fastest and most intelligent pigeons, who are picking words for every search entry. They go on by explaining exactly how the system “PigeonRank” (what might be more familiar to you as the PageRank) was developed, why it is so efficient and why the pigeons are smart. The final part, where they describe how they choose them, under which living conditions the birds are kept and how they estimate the future of this strategy, it gets funny. Here take a look yourselves: http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

Until now everything that I wrote was rather positive – rather is probably an underestimation, ok – it is clearly an underestimation – Yes, I WANT TO WORK FOR GOOGLE. But when writing about them, I should stay as neutral as possible and also discuss shortly the criticism Google has experienced regarding its privacy settings.

A few months ago Google introduced its newest product – its answer to Facebook – called Buzz. Well, you all know my attitude towards Facebook already, so I guess I don't have to add all the critical points that I mentioned in my blog a few weeks ago. So Buzz is basically a social network that was about to reveal everything that gmail users were doing. “One problem that immediately caused concern was Google's decision to automatically give users a ready-made circle of friends based on the people they most frequently e-mailed. Unless users changed settings in their profile, this list could automatically be made public, allowing anyone to see who a user corresponded with most frequently.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8517613.stm) Not the best situation for a cheating wife or husband but surely also pretty problematic for e.g. Chinese opposition members. Not surprising, Google reacted fast to these critics and promised changes. Since I haven't used Buzz myself I cannot tell if it is true or not or better than Facebook or not. That leads us to the big question whether we really want Google to have so much information about us. Do we have a choice? Personally I dont see any problem with that and until now I was not effected by it (at least to my knowledge) but I would argue that if Google makes use of this information in making money it becomes more complicated, and perhaps not fair. S as I said, I would like to work or them one day so I will stop here and let you check this short movie. A bit to paranoid to my taste, you will be the judge of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNofb-OlZyQ

What I know is that we are all longing for exposing ourselves to everyone at every time – if it is with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or Buzz – who cares. We spend hours and hours following other people's lives, “poking them” (whatever that means) or playing some weird farm game, which I hope does not have a negative impact on our IQ. In short, we spend too much time with these online networks or in the world wide web in general. And before I am starting to repeat myself again, I prefer getting to an end with this blog and spend a little time with my wife. Do the same or read a nice book for a change (:

Cause the times they are changing...or maybe not?

"Microsoft it's not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness" (Bill Gates)

It's hard to think of a sentence which will steer the blood in so many people's veins. Microsoft has done almost all it could in order to state itself as a monopoly. By coming up with updates every other day, which do nothing but raising the chances of your OS to get stuck, again...

It looks, and I do not consider myself as an expert in the field, that the public is slowly getting tired of Microsoft, old and new competitors are starting to appear more and more and their good is all but "not as good as" Microsoft's. Personally, I am user. Yes, I have always been a user and I doubt it if my next computer will not be as well. Why? that is a good question, there are several reasons I think, the price of the ultimate competitor - Apple, is still not as appealing as Microsoft and despite the fact that what you get from Apple is much better, do I really need that? One more reason I think is the fact I am just used to Microsoft and many people would admit that to start "learning" the new computer is not so attractive and sometimes not worth it.

Nevertheless, I believe that Microsoft will continue loosing their power and absolute control over the market unless they would change their attitude and put more effort in pleasing their customers instead of milking them. Even though it's impossible to stay so big and dominant for long, especially in this market, Microsoft can still stay the strongest player cause with one fact you cannot argue - people do not like changes and Microsoft must remember that and take advantage of that.

And one small picture with which most of you could identify...

YV

Foursquare

Hello everyone,

Today's topic will be Foursquare, I guess you have all heard about it, actually who am I kidding, I never heard of this thing and neither most of my classmates. I thought its like a game, made up and played by four nerds, I was wrong, there are much more than just four... but lets be serious, what is behind Foursquare?

After reading about it in the web and checking many blogs which inspired me here, Im not sure I completely understood the entire concept behind it but I will try to explain (and of course, complain...)

Foursquare is a geo-location based, mobile application, which allows users, the ability to check in at any place they are visiting using their mobile phones. This "game" gives its users points for doing so and for checking in identifying new places (didnt really got that part). One big part of it is awarding badges like boy scout's badges, that happens when a user takes actions like checking in to multiple locations in one evening, or checking in to the same place several times in one week. One of Foursquare’s most appealing features is its ‘Mayor’ concept. The person who checks in the most at a certain place is awarded the title of ‘Mayor.’ I guess there is more to it, but for now that will do, cause it leads me to the annoying and pretty much unclear thing in Foursquare.

If we look at it from the location's point of view, its an efficient tool for economic and friendly marketing as more and more users compete over the 'mayor' title in order to earn more points, the locations, business places, see more customers and hopefully more money.

But what is my problem? (well, not really mine, I couldnt care less...)

If I understood correctly, and I think I did, Foursquare created a badge called “Douchebag” - I never heard of that word, so I checked, and thats what I found www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=douchebag . Turns out Douchebag is a derogatory term. I thought Foursquare users should inspire earning Foursquare badges. Now I am sure there are many masochists out there, and Im sure some of them are Foursquare users, but why in the world would anyone want to earn a badge that labels him/her in such way? I don’t understand Foursquare’s way of thinking here. Where does insulting your users and your potential business partners fit in a business plan? you dont need to be an expert to understand it doesnt. The master-minds behind Foursquare seem to have forgot this basic logic rule while coming up with this little weird game.

If I’m missing something here, please fill me in… if I’m not, you know what to do, it’s time to say goodbye your tags and badges!

Till next time,

YV

Hola amigos,

After my last topic, the good and BAD in Facebook, I would lie to draw your attention to a new subject, the GMAT exam.

For most of my readers, that was one step and rather big on their path to IE. It is no secret that recommendation letters, essays and CV are relatively easy to prepare for the admission committee, something you definitely cannot say about the GMAT.

A friend once told me that he sees himself as a different person before and after the exam, and not because of his result, which was "very satisfying", but mainly due to the fact the preparations made him completely nuts.

So do we really need that test? Isn't there any other measurement tool, which can give us a good estimation on the person's qualities rather than how he would react in a life threatening situation (because let's be honest, in high percent of the test takers, vital signs are pretty similar to those of a person dismantling a nuclear bomb – pulse: 170, heart rate: 220 and two liters of pure sweat running down the face). I am not saying lets eliminate the test completely, because it probably has some value but weighing it higher than the personal interview?! Please, MBA students, to my humble opinion, should be more than just a number, especially in a school like IE, where one must express himself and be a team player throughout the year, and with all the respect to the letters and essays, they are much less effective than personal evaluation – where no one can do the job for you…

I am guessing that all of you who got a good grade will say it’s a great tool but don’t you think that if you really want to give someone a test (which I am positive that the GMAC, the wonderful organization which came up with the idea, is regretting for not registering it in the patent office as a 20^th century mental torturing device), you should give him an ideal environment, without a guy who is coughing his lungs out next to you, a girl who tries to make sure everyone around her can hear she is alive by breathing like Darth Vader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader ,and an examiner who secretly wishes to turn you all into Popsicle with a bladder in the size of a tee-bag by setting the AC on 16 degrees. All those can really affect your score, and even after 4 grueling months of studying and preparing yourself, you can still find out that perhaps not all is up to you.

* Based on true stories, which happen to fake people

Until next time,

YV