:: Sense - The Way I Sense ::

I’d taken a self-professed oath that I wouldn’t blog on google for a few days. But hafta break that. WSJ has this op-ed praising google. The commentary basically extols all that is good in google, identifying the usual culpris of 20% time, flat hierarchy and the like. Nothing unusual. But what’s surprising is the author himself. He of core competence fame, Gary Hamel ! Now. Hamel is universally acknowledged as a guru in strategy and for his varied theories. As such seeing someone of his stature going overboard on google definitely is surprising. While google surely has a lot of things going for it, it also is having to contend with more than its share of business dilemmas. Ofcourse, sitting on huge piles of cash does help in allaying fears The Op-ed immediately saw more than its fair share of criticism… Paul kedrosky of Infectious Greed and Om Malik of Gigaom, have both pointed out the pointlessness of Hamel’s over-the-board praise…Google’s good. It might be a damn good company. But end-of-day, it still is a company with a set of disparate products that needs to identify ways of generating more money and increase shareholder value. In all this web 2.0 rush, viewing every other development/company through a google-tainted lens, isn’t exactly the ideal situation. I may be weak in identifying core competencies of companies, but for a person like Gary Hamel to be dishing out unreserved praise for a company whose core competency, to date, seems to be to not have one, is pretty interesting

And yea, the customary launch of a new product by google is here.

ps: Amazing quote by Hamel in that piece , While fidelity is a virtue in marriage, it’s a handicap in business.

Yep. Thats what it looks like to me atleast. Since ebay purchased skype for an astronomical sum, concerns have been expressed at how ebay is likely to look towards monetizing it and creating revenue streams. Yesterday’s news saw Skype’s proposal to come up with ringtones from various music publishers for its online VoIP service. Yea, sure looks a different revenue stream, but I would like to look at it as the first signs of shaky legs ! Goes to show how millions of people making calls at a pittance ain’t exactly the panacea for profitability, there’s more than meets the eye ! And giving further substance to these signs is a report suggesting that ebay is in talks with Y! and Microsoft in order to identify a suitable ally to combat Google ! Sure is a jittery business environment for these companies where their thrust is in identifying how to survive till tomorrow rather than how to make money today

There has been some considerable keystrokes spent on bloggers and making money off blogs in the recent days…Infact, today’s WSJ has a good face-off between Alan of Jupitermedia and Jason of Weblogs. Interesting to see their contrasting viewpoints. While Alan feels blog networks are the only way of making *any* significant amounts of monies, Jason begs to differ. And with good reason. With an analyst from Jupiter coming up with an estimate that says the online advertising market is set to expand close to $19billion by 2010, even a small portion of that would seem a sizeable amount for the active bloggers to sit up and take notice. Ofcourse, it all depends on what you define as a blogger and an active blogger. Sites like technorati/sphere/intelliseek and others might want you to believe they track millions of ‘em. Fair estimates do not put active bloggers even in the double digit percentages of that….So, there might be some money at the end of it all. And ofcourse, success of Adsense sure has spawned many other similar networks (chitika et al)…And your friendly neighbourhood get-rich-quick schemes just got a shot in the arm

Now combine these findings with another report in Guardian, again based on research by Jupiter, that bloggers are increasingly exerting a “disproportionately large influence” on today’s society. While, that may seem preposterous at face value, there might be some truth to it somewhere down the line. While it currently may not be a given that organizations *need* blogs or need to heed blogs, the days are definitely not far off when they are going to adapt to the same.

On a related note, check this good link-out post at scobleizer on blogging and careers. Yes, blogging can get you a new job. We are almost there, not yet

Work’s been keeping me slightly busy of late. However, the interesting part of the work has been the sides of technology that I was exposed to. Discussing next generation display technologies that curve/fold and don’t need any lighting sure is more a pleasure than a pain And g00gle’s product launches/acquisitions have become as frequent  as my blog posts ! Calendar is next in line and as of now, definitely looks swell. Been wanting a good online calendar that would integrate well with my email for a while now. Y! sure did have one but with the amount of ads and the clumsy interface, it was a pain…If Y! doesn’t invite me pretty soon to their email beta, I am pretty close to switching over to gmail as primary email soon And it sure takes google that much closer to a complete portal, which many have been wondering, if, and when, it will take place….And that sure is big sign for Y! and M$ to sit up and take notice… An umbrella interface isn’t the only characteristic of a portal, you sure can have one with multiple entry points, and yet have an unassuming look…