Hmmm. Think I'll quote that back to him next time I write...
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Friday, 20 February 2009
Eric Schmidt in the latest McKinsey Quarterly
"We also try to look for small companies that we can acquire. Because, often, it's small companies that have the great new ideas. They have gotten started with them but can't really complete them."
Friday, 23 January 2009
Google annotations - a folksonomy to equal Blinkx's algorithms?
In the 'What's new' box of the Google home page is 'Video Annotations' - the ability for users to add background information or comments about individual videos.
A pretty clear attempt, as far as I can see, to get the users to do YouTube's work for them in creating a user-generated taxonomy ('folksonomy') / metadata schema for YouTube videos, thereby saving Google the trouble of doing it themselves. And with 8 hours of video being uploaded every minute of the day and night it's hard to see how Google could do it any other way. Unless of course they were to buy a certain video search company that has software to automatically analyse both speech within a video and what's actually happening in the video frame-by-frame. You couple that software with a server farm and you are able to analyse all those videos as they come in - you then have a massive, automatically-updated index of video content: an index against which you can either place text ads next to the videos or pre-roll/un-roll etc ads within the videos...
A pretty clear attempt, as far as I can see, to get the users to do YouTube's work for them in creating a user-generated taxonomy ('folksonomy') / metadata schema for YouTube videos, thereby saving Google the trouble of doing it themselves. And with 8 hours of video being uploaded every minute of the day and night it's hard to see how Google could do it any other way. Unless of course they were to buy a certain video search company that has software to automatically analyse both speech within a video and what's actually happening in the video frame-by-frame. You couple that software with a server farm and you are able to analyse all those videos as they come in - you then have a massive, automatically-updated index of video content: an index against which you can either place text ads next to the videos or pre-roll/un-roll etc ads within the videos...
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
A roundup of some (not recent) takeover speculations
Blinkx 'good enough to scare Google' [8 June 2008]
"Blinkx recently outpaced Google Video in Britain, and shares jumped last month with rumours that Google was eyeing the company for takeover"
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Yesterday's trading: Microsoft eyes Blinkx [9 May 2007]
"Doctor Mike Lynch was Britain's first software billionaire. His beloved Autonomy flirted with the Footsie during the dotcom boom before falling dramatically out of bed, along with many other techno high-fliers, when the bubble burst in March 2001.
It took some time for him and the company to recover but the shares have doubled since January 2006. Sold down yesterday to 732½p at the outset, they rallied strongly to touch 827p and close 34½p higher at a 800½p amid rumours that US computer giant Microsoft could bid for its Blinkx consumer division before it gets demerged and floated on Aim later this month."
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Rumors: Yahoo's Free VoIP; Google's Free Web Access; Murdoch's Blinkx Buy [August 18 2005]
"And on Monday, Reuters reported that News Corp. is eyeing an acquisition of search provider Blinkx, citing persons close to Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate who told the Los Angeles Times, however, that negotiations with Blinkx were not as far along as Murdoch had implied during an earnings conference call with analysts."
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If all those companies wanted Blinkx then, hard to see why they're not still interested now. 32 million hours of video indexed, over 500 partners, Ad Hoc already released and Transaction Hijacking ready to go (and it should have gone before Christmas, in my opinion) - all that and a share price stubbornly stuck at below a third of its IPO price.
C'mon guys - it's clear that Blinkx management doesn't have a clue about delivering shareholder value (by which I mean a strong and growing share price). Someone bid for this company and put shareholders out of their misery? The buyer wins, shareholders win. the only losers would be Mike Lynch and Blinkx management - but since they've shown not the slightest concern for Blinkx shareholders I can't think of a single reason why I shouldn't reciprocate...
"Blinkx recently outpaced Google Video in Britain, and shares jumped last month with rumours that Google was eyeing the company for takeover"
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Yesterday's trading: Microsoft eyes Blinkx [9 May 2007]
"Doctor Mike Lynch was Britain's first software billionaire. His beloved Autonomy flirted with the Footsie during the dotcom boom before falling dramatically out of bed, along with many other techno high-fliers, when the bubble burst in March 2001.
It took some time for him and the company to recover but the shares have doubled since January 2006. Sold down yesterday to 732½p at the outset, they rallied strongly to touch 827p and close 34½p higher at a 800½p amid rumours that US computer giant Microsoft could bid for its Blinkx consumer division before it gets demerged and floated on Aim later this month."
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Rumors: Yahoo's Free VoIP; Google's Free Web Access; Murdoch's Blinkx Buy [August 18 2005]
"And on Monday, Reuters reported that News Corp. is eyeing an acquisition of search provider Blinkx, citing persons close to Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate who told the Los Angeles Times, however, that negotiations with Blinkx were not as far along as Murdoch had implied during an earnings conference call with analysts."
-----------
If all those companies wanted Blinkx then, hard to see why they're not still interested now. 32 million hours of video indexed, over 500 partners, Ad Hoc already released and Transaction Hijacking ready to go (and it should have gone before Christmas, in my opinion) - all that and a share price stubbornly stuck at below a third of its IPO price.
C'mon guys - it's clear that Blinkx management doesn't have a clue about delivering shareholder value (by which I mean a strong and growing share price). Someone bid for this company and put shareholders out of their misery? The buyer wins, shareholders win. the only losers would be Mike Lynch and Blinkx management - but since they've shown not the slightest concern for Blinkx shareholders I can't think of a single reason why I shouldn't reciprocate...
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