Voices

Ring, Ring. Hi, It's Google

Google Inc., which helped popularize the idea of automated ad sales on the Web, has been quietly turning to an old-fashioned tool–phone calls–to compete in the hot market for local business advertising.

CEO: SecondMarket Is a Return to Old-Fashioned Investing

Today’s stock markets have “a casino-type mentality” driven by factors like the rise of automated trading and shorter-term average holding periods. People don’t take the time to do research and really get to know a company before they invest in it, in the opinion of SecondMarket founder and CEO Barry Silbert. He thinks SecondMarket–best known for its facilitation of trading of private tech company stock–is a way to bring back a human touch. SecondMarket doesn’t necessarily replace an IPO. But for companies like Facebook, LinkedIn and eSolar, SecondMarket trading slots into a pre-IPO dead zone driven by the longer average time to a public offering–now something like 8.8 years.

News Byte

Google Puts the "Auto" in Automobile

Google is all about searching, and among the many things it’s searching for are ways to improve car safety and traffic problems. And to that end, the company has been testing a remarkable bit of technology–automated autos capable of driving in traffic. The Goomobiles have been cruising around California, guided by a combination of video, radar, laser rangefinder and detailed maps (and occupied by by a driver and software engineer for backup). Google figures such technology can cut accidents, boost car sharing, reduce traffic and free up more productive time for the occupants of such vehicles, once they learn to relax.

What if Facebook Ever Got Serious About Becoming a News Aggregation Vampire? Well, It Would Be a Sparkly One!

Here are two quotes that got me thinking about what would happen if Facebook–whose user base is inexorably marching toward 400 million–ever got serious about the news aggregation business. While it is not doing that now in any organized fashion, it will be increasingly obvious that consumers are inevitably moving away from the only-search paradigm to that of discovery through social and other jacked-up affiliation networks.

Voices

Hearst Launches Aggregator Site LMK

Hearst today launched LMK.com, a low-cost Web roundup on topics from college football to reality television. (For the youth-challenged, “LMK” is the texting shorthand for “let me know.”) LMK joins a crowded field of aggregation sites, which cull news and information from across the Web and organize them by topic or in other user-friendly ways. Other aggregators include Topix, Newser and Daylife, and sites like the Daily Beast that combine aggregation with their own content.

Google TV Takes Another Baby Step

Google has already shut down its radio and print advertising programs–because “they didn’t work well enough,” in CEO Eric Schmidt’s words. But the company is still hoping that its foray into TV pans out. Latest (small) milestone: The search giant is boasting that it has gotten marketers to commit “upwards of seven figures to buy ads” through its automated system.
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