Sunday, March 7, 2010

Google to Present at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (February 22, 2010) - Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco. The session is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time / 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Monday, March 1, 2010.
Vic Gundotra, Vice President, Engineering, will also participate on a Mobile Internet Discussion Panel at the same conference. The panel discussion is scheduled for 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time / 5:15 p.m. Pacific Time on the same day.
To access the live audio webcast of the session, please visit http://investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Google releases its next-generation ad serving platform for publishers

Key points
  • Google announces upgraded ad serving platform, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP)
  • Part of a full suite of products to help publishers maximize online advertising revenues
  • New DoubleClick logo unveiled
Today, as part of its efforts to help online publishers maximize advertising revenues from their website content, Google announced its upgraded ad serving platform for publishers – DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP).
DFP is a single platform that upgrades and will replace Google's existing ad serving products: DoubleClick's DART for Publishers and Google Ad Manager. The upgraded DFP combines Google's technology and infrastructure with DoubleClick's display advertising and ad serving experience.
For larger online publishers, managing, delivering and measuring the performance of ads can be a hugely complicated process. Major online publishers (including social networks, entertainment sites, portals and news sites) use ad serving to manage the complex process of how and when the ads they have sold appear on their websites.
Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management at Google, said: "Google wants to help online publishers make the most money possible from their content. The upgraded DFP is part of our suite of products that are designed to help online publishers maximize their advertising revenues. Ad serving is the machinery that powers the online advertising world, so improving that technology can put a lot of money in publishers' pockets. This upgraded platform is another major milestone in our continuing investment in the display advertising ecosystem."
The upgraded DFP is part of Google's suite of products – also including AdSense and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange – to help online publishers maximize their advertising revenues across all their ad space, whatever their size and however they choose to sell their ad space.

It includes a wide variety of key features that will help enable publishers to get the most value out of their online content:
  • A new interface that has been completely redesigned to save time and reduce errors.
  • Far more detailed reporting and forecasting data to help publishers understand where their revenue is coming from and what ads are most valuable.
  • Sophisticated algorithms that automatically improve ad performance and delivery.
  • A new, open, public API which enables publishers to build and integrate their own apps with DFP, or integrate apps created for DFP by a growing third-party developer community (apps under development today include sales, order management and workflow tools).
  • Integration with the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange's "dynamic allocation" feature, which maximizes revenue by enabling publishers to open up their ad space to bids from multiple ad networks. Dynamic allocation is described in this document.
DFP comes in two flavors, tailored for different publishers' needs:
  • DFP – for larger online publishers, to which current DART for Publishers customers will be upgraded over the next year.
  • DFP Small Business – a simple, free version designed for growing online publishers, to which we will be upgrading Google Ad Manager customers.
To reflect Google's continued investment in DoubleClick's products and the central role of DoubleClick's technology products within Google's display advertising business, Google is also today unveiling some changes to the DoubleClick logos – including typset changes, incorporating a new "by Google" theme, and retiring the "DART" brand.

Media Contact:
Rob Shilkin
rshilkin@google.com

Friday, March 5, 2010

Google Closes On2 Technologies Acquisition

Mountain View, Calif. (February 19, 2010) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of On2 Technologies, Inc., valued at approximately $124.6 million, after On2's shareholders voted to approve the transaction.   
"We're excited to welcome the On2 team to Google and to continue to enhance the video experience for users on the web," said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "Through rapid innovation in browsers and web standards, the Internet is becoming the leading platform for development. We believe On2's engineering talent and technology will be an incredible asset for us as we work to improve this platform."
Under the terms of the agreement, each outstanding share of On2 common stock will be converted into the right to receive a combination of (a) $0.15 in cash per share, (b) 0.0010 of a share of Google Class A Common Stock and (c) cash payable in lieu of any fractional shares of Google Class A Common Stock.  

Stock Repurchase

Google intends to repurchase in the open market a number of shares equal to the number of shares issued in the transaction.  The repurchase program is expected to commence shortly after the completion of the acquisition. The repurchases will be funded from available working capital.

About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top Web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall Web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

You Tube and The Issue of Inappropriate Content

YouTube has  faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos. Although YouTube's terms of service forbid the uploading of material likely to be considered inappropriate, YouTube does not check every video before it goes online. Controversial areas for videos have included Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough Disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989, conspiracy theories and religion.

YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's terms of service. In July 2008 the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom stated that it was "unimpressed" with YouTube's system for policing its videos, and argued that "Proactive review of content should be standard practice for sites hosting user generated content." YouTube responded by stating: "We have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly. We educate our community on the rules and include a direct link from every YouTube page to make this process as easy as possible for our users. Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly."

Privacy ruling

In July 2008, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The move led to concerns that the viewing habits of individual users could be identified through a combination of their IP addresses and login names. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a set-back to privacy rights".U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton dismissed the privacy concerns as "speculative", and ordered YouTube to hand over documents totalling around 12 terabytes of data. Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request for YouTube to hand over the source code of its search engine system, saying that there was no evidence that YouTube treated videos infringing copyright differently.

Source: Wikipedia

You Tube Content Accessibility

One of the key features of YouTube is the ability of users to view its videos on web pages outside the site. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML, which can be used to embed it on a page outside the YouTube website. This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs.

YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends that they are viewed through its website interface. A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files. Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos. In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.

Platforms

Some smart phones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, dependent on the provider and the data plan. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, and uses RTSP streaming for the video. Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.
Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV and the iPhone. A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos. In January 2009, YouTube launched "YouTube for TV", a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles. In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen.

Source: Wikipedia

You Tube and The Issue of Copyright

YouTube has been criticized for failing to ensure that its videos respect the law of copyright. At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are always shown a screen with the following message:
Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself. The Copyright Tips page and the Community Guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone else's copyright.
Despite this advice, there are still many unauthorized clips from television shows, films and music videos on YouTube. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a takedown notice under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. Viacom, demanding US$1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works". Since Viacom filed its lawsuit, YouTube has introduced a system called Video ID, which checks uploaded videos against a database of copyrighted content with the aim of reducing violations.
In August 2008, a U.S. court ruled in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. that copyright holders cannot order the removal of an online file without first determining whether the posting reflected fair use of the material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who had made a home video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy" and posted the 29-second video on YouTube.

Source: Wikipedia