Data Circle

Google launches personal finance site via Niall Kennedy

In their neverending release of new sites, Google has launched Google Finance, which is basically a search engine for financial information. There’s some pretty impressive graphs of previous stock prices that you can rollover to get more information at any given point, plus lots of core data on the company that you’re interested in. It’s not just limited to public companies as well, you can also view information about companies such as Transitive, although obviously their accounts aren’t public so there’s less data for Google to display. Alongside each company profile are links to news stories about the business and also any blog posts which might be related.

The main let down with Google Finance is that it will only display graphs for companies listed on US stock exchanges (such as the NYSE, but I imagine there will be other national versions available at some point. There also isn’t any new information available – it’s just a way of viewing several features that already existed in Google before, albeit with a bit more jazz and a clean layout. Smaller companies are missing too – I couldn’t find any details on the places I’ve worked in the past.

Further coverage

• Spring is the season for love (and data) at Official Google Blog
• Google Cashes in with Finance Portal at Beta News
• Google Finance Beta Released at Slashdot
• Google Rolls Out Finance Site at Forbes.com
• Google Finance Disappoints at GigaOM

Support the K3b developers via KDE.News

Sebastian Trueg, the lead developer of the K3b CD burner for Linux, is asking for donations to help towards the purchase of new hardware to help with the continuing development of the software. K3b is one of those “essential” applications that I always install on a desktop Linux system, so I hope it gets the funding it needs.

evolt.org, one of the sites that I’ve been a regular visitor of since my early days of browsing, has announced a contest to design a new look for its web site. There’s a long list of requirements, but they all seem fairly sensible and are mainly there to ensure that any design submitted doesn’t require a huge backend change or anything like that.

Unfortunately my design skills aren’t quite up to creating something that evolt could use, but I am on the Design and Development group that will decide which design is chosen as the winner.

BT has announced that it will be upgrading over five thousand exchanges in the coming months, allowing broadband users to access speeds of up to 8Mb/s. Actual speeds will depend, as usual, on the distance between the user and their local exchange, but BT estimates that 78% of its users will be able to access services providing 4Mb/s, and 42% of homes will have access to speeds of 6Mb/s or greater.

Although I’ve never really felt the need for a connection faster than 1Mb/s (in fact I’m on 512Kb/s at the moment and it’s fast enough for most of what I do), I’ve certainly no objection to increased speeds, and I suspect that they’ll be needed if technologies such as video on demand and live television over the Internet are to take off.

Media coverage

• BT ‘quadruples’ broadband speeds at BBC News – Technology
• BT to offer broadband up to 8MB at Guardian Unlimited – Technology

After failing to meet analysts’ expectations of quarterly results a couple of weeks ago, Google has faced further damage to its share price after the company’s Chief Financial Officer, George Reyes, admitted that growth at the company was slowing. The main reason given was the company’s reliance on online advertising and the lack of other revenue sources to be exploited.

To be honest, this news doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. I don’t think the current price of Google’s shares is an accurate representation of what the company is worth, even when you take into account future growth prospects. Compared to other companies of similar value, Google is relatively small and immature, although neither of those factors are necessarily disadvantages for the company.

I also think that Google have put all their eggs into one basket to an extent, because over 90% of their revenue is derived from online advertising. I’ve no doubt that Google are currently the market leaders in that area, but what happens when Yahoo and MSN launch their new advertising products, both expected later this year? Google might be a big player, but Yahoo has been around longer and still has a lot of clout in the search engine market. Also, let us not forget how deep Microsoft’s pockets are – they can afford to throw a lot of money at trying to beat Google at its own game.

Although I think Google should probably try to diversify its current offerings slightly and grow organically, I suspect that with their $6 billion stockpile of cash the company will almost certainly continue to grow through acquisitions. I’m somewhat curious as to how they will do this, or more specifically which companies they will buy – at a guess I think Google is most likely to try and sew up one area of the market at a time (at least that would be the most sensible direction), e.g. by buying up syndication services such as FeedBurner.

Of course I’m not a qualified economist, and none of this should be taken as advice on whether to invest your hard earned money in Google or another company.

Media coverage

• Our growth is slowing, Google admits at Guardian Unlimited – Technology
• Google CFO Sees Slowing Growth at Beta News
• Google shares fall on slow growth at BBC News – Business

Other resources

• Google Corporate Information : George Reyes
• Wikipedia article about George Reyes