Data Circle

Google have recently launched a new tool for searching through the massive repositories of source code available on the Internet, though with the rather unimaginative name of Google Code Search.

I’m particularly impressed that the search includes CVS and Subversion repositories, as this is far more useful than a general Google search which would only really cover code embedded in web pages or perhaps PDF/Word documents. Being able to use regular expressions and restrict searches to particular licences, files and packages is also highly useful.

Further information

• Search the world’s public source code

The news all over the web today (apart from the Apple announcements, which I’ll get to later today I hope) is that Fox Interactive and Google have signed a $900 million deal for the provision of search and advertising technologies across most of Fox’s sites, including of course the hideous but popular MySpace.

The question is, how good a deal is this for News Corporation and Google? From Murdoch’s perspective, it gives him a large injection of cash, possibly enough to buy up another web property such as YouTube. Speculation over such an acquisition have been doing the rounds for some time, but the sticking point appeared to be how to finance the deal—now Murdoch has the money to potentially buy up a few more sites using cash rather than shares.

From Google’s point of view, they must obviously think that there is more than $900 million of advertising revenue in the deal. The other possible reason is to convert MySpace users from MSN or Yahoo—after all, if a site you visit every day uses one search engine are you really going to bother using another one for your other web searches? Overall, however, I think this is a better deal for News Corp than it is for Google, as I believe the latter will struggle to generate advertising revenues from MySpace where I suspect click-through rates are rather low. On the other hand, it would appear from some of the reports that the deal is based on revenue sharing, so perhaps it’s not quite as big a gamble for Google as it would first appear.

Further coverage

• Official News Corp press release
• Fox: $1 billion Search Deal with Google
• Google will power Fox Interactive search and advertising through 2010
• Google signs $900m News Corp deal
• News Corp, Google Deal Deconstructed

Google announced today that they would be adding yet another branch to their wide array of existing services with the launch of Google Checkout, “a checkout option that makes buying across the web fast and easy”.

At first glance, this service seems like a good idea. I’m sure everyone who has made online purchases from several different retailers knows the problems involved in trying to keep track of a different login for each site, not to mention trying to remember when each product is being shipped. It also seems like offering a good deal to retailers, as they get free processing of payments based on how much they spend with Google AdWords. Obviously Google is hoping that this will provide an incentive for advertisers to spend more on this service, so it looks like it’s complementing Google’s core revenue stream rather than being launched as a money making service in its own right.

However, my primary concern about this service is the fact that Google will keep a record of all your transactions made through the checkout system, including what items you’ve bought and where they’ve been shipped to. I’m sure I’m not the only person who thinks that putting all of this personal information into the hands of one company is a fundamentally bad idea. Google promise that they won’t share this information with sellers, but there doesn’t appear to be anything to stop them from using it in other ways. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid, but I really don’t like the thought of Google having a record of everything I’ve bought online and then using that information for nefarious purposes (I’m not saying that they will, only that the capability is there).

Further coverage

• Google launches payment service at BBC News – Business
• Google Launches Checkout, not the Rumored GBuy at Search Engine Watch

The Summer of Code 2006 at Google Code Blog

Following the success of last year’s Summer of Code competition, in which Google and other organisations sponsor students around the world to complete programming projects. Stipends of $4500 were available last year to students who successfully completed their assignments, and whilst that doesn’t sound like a lot it’s a good way to earn a living over the summer vacation whilst working on something that you’re interested in,, plus who knows where the experience may lead – a completed project could impress a mentoring organisation enough for them to offer you a job after graduation. The code is usually released under some form of open source license as well, so everyone benefits.

More details can be found on the Summer of Code web site.

Further coverage

• Summer of Code 2006 is On at Slashdot

Rumours of a Google calendar service have been doing the rounds for some time, but as of today the service has been properly launched under the unassuming name of Google Calendar. The calendar service is apparently tied into Gmail, although I’ve not managed to figure out quite how this works yet.

To be honest though, I’m surprised that it’s taken Google so long to launch this service. Yahoo! have offered a calendar service since 1998, and given how many boffins Google employs I would have thought they could have got some form of calendar service up and running before now. There is some interesting stuff involving natural language processing though – apparently you can specify “lunch on Sunday at 1pm” and the service will interpret that correctly. Since natural language processing is a real pain to get right (I’ve only covered a tiny amount of it in my degree course, and believe me it’s not easy) I’m prepared to cut them a bit of slack. I’m also somewhat surprised that support for syncronising calendars with external programs such as Outlook hasn’t been implemented as I suspect this would be an extremely useful feature for many people.

Further coverage

• Google acts to organise your life at BBC News – Technology
• Google Calendar Almost There at GigaOM
• Google unveils Web-based calendar app at News.com
• Google Opens Calendar Beta at Beta News
• Google unveils Web-based calendar app at ZDNet
• Google Calendar at Slashdot
• It’s about time at Official Google Blog

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

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