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Stephen E. Arnold
Google
Version 2.0
The Calculating Predator
This is the first time someone has made a detailed study of
the major patents held by Google and has extrapolated the company's
possible business strategies. Traditionally, it has been difficult
to get to grips with what Google is. The company is not
specifically secretive; rather, it is unforthcoming about its
aims, plans, strategies and ambitions. "Provide access to
the world's knowledge" is about as focused an articulation
of mission as one can get from the Google people. No big PR puffs;
no in-depth briefings. And, from a quick outside perusal, the
company seems to dabble in all sorts of technology areas and
buy up all sorts of high-tech companies, which makes measuring
progress or evaluating strategic orientation somewhat difficult.
Stephen Arnold, in this successor
to "The Google
Legacy", concentrates on analysing Google's potential
via a study of the company's intellectual property (patents).
Google is a company of engineers and mathematicians, not a company
of sales, promotion and legal wizards. Mathematics is
the foundation of Google's wizardry and, as analysed by Arnold
in this new study, the Googleplex is a wondrous construct
that gives Google a major competitive advantage in a wide variety
of possible fields: enterprise services and computing, web and
enterprise search, publishing, banking, advertising, telecommunications.
The Googleplex can crunch, analyse and extrapolate rapidly,
intelligently and economically from extremely large quantities
of data. The owners of such a machine can test and probe a variety
of markets, and their existing base income from advertising gives
them billions of dollars to use in their probes and explorations.
"Innovation at Google is the fuel needed to power the Googleplex
and to satisfy Google's hunger for ever more powerful, capable
systems and software," explains Arnold. "Google, unlike
Amazon or Yahoo, is built on mathematics, not engineering".
This major new study of Google concentrates on deriving information
about the company from an analysis of its key patents. These
patents are often difficult to discover, since Google rarely
files under the Google name; an exhaustive hunt of some of the
key Google technical staff is required in order to unearth many
of the patents held by Google. "I have a keen awareness
of Google's transformation from a search company to a digital
Exxon or Wal*Mart," writes Stephen Arnold in the current
study. "These are companies that operate at a scale that
their competitors cannot easily match. If Google can continue
its upward trajectory, it will emerge as a genetic variant of
the multi-national corporation or what I call a supra-national
enterprise."
Who should read this new analysis?
Google's potential is great, and The Googleplex is certainly
not destined to remain an engine solely for crunching data in
the fields of search and advertising.
The list of those who need to understand Google and its potential
includes:
- investment analysts, financial advisers
- search and software developers
- suppliers of corporate IT services and software
- banking and financial companies
- telecommunication suppliers
- publishing and information industry strategists
- government advisers and analysts
Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator (Infonortics,
Tetbury, England; October 2007).
Available in online PDF download version only; US$640
/ €460; approx. 270 pages. Site licenses on application
to harry.collier [at] infonortics.com
Contents
Preface  (online
sample chapter)
Mathematicians and Strategists
Calculate
Pragmatism and Cleverness: Obviously Rational Behavior
Flying with Open Source Instruments
The Google Stack: A New Type of Operating System Arrives
Upside and Downside of Google’s Dominance
Google beyond 2007
Google’s Database Technology
The Database Problem
Bigtable: A Spreadsheet on Steroids
The Sources of Information
Selected Google Database Terminology
Selected Operational Details
Tablets
Columns
Rows
Chubby: More than Database Locking
Sawzall: A Google Power Tool
Selected Database Patents
US 7107419 Systems and Methods
for Performing Record Append
US 7068192 Encoding and Decoding Variable-Length Data
US 2006 0036593 Query Processing and Tokenspace Repository
US 7065618 Leasing Scheme for Data Modifying Operations
US 7174346 Searching an Extended Database
Digital Ninjas: Competing with
Smarter Software
Seizing the Initiative
The StumbleUpon.com Case
Building Block Applications
Knowledgebases
Buy and Integrate Other People’s Technology
Digging into Google’s Usage Tracking Technology
The User Data Inventions
US 20020123988 Usage Statistics in Document Retrieval
US 20060224583 Analyzing a User’s Web History
What Competitors See
Dispersion
What Happens When There’s Traction
Unpredictable and Asymmetric Actions
Perceiving the “Real” Google
Brin-Page Patents: Tech Sign Posts
Voice Search: Eight Years in the Making
What’s a Priority?
What Do These Patents Reveal?
Signals of Key Developments
to Come
Key Themes
Brin-Page Invention Themes
US 6285999, US7058628, US6799176: Crown Jewels for Google Version
1.0
US 6678681 Information Extraction from a Database
US 7027987 Voice Interface for a Search Engine
US 20040122811 Method for Searching Media
Implications of Foundation Patents
Brin-Page Patent Applications and Patents
Google Patents from August 2005–March
2007
Google Patents: 1998 to 2004
Google Patents: 2005 to June 30, 2007
The Patterson Cluster: One Invention Writ Large
Value-Added Text Processing
The Invention
Some Mechanics
Applications
The Koningstein Inventions: A Web of Cleverness
US 200601499625 Targeting Information
US 20060149710 Associating Features
US 20050228797 Targeting Criteria for Advertisers
US 20060224444 Social Brokering of Advertisers and Agents
US 20060224447 Automated Offer Management
A Quick Recap of the Koningstein Inventions
What Can We Learn from Google Patents?
Achieving $100 Billion in Revenues
Beyond Advertising
The Google Mart (G*Mart)
US 7089237 Commerce Activities
Google Bank
What’s a Bank?
US 20060080238 Micro-Payment System Architecture
The Google Telco: GTT
Patent US 6982945 Baseband Transceiver
What’s the Telco Play?
Google Enterprise Services
Patent 7142536 Network Quality
of Service
Money in Search Plus Higher-Value Services
Google Entertainment and Publishing
US 20050038775 Multiple Sets
of Search Results
Google and Multimedia
Google and the Programmable Search
Engine
Some Definitions
Semantic Web: One Big Database
Vertical Content and Search: The Collection
Web Services
The Problems with Google Indexing
The SEO Problem: You Can Fool
Google
The Vertical Search Problem: Databases Aren’t Static Web
Pages
The Advertising Problem: Advertisers Want Message Precision
The Google Solution
What Is Google’s Programmable Search Engine?
PSE: Outsiders Can Influence
the Functions of the PSE
Google Version 1.0 Compared to Version 2.0
Differences between Google PageRank and Google PSE Systems
The Guha Patent Applications
US 2007 0038616 Programmable
Search Engine
The Notion of Context
A Closer Look at Context Files
Who Controls Context Files?
What’s in a Context File?
Making Use of Metadata Labels
Making the Smart Hookups
The Content Warehouse
The Gestalt of the PSE System
US 2007 0038601 Aggregating Context Data
US 2007 0038603 Sharing Context Data
US 2007 0038600 Detecting Spam-Related and Biased Contents
US 2007 0038614 Generating and Presenting Advertisements
Enterprise Applications
An “Interesting Problem”
The Competitors and the Appliance
The Appliance’s Track Record
Enterprise Search Market Size
What will Google Sell to the Enterprise?
The Appliance and OneBox API as Plow Horses
The Google Value Proposition
Appliance 2007
The Secret Sauce: The OneBox API
Selected Recent Appliance Enhancements
Direct Support for Selected Enterprise Applications
Making the Appliance More “Interesting”
US 20070005568 Determination
of a Desired Repository
The Problem the Invention Solves
Search without Searching
Other Features of the Invention
How the Appliance and US 20070005568 Can Interoperate
What If Google “Glues” the Invention to the Appliance?
The Emergence of the Google Virtual Machine
Containers and the Enterprise
Broad Features of the Container
Patent Applications
US 2007 0136337 Module Specification for a Container Document
US 2007 0136201 User Preferences in Containers
US2007 0136443 Proxy Server
The Future Comes into Focus
Stepping Back: What are the implications?
Google as Publisher
Google’s Publishing Advantages: Cost and Automation
Publishing: Another Function
for the “As Is” Googleplex
Selected Publishing Inventions
US 20050240580 Personalization
of Placed Content Ordering
US 20070044086: Plug-In Modules
Cost Trumps White Shoes
Unasked Questions: 2002
Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
An Implicit Threat
Thwarting Google – Is It Possible?
Slowing Google
Google’s High-Profile Competitors
Amazon
Microsoft
Yahoo
What Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo Must Address
Will a Microsoft-Yahoo Tie-Up Stop Google?
Can IBM, Oracle, or Verizon Thwart
Google?
Path Dependency: Change Is Hard
for Big Companies
IBM
Oracle
Verizon
Perceiving Google Accurately
US 20050216434 Variable Personalization
Google: Intelligence, Opportunism and Luck
Stopping the Juggernaut
Misdirection
Agility
Focus
Looking Ahead
A New Type of Company
A Checklist of “Interesting
Problems”
What Google Has in Operation Now
Cost Control
Big Data Means Petabyte Scale and Beyond
Low-Friction Innovation: Channeling Innovation
Next-Generation Computing
Cloud Computing
Global Reach
Brand
Products and Services
Cost
Characteristics of the Supranational Corporation
Three Plays to Watch in 2008
Google and Nation States
Money on the Table: Google Has Little Choice about Enterprise
Services
The Privacy-Copyright Timebomb
Pragmatic Responses: What Your Company Could Do
Surfing on Google
Developer Play
Partner Play
Avoiding Google’s Claws
Surf on Google: Ride the Wave to Revenue
Questionable Responses
Ignoring Google
Fighting Google Directly
2007 and Beyond
Index
Size, price, availability
This publication is available in PDF (printable) form as a
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of text. On receipt of the order form and payment, purchasers
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rights are the property of Infonortics Ltd.
Price for one-time download is US$640 or €460
euros. Passwords and access codes will be communicated via
email. Site licenses on application to
harry.collier [at] infonortics.com
The author and publisher reserve the right to change or update
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