BoomTown » Spock

Google Search Stories–Including Batman!–Or Are They Anti-Bing Commercials in Disguise?

Kara Swisher — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:41:49 +0000

It’s well known that Google doesn’t do much in the way of marketing around its search service.

While you will catch advertising for the Chrome browser or for Android smartphones on the Web, given Google’s huge 70 percent market share in search, it hardly needs to attract users.

So, then, what is one to make of a series of new videos, which look suspiciously like commercials, that Google (GOOG) launched late last week on its blog and posted on a new channel on YouTube?

Called “Search Stories,” there are a half-dozen of the short videos, some more adorkable than others, which star the main search box.

One thing they have in common is that they have the look and feel of a marketing campaign, with the tag line “Search on.”

They also stress a variety of Google products, such as mapping, video, price comparisons, email and more.

One imagines what pre-Batman Bruce Wayne would look for, complete with ominous music, including search terms such as “coping with loss,” “flexible kevlar” and “gotham city crime statistics.”

Another video, called “Newbie,” has a grandmother searching on “keeping in touch with grandkids” and–in a clever dig at the MySpace and Facebook social networking services–“what is myfacebook,” which gets corrected by Google to “what is facebook.”

Could it be that the $100 million marketing push Microsoft (MSFT) launched for its Bing search service, which seems to be slowly gaining share, is starting to get on the nerves of those Spocks in Silicon Valley?

Not that Google would admit this, instead simply saying it was feeling all warm and fuzzy and so decided to make some kids-let’s-put-on-a-show videos.

Wrote Robert Wong of Google Creative Lab in a blog post, in part:

Because while we’re proud of the innovations we’re making in search, we’re proudest of the things people use search to accomplish. In other words, the best search results don’t show up on a webpage–they show up in somebody’s life.

So in that spirit, we made a bunch of videos. There’s one about grandma dipping her toe into technology. One about friends taking a Kerouac inspired road trip. And yes, there’s even one about Bruce Wayne.

Judge for yourself–here they all are:

Parisian Love

Mad to Live

Batman

Newbie

Potholes

High School

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Author Ken Auletta Talks About Google and Its "Lack of Emotional Intelligence"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:50:35 +0000

Guess what? Google has too many Spocks and not enough Captain Kirks.

This is one of the many interesting insights BoomTown gleaned from a video interview last night–which you can see below–with well-known New Yorker scribe Ken Auletta, who has just written a new book, “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.”

This “lack of emotional intelligence” at the search giant, said Auletta, reminded him a lot of the subject of one of his previous books: Microsoft (MSFT).

Oh, the delicious irony!

Auletta was feted at a lovely party last night at the San Francisco house of Common Sense Media’s Jim Steyer, where a range of Google (GOOG) execs, Internet folks and fans gathered to talk about the book.

It’s all about Google, its history and, most important, its impact on the world. And how you look at the powerful search giant depends entirely on whether you are the changer or the changed, as Auletta stresses in multiple anecdotes in the book.

Traditional media, for example, have certainly been mucho irked of late about the impact of digital technologies on their businesses and have not been shy about casting blame most heapingly on Google’s Silicon Valley plate.

And government regulators are also giving the company the hairy eyeball, much as they had previously done to Microsoft.

Auletta and I talked about all of this and more in the video interview below, in which he notes that he told Googlers at a talk at their adorkable Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday that they need to focus less on being engineering brainiacs and more on trying to understand how to deal with fears of their growing power.

Here’s my interview with Auletta about this, as well as what old media needs to do to deal with all the change Google has wrought. (And you can see interviews I did with guests at the party, too).

And below that is one of the disturbing number of mash-up music videos about “Star Trek” buddies, the highly illogical Kirk and the Vulcanish Spock, the geek bromance of all time.

[ See post to watch video ]

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Online Video: How Did BoomTown Leave Out the Trekkies?

Kara Swisher — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:37:02 +0000

After posting the hot new trailer for the fourth in the cyborg series, “Terminator Salvation,” yesterday, someone pointed out BoomTown was remiss in not including the one for the new “Star Trek” movie.

No longer!

“Star Trek” is out in May and will look at the early lives of James Tiberius Kirk and his sidekick and Vulcan-phenom, Spock, along with the rest of the future crew of the Starship Enterprise.

It’s directed by J.J. Abrams and looks really good, with the best opening I have seen in a trailer thus far.

Here it is:

Yahoogle Countdown–Will It Blow Up, Get Neutered, Go Judge Judy or Move Forward?

Kara Swisher — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:00:36 +0000

MySpace Countdown Clocks

The election is not the only event with only days to go–a move in face-off Yahoo and Google are in with the Justice Department over their controversial search advertising partnership will have an outcome, sources close to all sides said, before the next President is chosen.

Thus, I predict news either tomorrow or Monday.

Why? Well, campaign news will surely drown out any attention any development might get, of course.

But, actually, for more obvious reasons: Whoever is elected, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Thomas Barnett, will be leaving that post sometime after the Nov. 4 election.

Thus, Barnett and his team are likely–after all this noise–to want to take action of some sort before he becomes, in essence, a lame duck.

Of course, it is ironic that, as the clock counts down the last minutes, a regulator not regarded as a very effective trustbuster and who has taken a mostly hands-off attitude toward meddling with businesses, could launch a lawsuit against the most powerful Internet company in the world.

Or not.

Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG) and the Justice Department are still talking, sources said, trying to come to some accommodation.

So, as we wait for the verdict, here’s a short handicap of options:

1. Google and/or Yahoo walk:

It seems far more likely that Google would do this than Yahoo, given its corporate culture is impatient with moving forward illogically (think Spock and you have the right picture of Google’s mindset).

I would imagine Google execs do not want to accept any caps or changes to the deal at all, and might conclude such restrictions make it not as worthwhile.

Yahoo, of course, cannot walk as easily, depending on the deal for revenue and because it must avoid having to then turn to Microsoft (MSFT) to strike a search ad deal from a very prone position.

Thus, Yahoo has to be pulling out all the stops to make something work.

Then again, if a Justice Department lawsuit is the alternative, walking would be the best option.

Prediction: Even odds.

2. Google and Yahoo accept changes:

Whether it be caps or monitoring or forcing Yahoo to strike a similar deal with Microsoft, this option seems like a bad one for the pair, as it hobbles the deal before it even has a chance to be tested.

Plus, the joy of government regulators breathing down your neck 24/7 is, well, priceless, especially after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told regulators he would move forward with or without them.

While Google has now perhaps permanently put the government on notice that is must be more scrutinized than ever going forward with that unfortunate statement, I would be surprised if Google accepted any substantial changes to the deal.

Prediction: If small adjustments, likely. If more, it would be hard to imagine.

3. The Justice Department files a lawsuit:

Ouch. Bad all around.

First, the Justice Department will have a hard time proving this partnership–which has not launched–is damaging. While it is good to have all those nervous advertisers to point to, it will be an uphill slog of a case.

Second, another lawsuit or fight for slap-happy Google? Oh, dear. It just settled the book scanning lawsuit and is still embroiled in a bigger lawsuit with Viacom (VIA) over YouTube copyright infringement. Enough.

Third, a Justice Department lawsuit for Yahoo should be the proverbial straw that breaks Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s rule of the company and would get Yahoo stock to the penny-stock level.

Prediction: I witnessed the Microsoft antitrust trial, while working at the Washington Post and I am here to say to all parties involved: Do not go there.

4. Justice waves the deal on through as is:

Wake up, Eric and Jerry, you’ve been dreaming! Also, in this event, the head of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would explode.

Prediction: Well, it could happen. Also Ralph Nader could get elected.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.