Marketing Technology for Growth

“Life gets a bit easier when your Google products work well together…” I couldn’t have said it better myself. In truth, I didn’t say it at all; this gem was plucked from a recent post on Google’s Official Gmail Blog announcing the company’s latest integration, this time of its heretofore disconnected free data storage offerings, Google+, Drive, and Gmail. For me, the Google post served as a reminder of three stark truths: 1) the gang from Mountain View is rolling out new products and services faster than I am loosing hair fibers (which is pretty fast), 2) these products and services are increasingly integrated and cloud-based 3) Like my hair loss, there is a certain inevitability to my integration with these services; as the Borg said, “all will be assimilated.” Finally accepting the reality of these truths, I decided to dive in to the Google Cloud headfirst; here’s what I found.

Recent days have not been kind to Google. Third-quarter revenues missed The Street’s expectations (and were leaked early), concerns have been voiced about the health of CEO Larry Page, and now the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looks like they might finally bring an anti-trust suit against the search giant for illegally using the company’s search dominance to harm its rivals. While some of these negatives are overblown (like the revenue scare-Google's 2012 third-quarter revenues increased 45% year-on-year to $14 billion. Its main revenue issue hinges on how to properly monetizing mobile ads, an industry-wide bugbear {think Facebook}), others are significant (recall Microsoft’s bloody battle in the late 1990s with the Justice Dept over its supposed web browser dominance). Regardless, even though its balance sheet may not show it (yet), Google remains the dominant power in tech.

In this special edition of the Marketing Technology Minute, Chris and Spencer go toe-to-toe in US Presidential debate-style format to resolve the burning question on everyone's mind: who will dominate the tech universe to become the first Trillion-dollar company on the planet, Google or Apple?

For some time now, Google’s uber-secretive and appropriately titled “X Laboratory” research center (responsible for such cutting-edge innovations as Google Glasses) has been quietly creating one of the largest artificial intelligences in existence. After linking together over 16,000 computer processors to create a neural network with over 1 billion connections, researchers at the X Lab exposed their new creation to 10 Million digital images found in YouTube videos (sounds like my kids).

Google’s at it again. Last week it was redefining tech journalism, now it’s on to space mining. The tech behemoth’s ambitions are not limited to the Internet, or even global domination- it’s taking a crack at outer space. Google CEO Larry Page and the company’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt have joined forces with Avatar director James Cameron and X-Prize CEO Peter Diamandis for a space venture that will possibly involve mining asteroids. On the bright side, if it doesn’t work out, they can make a movie out of it. Oh wait, didn’t Cameron already do that in 2010 with Avatar?¹

“Technologists and muckrakers pursuing a more perfect union.” That is the headline describing the Techraking 2012 Summit, a collaborative event attended by editors, journalists, and technologists yesterday at the Googleplex in Mountain View. Co-hosted by the venerable Center for Investigative Reporting, it represents Google’s new foray into watchdog journalism.