GOOGL - Google

[Liberty]

Liberty, I find this interesting, but among some many things to read and watch, I have never taken the time to read about this. What are the projections on this, do they have a time frame about significant achievements? When do they expect to crack the code? Or is there any hope we can see this while we are still on this planet (I'm 29)? I would like to live longer!

 

It's a probabilistic bet - nobody knows exactly how long that would take, but unlike events that are out of our control, we can make it happen faster by working harder at it and dedicating more resources to it, like the Manhattan project - but I think that this new engineering approach that SENS is taking is in a totally different league from what was done before (trying to understand metabolism and modifying it, trying to cure all diseases individually once you pass the threshold of pathology, etc.. all these approaches are much too hard) and improves the odds of it taking place sooner rather than later by a lot.

 

You're used to doing your own research, so I'll just give you some pointers and you can make up your own mind:

 

(this is old and much progress has been made since, but it gives a quick overview)

 

http://citywire.kuluvalley.com/view/E586AD51-418F-C8CE-442B-828A9164D788?vtguid=70B21F9A-4BCA-C090-62F2-F77C0B007FE2

 

http://vimeo.com/30920931 (part 1)

http://vimeo.com/30924129 (part 2)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367074/

 

http://www.liebertpub.com/overview/rejuvenation-research/127/

 

http://sens.org/research

 

Update:

 

This is a good place to look too: http://sens.org/sites/srf.org/files/reports/SENS%20Research%20Report%202013.pdf

[Palantir]

Dear Google: Shouldn’t You Worry About Your Own Health?

 

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/09/google-page-calico/

 

 

I agree with this article, Google still has not figured out how to make money outside of its core advertising business. I wonder what will happen if that domino ever falls...

[Guest valueInv]

Dear Google: Shouldn’t You Worry About Your Own Health?

 

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/09/google-page-calico/

 

 

I agree with this article, Google still has not figured out how to make money outside of its core advertising business. I wonder what will happen if that domino ever falls...

 

FB has exploded on the mobile advertising market. Twitter is going IPO and they are trying to follow FB's footsteps with monetization. Pintrest has begun to take its first steps with ads. Apple has started experimenting Bing. The dominos have started to fall....

[Guest wellmont]

low bar for kit kat?

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/09/18/7-misses-in-ios-7/

[rmitz]

 

Also interesting, I found Aubrey de Grey's comments on Google's Calico project. 

 

Finally, the War on Aging Has Truly Begun

 

Thanks for posting.  100% of my charitable donations go to the SENS.org Foundation. I feel it's the most underfunded compared to the potential good it can do for humanity.

 

Not 100% for me, but a significant chunk for me goes to http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/.  I think the two foundations have worked closely in the past.

[Liberty]

 

Not 100% for me, but a significant chunk for me goes to http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/.  I think the two foundations have worked closely in the past.

 

The SENS Research Foundation was spun off from the Methuselah Foundation. MF still focuses mostly on the M-Prize and raising awareness while SENS is more the hardcore science and engineering branch. I prefer the latter.

[Guest valueInv]

low bar for kit kat?

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/09/18/7-misses-in-ios-7/

 

Allowing users to upgrade their OS in a timely manner is a low bar too. But not for Android:

 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-20/complaints-arent-stopping-apples-ios-7-downloads

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Dear Google: Shouldn’t You Worry About Your Own Health?

 

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/09/google-page-calico/

 

 

I agree with this article, Google still has not figured out how to make money outside of its core advertising business. I wonder what will happen if that domino ever falls...

 

I've held Google for 5 years and people have made this argument the entire time. In that time, Google doubled its earning, put Google Maps on the map as the most used app in the world, built YouTube up to a staggering 1 billion unique users a month, developed much better hardware offerings, took over the mobile device market with Android, and strengthened their moat doing it.

 

Does it matter if the source of 90% of revenue is advertising? It's not like companies are going to stop advertising and Google currently has many offerings available. They're big in display advertising, video advertising, search advertising, mobile advertising, and I'm sure they're going to find more ways to do it better. I'm actually happy that they're in a business that's not going away any time soon.

 

The only viable "competitor" is Facebook, but just because Google isn't the only shop for online advertising doesn't mean they're in trouble. I spend way more time on Google sites, google services, and google apps then I'll ever spend on Facebook. Through my use of their search engine, Google Now, and Gmail they're able to offer products that are way more sticky than Facebook will ever be. the only reason Facebook is sticky for me is because all of my photos are on there. That's it. Google is sticky because it makes my life easier and provides services that make things really convenient. That doesn't go away.

 

I guess I'm just wondering why were concerned that theyre a one trick pony? They're the best pony, they've diversified the sources of revenue, and have been growing into a cash producing annuity. Why are we worried?

 

My only concern for Google is

[Palantir]

 

I've held Google for 5 years and people have made this argument the entire time. In that time, Google doubled its earning, put Google Maps on the map as the most used app in the world, built YouTube up to a staggering 1 billion unique users a month, developed much better hardware offerings, took over the mobile device market with Android, and strengthened their moat doing it.

 

Growing earnings is not the sign of a strengthening moat, but the strength of the original business model. A lot of the points you make could easily be made about Microsoft, which has printed money like crazy, while being in a declining business. Although, arguably, Microsoft has been better at finding other sources of revenue better than Google.

 

Btw, how much money does Google make on Android?

 

 

Does it matter if the source of 90% of revenue is advertising? It's not like companies are going to stop advertising and Google currently has many offerings available. They're big in display advertising, video advertising, search advertising, mobile advertising, and I'm sure they're going to find more ways to do it better. I'm actually happy that they're in a business that's not going away any time soon.

 

Advertising will not go away soon, and will likely never go away, but how that advertising is going to be delivered in the future is a big question mark. There will be more ways of search for information, and different venues of finding ads. Google's strength in that is unclear.

 

The only viable "competitor" is Facebook, but just because Google isn't the only shop for online advertising doesn't mean they're in trouble. I spend way more time on Google sites, google services, and google apps then I'll ever spend on Facebook. Through my use of their search engine, Google Now, and Gmail they're able to offer products that are way more sticky than Facebook will ever be. the only reason Facebook is sticky for me is because all of my photos are on there. That's it. Google is sticky because it makes my life easier and provides services that make things really convenient. That doesn't go away.

 

There are other competitors, apart from the fact that new competitors will emerge. Apart from Facebook, which is a major, major threat to Google, there is the combination of Bing, Siri, and Twitter. All of them are going to start eating into search and advertising.

 

I guess I'm just wondering why were concerned that theyre a one trick pony? They're the best pony, they've diversified the sources of revenue, and have been growing into a cash producing annuity. Why are we worried?

 

The problem with being a one trick pony, even if it is the best pony, is that you are very strongly entrenched in one business model, and if that dynamic ever changes, Google will have absolutely no idea what to do. Making money on web services is really hard, and Google hit a gold mine with its business model, repeating that is going to be very difficult IMO.

 

My prediction is that Google will continue to be very profitable, but I don't think they're going to be the same dominant company they were in years prior, and should start paying a dividend.

[ItsAValueTrap]

Advertising will not go away soon, and will likely never go away, but how that advertising is going to be delivered in the future is a big question mark. There will be more ways of search for information, and different venues of finding ads. Google's strength in that is unclear.

 

That doesn't make any sense from the advertisers' perspectives.  You can get an affiliate marketing account, free Advertising coupons from Google/Bing/Facebook, and go teach yourself about online advertising for free.  (Or just read the various blogs out there.)

 

If you are an advertiser, you care about how volume * ROI on your advertising.  ROI is dependent on the relevance of your ads to the traffic, how well your campaign is run, and the competition for advertising.  If you are advertising for a very large company, then you will run ads everywhere:  Google, Bing, and Facebook.  If you are working with smaller volumes of money, Bing and Facebook will drive so little traffic that they aren't worth your time.

 

Google and Facebook don't really compete at all (ignoring Google+).  Google and Bing compete for search traffic, which drives search advertising revenue.

 

2- Youtube is very interesting.  We could hit an inflection point where its economics become viable... where advertising profits significantly exceed the cost of running Youtube.  This will allow Youtube to pay more money to its content providers, which will drive more traffic and search revenue.  It could hit an inflection point where its economics suddenly start to come together.

[Palantir]

 

That doesn't make any sense from the advertisers' perspectives.  You can get an affiliate marketing account, free Advertising coupons from Google/Bing/Facebook, and go teach yourself about online advertising for free.  (Or just read the various blogs out there.)

 

If you are an advertiser, you care about how volume * ROI on your advertising.  ROI is dependent on the relevance of your ads to the traffic, how well your campaign is run, and the competition for advertising.  If you are advertising for a very large company, then you will run ads everywhere:  Google, Bing, and Facebook.  If you are working with smaller volumes of money, Bing and Facebook will drive so little traffic that they aren't worth your time.

 

Google and Facebook don't really compete at all (ignoring Google+).  Google and Bing compete for search traffic, which drives search advertising revenue.

 

2- Youtube is very interesting.  We could hit an inflection point where its economics become viable... where advertising profits significantly exceed the cost of running Youtube.  This will allow Youtube to pay more money to its content providers, which will drive more traffic and search revenue.  It could hit an inflection point where its economics suddenly start to come together.

 

In your zeal to lecture me about online advertising, you ignored everything I said. The argument is about whether people will even be using Google regularly, and whether it will drive web traffic in the future. Your argument, eg, "If you are working with smaller volumes of money, Bing and Facebook will drive so little traffic that they aren't worth your time." assumes that Google is going to be a) the dominant method for search for information, b) drive a lot of web traffic in the future, when it's not obvious at all that it will be the case.

 

While it is true that Facebook isn't competing for search advertising revenue, it is competing for web traffic with Google, as is Apple and Bing.

[Guest valueInv]

Advertising will not go away soon, and will likely never go away, but how that advertising is going to be delivered in the future is a big question mark. There will be more ways of search for information, and different venues of finding ads. Google's strength in that is unclear.

 

That doesn't make any sense from the advertisers' perspectives.  You can get an affiliate marketing account, free Advertising coupons from Google/Bing/Facebook, and go teach yourself about online advertising for free.  (Or just read the various blogs out there.)

 

If you are an advertiser, you care about how volume * ROI on your advertising.  ROI is dependent on the relevance of your ads to the traffic, how well your campaign is run, and the competition for advertising.  If you are advertising for a very large company, then you will run ads everywhere:  Google, Bing, and Facebook.  If you are working with smaller volumes of money, Bing and Facebook will drive so little traffic that they aren't worth your time.

 

Google and Facebook don't really compete at all (ignoring Google+).  Google and Bing compete for search traffic, which drives search advertising revenue.

 

2- Youtube is very interesting.  We could hit an inflection point where its economics become viable... where advertising profits significantly exceed the cost of running Youtube.  This will allow Youtube to pay more money to its content providers, which will drive more traffic and search revenue.  It could hit an inflection point where its economics suddenly start to come together.

 

Facebook already is the most popular website:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites

 

Yahoo has already overtaken Google in display advertising.

 

Yes, if you are an advertiser, you care a lot about ROI, but that depends on a lot of things. In the past, nobody generated as much traffic as Google, so everybody bid up ads on Google, drove prices up and made a lot of money to Google. Let's say Twitter starts monetizing and it's targeting is 20% less effective than Google. But when it opens up its ads, nobody is bidding on its ads, so its ads are 60% cheaper than Google. How does your ROI look like now?

What happens to Google's ad pricing when people start shifting ad money to other channels? In which metric will tad prices be reflected? What happens to margins if ad pricing declines?

 

Second, different ad channels are more effective ad different things. If you area business  that gets better performance with real time ads, Twitter is your guy. Until now, you made do with Google. If you are a women's fashion company, Pinterest is probably better for you and so on. Now you have more options, before you really had just 1 or two.

 

All ads are not the same. If you want to build a brand, you need display and video not search. You need people to have brand awareness before they buy your product.

 

There is a new form of advertising called "native advertising" where ads appear as part of the content. Supposedly, native ads monetize much better than any other type. There is a ton of unmonetized native inventory - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. All of this will come online in the future.Google has little in the form of native ads.

 

One more thing. Apple switched Siri to Bing. I believe that it is an experiment to see if people complain. If people start using Bing and like it, it is likely that they will switch Safari to Bing in the next release. This is a big, big problem for Google.

 

 

[ItsAValueTrap]

In your zeal to lecture me about online advertising, you ignored everything I said.

 

Look, I'm not here to get into a pointless argument or pissing match with anybody.  That's not productive.

 

Uh... can we get back to value investing?

[Liberty]

http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/moto-x-shipments/

 

100k/week. Kind of slow, if accurate.

[Guest valueInv]

http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/moto-x-shipments/

 

100k/week. Kind of slow, if accurate.

 

This probably includes initial release demand which tends to be higher.

 

 

[Myth465]

The phone is a disappointment to me.

My HTC One X has a cracked sreen due to 1 too many beers. Its been a month and I am in the market for a phone.

This one seems a bit underpowered, and underspec. I plan to wait for the Nexus 5 which is a solid upgrade.

[bargainman]

The phone is a disappointment to me.

My HTC One X has a cracked sreen due to 1 too many beers. Its been a month and I am in the market for a phone.

This one seems a bit underpowered, and underspec. I plan to wait for the Nexus 5 which is a solid upgrade.

 

Might be worth reading this piece about the specifications and what they actually or do not actually mean:

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57597452-94/top-motorola-engineer-defends-moto-x-specs-q-a/

 

[Guest wellmont]

http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/moto-x-shipments/

 

100k/week. Kind of slow, if accurate.

 

well it's a niche product and these numbers are mostly reflective of apple and samung marketing power more than anything. it was priced to be a niche product. I don't think mot has global distribution (focus on n/a and western europe). and verizon sells almost the same phone under the droid brand. so moto x gets no traction at the largest carrier in usa. they did offer colors! before apple did. :)

[Liberty]

http://mashable.com/2013/09/11/moto-x-shipments/

 

100k/week. Kind of slow, if accurate.

 

well it's a niche product and reflective of apple and samung marketing power more than anything. it was priced to be a niche product. and verizon sells almost the same phone under the droid brand. so moto x gets no traction at the largest carrier in usa. they did offer colors! before apple did. :)

 

I don't know, it says that the Moto X launch was backed by a $500 million ad campaign, on top of all the free publicity that Google is giving it through it's PR channels... That's not small.

[Guest wellmont]

that's the beauty of android though. it doesn't matter who wins and loses as long as the ecosystem gets stronger. as it seems to be doing. would not surprise me if goog got out of building handsets and just kept the moto ip.

[Liberty]

that's the beauty of android though. it doesn't matter who wins and loses as long as the ecosystem gets stronger. as it seems to be doing. would not surprise me if goog got out of building handsets and just kept the moto ip.

 

Android's overall growth certainly is good for Google, but I expect that they would also like to see Motorola become a top tier player with lots of units sold and good margins. Everybody's becoming more integrated (Google + Moto, MSFT + Nokia), and we can assume that they want to stand out and not be just one more generic smartphone.

 

Maybe they'll get there in a few more iterations...

[Guest valueInv]

that's the beauty of android though. it doesn't matter who wins and loses as long as the ecosystem gets stronger. as it seems to be doing. would not surprise me if goog got out of building handsets and just kept the moto ip.

 

Which the lawsuits have proven is not worth much.

[Palantir]

Wellmont, how much money does Google make off Android?

[Guest wellmont]

a lot. it drives usage of google services. it's why fb attempted, and failed miserably, to co-opt the android user interface.  users didn't much care for it.

[Guest valueInv]

a lot. it drives usage of google services. it's why fb attempted, and failed miserably, to co-opt the android user interface.  users didn't much care for it.

 

How much decline n cpc has mobile driven for Google?