Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Are Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s ears ringing? After all, Spot Runner CEO Nick Grouf is borowing his Googley one-stop online advertising agency lines!

Grouf announces SpotRunner’s acquisition of SEM firm Weblsitic:

“This acquisition further strengthens our leadership position as the comprehensive resource for the full spectrum of local businesses’ advertising needs. Our objective is to help businesses drive awareness and attract new customers through multiple media channels, in an integrated manner, and online advertising is a top priority for us and for our clients.”

The SotRunner goal is to offer a “complete solution”: ”including media planning and buying for TV, radio and online,” because, Spot Runner assures:

TV and Internet advertising, when utilized together, have proven to be a particularly effective combination. According to Jupiter Research, TV advertising is the number one impetus for people to search for a particular company or product online, surpassing all other forms of advertising.

Remember when the Googler-In-Chief’s favorite fantasy was a multi-million dollar “complete solution” one:

The long-term fantasy is we walk up to you and you give us, say $10 million and we’ll completely allocate it for you across different media and ad types.

Long-term is apparently VERY long-term, though, as Google’s billions remain steadfastly 99% “traditional” AdWords and AdSense pure, as I steadfastly report:

SEE Google CEO In-Car Radio Ad Vision Fading and
Google TV Ads Auction: NO AdWords Buyer’s Remorse and
Google Execs Silent On NYC Print, Radio, TV Promises and
MySpace To Google: Learn How To Sell Advertising, OMMA Report and
MySpace To Google (Round 2): Text Clicks Do NOT Rule! VideoEgg Report and
The Web Economy Rejoices: Google IS Overrated and Due For BIGGER Fall!

If Google is not easily able to achieve one-stop online ad agency domination, does SpotRunner have a realistic shot? Unlikely.

Google has ONE very big advantage over SpotRunner, a $139 billion dollar one: Google owns the number one search engine inventory SpotRunner needs to resell! Reseller status is NOT a winning ad sales formula, just ask Google: Google Radio, Google Print, Google TV, Google MySpace…

Nevertheless, Ketan Shah, CEO of Weblistic, confirms his “passion” for “making online advertising easy and turnkey for small and medium-sized businesses.”

Unfortunately for new coproprate parent Spot Runner, however, local passion is hard to monetize.

MORE: Spot Runner Sells For Rival Google: Local SEM Bandwagon Grows and Local Video Ads Battle: YellowPages.com Taps TurnHere, Spot Runner Gets 1200 TV Producers

PLUS: Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI and
Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS 

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Microsoft expands in the cloud. 

The Google brand was built off of free lunches. Nevertheless, contrary to conventional blogosphere wisdom, Google is NOT “eating Microsoft’s lunch” in the enterprise cloud.

Google Apps is, literally, a joke in the enterprise, as I reported first hand from the Enterprise Search Summit one year ago and reiterate with each and every not so shock and awe Googley move that responds to serious, proprietary, secure enterprise computing needs with sophmoric, entry-level, shared software devoid of serious functionality and mocking of enterprise-class security and privacy.

Google Sites is but the latest laughable attempt at a Googley consumerization of the enterprise. While geeks gone wild was the tech early adopter blogosphere embrace of a cutesy, template-driven free, Google online Web site service, I underscored how any enterprise foolish enough to use Google Sites, would end up getting what it paid for: NOTHING!

SEE: Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’?

Microsoft announces today:

the company will offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. This announcement marks a significant step for Microsoft toward expanding its software plus services strategy.

Geeks are NOT going wild, however, egging Microsoft on for a (food) fight mano a mano with Google solely in the cloud. Will a day ever come that software WILL solely be delivered in the cloud? Unlikley. Microsoft is laying a foundation for a rational, online-offline, complementary enterprise exploitation of software assets. 

The stand alone, free Google cloud is NOT enterprise friendly. The stark reality of Google Terms Of Service:

You agree that Google has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any Content and other communications maintained or transmitted by Google services. You acknowledge that Google may have set no fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through Google services or the amount of storage space used; however, we retain the right, at our sole discretion, to create limits at any time with or without notice.

Google reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, Google services (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Google shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of Google services.

The Microsoft BETA Terms Of Service acknowledge the offline reality of serious business: 

You are responsible for maintaining and backing up your data that you create, use and store with the service. You are responsible for ensuring that you maintain your primary means of business.

If a business relies on the free Google cloud to maintain its primary means of business, it risks being out of business!

MORE ON THE VERY RISKY GOOGLE “ENTERPRISE”:

There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise and
Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL 

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Poor CNET? The latest woe of the vintage online property: A staff writer ”reports” being jilted at a cross-country media altar by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, even while acknowledging the “absurdity of flying 2,500 miles to interview a guy who works about 40 miles from” her office.

Nevertheless, CNET Editor-In-Chief, newly bumped up Dan Farber, jumps on Elinor Mill’s personal bandwagon, even while acknowledging the CNET approved “dispatch” of a CNET writer to “Mickey Mouse” land, apparently with little more than naive dreams of Google headline glory for backup.

Farber likens Schmidt to Putin for ”stonewalling,” echoing Mill’s protestations that she was unexpectedly “stunted” by the Google CEO, despite ardently having ”always wanted to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt one-on-one.”

Mills admits she got her chance, and, incredulously, offers up a public play-by-play on how she blew it!

Contrary to the CNET double-team against Schmidt, the Google CEO “one-on-one” accorded the CNET staffer was not a fiasco because of what Farber suggests is Google arrogance. It is CNET’s Mills who dropped the ball on her shot at Googley glory by being unable to pose any in-depth, significant questions about the known purpose of the supposed CNET “exclusive”: A discussion of Google Health.

Mills claims she ”dove in with several probing questions about Google Health.” CNET’s version of “probing questions,” however, present as softball opportunites for Eric Schmidt to talk standard Google Health speak. What’s more, Mills neglected to pursue follow-up question opportunities to gain real, new, hard data and information.

The first (not so) hard hitting Google Health question Mills asked of Schmidt: “Was it difficult for Google to get health industry players like Aetna, Quest Diagnostics, and Walgreens onboard?”

Mills reports of Schmidt’s response:

“It took a while,” he said, adding that Google lined up health experts to be on an advisory health council and they are integrating their systems to work with Google’s GData. “It was OK. It wasn’t that hard.”

IT WAS OK. IT WASN’T THAT HARD are non-answers, not deserving of publication. Mills ought to have continued on: Why did it take a while? Were obstacles encountered? What objections were raised? Has any organization declined to collaborate? If yes, why?

Also, GDATA: What about it? How will the “integration” work? How will privacy and security be protected by Google? Mills ought to have really probed.

The CNET-Google problem is NOT that Eric Schmidt only had 12 minutes to only discuss Google Health with a CNET staffer. The Google-CNET problem is that Elinor Mills failed to take professional advantage of the opportunity she had to contribute to enhancing public knowledge about the real workings of Google’s Health initiative.

CEO Eric Schmidt himself alluded to Mill’s less than insightful queries:

I don’t think you have highlighted sufficiently the platform characteristic of this. Everyone is assuming it is personal health record…I think of it as a platform upon which many services can be built and it is through that platform that the real innovation occurs.

Here at Insider Chatter, I have indeed been investigating the platform wars that consumer-facing online health applications are engendering. For example, I scooped Microsoft’s Health Vault solicitation to Google to collaborate with the Microsoft platform!

SEE:  Health Vault: Hey, Google, Get With the Microsoft Medical Program! and Microsoft Seeks Healthy Relationship with Google: Health Vault INTERVIEW

Is Google open to Microsoft HealthVault’s openness though? Not likely. On the very day of Eric Schmidt’s keynote at HMSS in Florida, the Microsoft Health Vault team confirmed to me:  There’s been no formal conversations to-date between Google Health and Microsoft.

MORE:  Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’? and Microsoft Flexes Enterprise Muscle: What Google Apps Revolution? and Spot Runner Ad Agency: Google Sans $139 billion Search Engine? and Facebook: Why Sheryl Sandberg is a Perfect Googley Fit

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN 

Who says Google is a vulnerable, one-trick, (rich) pony!

I DO, of course, but the blogosphere, once again, comes to big, bad Google’s rescue, today dutifully co-hyping glowing Google speak spinning its latest Googley bestowal of entry level software, ”free,” to purportedly eager enterprise masses: Google Sites.

The CNET Editor-In-Chief, for example: The newly bumped up Dan Farber celebrates his “return to the blogosphere,” with a return to celebrating the purportedly “power” Google cloud, on behalf of Google:

In the future, Google Apps will add more capabilities for sharing video, a la YouTube, with group and voice capabilities, Glotzbach said. At this point Google doesn’t plan to create a marketplace for creators of Google Site templates and themes, but it will take advantage of the iGoogle gadgets and APIs that allow developers to embed objects with the service.

Google Sites is a key piece of functionality for Google Apps. It gives the suite a way to integrate all kinds of components in support of accomplishing a particular task. Adding social capabilities and a database to the suite will turn up the heat on Microsoft to show what it has waiting in the wings to go beyond the prodigious Microsoft Office.

All MUST be good for business in the Google cloud, then, if the CNET Editor-In-Chief vouches for a Google Apps anti-Microsoft prowess? NO!

While the lead CNET reporter, Farber, reposts, verbatim, paragraphs of Googley enterprise marketing speak, courtesy of product spokespeople Scott Johnston and Matt Glotzbach, the leader of the CNET reporting staff neglects to concern himself, or the readers of the publication he heads, with the real, not so Googley words that matter to the enterprise: THE GOOGLE FINE PRINT! 

Here at Insider Chatter, however, I reveal the risks businesses face if they take Googlers up on their dangerous call to “free” software arms in an increasingly dark Google cloud.

Here is what Google’s Johnston and Glotzbach really have to say to prospective users of the new Google Sites in the enterprise, via their product’s TOS:

You agree that Google has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any Content and other communications maintained or transmitted by Google services. You acknowledge that Google may have set no fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through Google services or the amount of storage space used; however, we retain the right, at our sole discretion, to create limits at any time with or without notice.

Google reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, Google services (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Google shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of Google services.

WOW! Not much of a Google Enterprise sales pitch!

Google is oblivious to the enterprise need for proprietary control of its own data, but Google is crystal clear on ITS determination to control the proprietary data of the world’s enterprises:

Upon the termination of your use of Google services, including upon receipt of a certificate or other legal document confirming your death, Google will close your account and you will no longer be able to retrieve content contained in that account.

COLD, COLD GOOGLE!

MORE ON THE VERY RISKY GOOGLE “ENTERPRISE”:

There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise and
Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat

ALSO: The Web Economy Rejoices: Google IS Overrated and Due For BIGGER Fall! and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story

PLUS: LinkedIn’s BIG Agenda: Stamp Out Business Cards!

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

On the heels of Robert Scoble calling out Facebook for an alleged “erasure,” Danah Boyd shares the sad tale of a “Google horror story,” claiming a third party “disappearance.”

While both Scoble and Boyd do a fine job of tugging at the Web’s heart strings, both cases cloud data security issues in the cloud. Here at Insider Chatter, I have advised of the unavoidable user privacy and data security risks inherent in the use of both Facebook and Google services, and warn non-tech savvy users about using the dangerous services.

In both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, however, both Facebook and Google have appeared to act in the privacy and security interests of their large numbers of non-paying “customers,” attempting to neutralize potentially nefarious affects of dangerous acts (intentional or otherwise) emmanating from the accounts of individual, tech savvy users.

What’s more, in both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, both Facebook and Google restored the free accounts, intact, in a timely manner. Contrary to the sensationalist headlines, Scoble was not “erased” by Facebook and Bob was not “disappeared” by Google.

“Bob” corrects the Boyd story in comments to the post: “I’m the Bob in question. To be fair to Google, it’s unclear if the connections were the reason my account was restored (within 3 days). I filled out the “account hijacked” form several times (advice on the discussion group was to do it every day). And the support email did not come from an individual at Google, but the “team.” So either it was at the guiding hand of one of my friends’ connections and they aren’t taking credit, or I had a really good experience with the standard customer service.”

“Bob” also laments that he ought to have known better, given his technology expertise:

I’m a very experienced internet user, which is part of why I’ve asked not use my name. I’m the -last- person that should be a phishing victim, yet it happened to me. Since it happens to internet professionals far less than, say, the clueless relatives of internet professionals, of course we blame it on the user.

The very expertise of “Bob” and Robert, though, begs the question as to why they are even entrusting free Facebook and Google consumer services with anything!

“Mike” undersocres in the comments: “IMO you should never let a third party (especially electronically) maintain any personal information or data which you wouldn’t want disclosed.”

YES, and one should also not willingly provide such data to such a third party which maintains it in perpetuity with no abillity to correct, modify and or permanently delete the data from all of the third party’s systems, as both the Facebook and Google Privacy Policies and Terms Of Use suggest.

An eternal data trap is the REAL Google and Facebook nightmare and there is only one sure way to avoid it: Don’t use such free, consumer services which do not offer adequate privacy policies and terms of use.

Legislation is not necessary to “protect” users from willy nilly willingly handing over their own personal, proprietary information and data to the greedy “free” servers of for (big) profit corporations, common sense is.

Facebook is NOT a public service, nor is it a necessary one: It can very well be a dangerous service, though. Scoble and “Bob” lessons learned ought to be to STOP using Facebook and Google free login services, not to demand government “protection” from them.

Concerned about Gmail? Get your own domain email account. Concerned about data backup? Use for-fee, professional third party services that guarantee it, in writing. Concerned about not being able to permanently delete data from third party, “free” non-professional servers? Don’t put your information in such places.

Facebook and Google login services are not constitutional rights, they are optional, free, opt-in, corporate services, which adult users of the Internet are free to use, at their own risk.

ALSO: LinkedIn Preps Spy Network: Is YOUR Company Safe?

MORE: Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk and
2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and
MySpace to Facebook: Where is Your ‘Reach, Relevancy, Results’? OMMA Report and
Facebook is ‘Sorry’? Savvy Users Will Forget, NOT Forgive, Mark Zuckerberg and
Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and
Dear Facebook, Beacon Tracking STILL Evil: Will Zuckerberg Partners Repent? and
Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push and
Mark Zuckerberg: Use Facebook at Your Own Risk! and
With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies? and
Startups: Why Facebook Platform is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 

Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers and
Google Privacy Trap: Consumers Beware and
Google is WRONG On Consumer Privacy and
Google is NOT Your Friend 

PLUS: How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and Yahoos Rally: Beware Sticky Peanut Butter Tales

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Will the enterprise IT world arrive today on the job bracing for an employee revolution, facing inexorable worker demands for corporate happiness via Google Apps Team Edition?

So goes the Google Enterprise spiel, obligingly presented by pre-briefed media, both old and new:

Ben Worthen, The Wall Street Journal, wears his NOT-SO hard news objectivity on his headline sleeve: “Google marginalizes tech departments even more” How can the WSJ be so sure? Google PR told Worthen so:

Google is bottoms up, appealing directly to individuals, encouraging them to bring the tools they use in their personal lives into the workplace. To that end, Google built a feature into Team Edition that lets IT departments upgrade to the full corporate version of Google Apps if it realizes that a large number of its workers are using it.

Elinor Mills, CNET, leads with the Google PR talking point: ”Just like rogue employees in the 1990s forced instant messaging into corporations, the new Google Apps Team Edition being launched on Thursday offers a way for workers to slip a hosted apps service into the enterprise,” reinforcing the Google Enterprise marketing pitch: 

“People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago,” said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. “We’re trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness.”

BUT, who is really forcing what where? Google may have dreams of a Les Miserables like “bottoms-up” employee cry of “We want our Google Apps,” but the enterprise IT world is having the last laugh, at Google Enterprise’s ongoing expense.

READ ALL ABOUT HOW There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise:

Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat

PLUS: LinkedIn To Mine User Data For Corporate Espionage and Poynt IM Local Search: Will Yellow Pages on BlackBerry Crack the Code? and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too and Cuill? Google Vet Startups Pose NO Threat: FriendFeed, Howcast, Zillow

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN