Tag Archives: bubble

The Google Bubble Bursts

Posted by Eric Shull on February 4, 2009 1 comments

If you haven’t heard, Google recently broke every link in every search result. The result so far has been that people are questioning their reliance on Google. Apparently Gmail still has problems (for instance, it’s spent the better part of a decade in beta).

It seems to me that Google does not have a clear purpose in life. It started out as a search engine, then started buying other web companies. It now does blogs, maps, video, and cell phones, all with revenue generated from ads. Its business model seems to be “advertise and buy”, and that’s about it.

Until now, Google’s reliability has been unquestioned. The mishap this weekend has suddenly raised an overdue question. What will happen to Google’s income as advertisers start to wonder about Google’s reliability?

Free Download Bubble Bursts?

Posted by Eric Shull on February 3, 2009 None comments

CNET has an article wondering if the era of free downloads is over. It makes sense to me. So far most web businesses have been based on popularity. The more hits a page receives, the more they can charge for advertising on that site. Pretty much all web activity is funded by advertising dollars. Now, with the economy in such rough shape, businesses may be rethinking their budgets, perhaps choosing to spend less on web advertising. The end effect: providing free content is no longer a viable strategy for generating revenue. Suddenly software has a price again.From my experience with the App Store, I expect that we’ll see a lot of “lite” versions offered for free while the full software costs a small amount. We’ll see.