How Google Went From Search Engine To Content Destination
Danny Sullivan breaks down the current state of Google and how we got here. (This is about a month old, but I’ve been catching up on some reading, and it’s very good.)
Sullivan attempts to succinctly define Google:
Google is a search engine and a social network and a mobile operating system and mobile phones called Nexus and a tablet called Nexus and a place you can buy content like books and games and videos called Google Play and a travel guide and a restaurant guide and a place you can write blog posts and a place you can watch videos on YouTube and a web browser and a way to place ads all over the web and where you can get offers or you can use your phone as a credit card and much more.
While Sullivan is clearly being a bit facetious here, this statement is telling. Google is rubbing some people the wrong way because they’re trying to do everything and stomping on lots of toes along the way.
This is also fascinating:
Android beats or is a close rival to Apple’s iOS marketshare, depending on the stats you look at. Google no longer needs to to fear Apple cutting it off. That’s good, because now Apple IS cutting it off, something Apple probably wouldn’t have done if it weren’t for Google being so fearful of Apple that it developed a rival to Apple’s mobile platform.
In other words, Apple is now cutting off Google because of the steps Google took to ensure that it wouldn’t matter if Apple cut them off. The prophecy has been self-fulfilled.
20 minute PPC checklist
Best digital marketing outline I’ve seen. Pretty much covers it all.
The biggest risk is not taking any risk…In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.
Did YouTube Kill TV?
Awesome infographic on the staggering growth of Youtube since 2005.
By Freemake, proud developer of YouTube Converter
Are You A Believer?
I read this blog post from Bijan Sabet and thought it was one of the better posts I have read in a while.
“I’d shut down Apple” - Michael Dell, 1997.
That line is from one of the most memorable quotes ever.
Today Michael Dell said it was a misunderstood quote. Maybe, but my gut says it wasn’t. Why clarify it 14 years later. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Here’s the way I look at it.
You have believers and non-believers.
Believers will do whatever they can to make it work. They are committed past the point of return. A team of believers is unstoppable. I love the Steve Jobs quote that John Lily shared recently:
If you want to make Apple great again, let’s get going. If not, get the hell out
On the other hand, non-believers can’t imagine anything working.
They see the downside. They think about opportunity costs. They think about that green grass on the other hill. They can’t imagine a struggling company making it through the pain. That’s the sentiment that drove Dell’s comment many years ago. He was a non-believer.
Startups exist in a world dominated by non-believers. They are surrounded by this all day long. VCs turn them down. The press takes shots. Some employees leave. Big companies call their life’s work “a feature” or a “poor man’s email”. Or people that have never worked in a startup, dismiss new ideas and new companies as yet another attempt at xyz (where xyz represents the impossible in their eyes).
I’m very happy to be working with founders to try the impossible.
The odds and stats tell us that most startups won’t work out. Everyone knows that.
But we are believers. We believe that we can make it work.
And that’s what gets me up every morning.
In every startup, there are constantly up-and-downs that will test emotions that you didn’t even know you could feel.
The real question comes in times of adversity: What type of person do you want to be known for?
Are you a believer?
Fail Fast, Fail Often, And Follow Your Passion.
Men don’t fear action; they fear the judgement of action
Co-Founder @ 