Three IT Giants’ Cash Status in 3Q 2009

Motivated by ‘CHART OF THE DAY: Apple’s Soaring Pile Of Cash‘, I made a brief chart of three company. Every data collected with Google Finance.

(Thanks to iDreamer buzzing that article via his Twitter)

Though Apple shows amazing success with iPod and iPhone these days, Microsoft is still strong.
Recent dramatic cash piling of Apple may effected by the fact that Apple is a ‘hardware manufacture’. Hardware companies usually shows bigger cash flow rise than software companies in good business circumstances.

p.s. Actually speaking, I like Microsoft. I’m a fan of Microsoft who use Apple’s MacBook. 🙂

“The Search” by John Battelle

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

Inspiration : ★★☆
Information : ★★☆

First I didn’t consider reading this book because I already read another book about google – The google story. But in contrast with ‘The google story’, this book allows me great understandings about search engine and history of IT business. It also gives some tips of IT start-up ventures.

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– 때때로 위대한 혁신은 우주로부터 오는 것이 아니라 기업내부에서부터 나타난다. 그래서 몇몇 기술기업들은 공개질의가 가능하고, 실패를 용인해주며, 자원의 제약없이 연구할 수 있고, 공개적인 협력을 장려하는 연구의 정신을 이해하고 육성한다.
– 내가 만난 스필버그는 하루종일 자신의 주위에 있는 것들을 창의적으로 발전시키고자 머리를 쓰면서 돌아다니는 사람이었다. 나는 그와 만나기전까지만 해도 사람들은 일을 잘할 때가 있으면 못할 때도 있다고 생각했었다. 그런데 그는 하루종일 완벽하게 자신의 일을 하고 있었다. 정말 대단하지 않은가?
– First to Market wins
– 웹이 시간의 축을 갖게 된다면 검색자는 날짜를 지정해서 검색할 수 있다.

[Scrap]Can Google Be Beat? They Already Have Been in South Korea…

Original Post from Read/Write Web : Click here

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Can Google Be Beat? They Already Have Been in South Korea…Written by Richard MacManus / July 12, 2007 / 15 comments

The International Herald Tribune had a good article recently about the search market in South Korea

. It points out that local search company Naver.com

has more than 77 percent of all Web searches originating in South Korea, according to Internet market research company KoreanClick. This is largely due to user-generated content – specifically Naver’s “Knowledge iN” real-time question-and-answer platform, which gets “an average of 44,000 questions a day”. Second in the South Korean search market is another local product, Daum.net, with 10.8 percent share, followed by Yahoo’s Korean-language service with 4.4 percent. Google has only 1.7 percent of Korean Web searches.
The IHT has more info on Naver Knowledge iN:

“Naver has so far accumulated a user-generated database of 70 million entries. Typical queries include why North Korea is building a nuclear bomb, which digital music player is best, why people have hair whorls and what a high-school boy should do when he has a crush on a female teacher.
Lacking the full-time editorial oversight found on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, some Naver entries are of dubious veracity and attract vigorous rebuttals. But many respondents, keen to build and maintain an online reputation, do careful research to provide useful answers.”

Interestingly, this has some similarities with the approach of Viewpoints, the online reviews company profiled yesterday by our own Phil Butler. But what also struck me about Naver’s approach is that it is essentially what Yahoo is attempting to do, with its heavily-promoted Answers product. If you look at just about any Yahoo content site, you’ll see an Answers section displayed prominently.

Of course, the Q&A format hasn’t escaped Google’s attention either (nothing gets past Google). The Mountain View company is experimenting with Google Answers in Russia. Also, as SearchEngineLand noted, Google has tried making its UI more attractive in Korea in order to get more market share. If this kind of experimentation (Q&A, UI innovation) sounds familiar, it’s because it is precisely what our network blog AltSearchEngines talks about every day 🙂

Pic c/o SEL
Of course Q&A won’t be the answer for every market – Google is very entrenched as the number 1 search engine in the US and most other english language markets. But the South Korea example does show the benefits of a) localizing your product, and b) actively using and promoting ‘next generation’ search methods. Also don’t forget that as mobile phones begin to be used more in the US and similar markets, user-generated content and personalization will be used more by Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and other companies.
I do think this is Yahoo’s best chance of making ground on Google, because they are strong in both user-generated content and mobile. Although as yet Yahoo Answers is nowhere near as compelling a product as Naver is in Korea.

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Interesting & meaningful article.

‘But the South Korea example does show the benefits of a) localizing your product, and b) actively using and promoting ‘next generation’ search methods’