A French Consulting firm, FaberNovel, just released an impressive report titled “Everything you always wanted to know about Google…”. They made different versions of the report in english, but also made a short slide version in english and in french.

It is a very good overview of how Google become what it is today.

Several good questions have been pointed out, such as :

- Why won’t Google be affected by crisis ?

- Why does Microsoft fear Google ?

- How Google wants to compete with Facebook ?

- Why doesn’t Google monetize all its services ?

- How does Google turn advertising into information and performance ?

And for me the best slide being :

- How does Google buy traffic ?

Where we can understand that because Google is financing 85% of Firefox, we can find Google search engine embedded in Firefox browser or other type of deal with Dell, Apple, ….

You can also read the review made by TechCrunch.

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I just read an article about a new search engine called www.cuil.com (pronounced cool) in the New York Times. I think its a far better search engine ‘experience’ than anything else I’ve used including google. Cuil offers relevant information/links through two separate tool bars for certain results that I found quite useful. However, google seems to have better quality search results. Check it out and judge for yourself. I also copied a few key points about how Cuil differentiates itself from others below.

Summary of Cuil’s features:
Biggest Internet search engine—Cuil has indexed 120 billion Web pages, 3x more than any other search engine

Organized results—Cuil’s magazine-style layout separates results by subject and allows further search by concept or category

Different results—Unlike other search engines, Cuil ranks results by the content on each page, not its popularity

Complete privacy protection—Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information on users or their search histories

I just signed onto a very popular Shanghai blog and here are the first three ads through google adsense, “Tantric massage Shanghai”, “Ecstasy Massage” and “Massage Shanghai”. All three offer outcall service and of course all three list mobile phone numbers. Now it seems like this is quite a very common occurrence these days. These massage girls are obviously bidding very high for google adwords because I see it on almost very Shanghai centered site, including the NextStep Directory (Although its pretty nominal on our website). On the flip side, it also means that not only are people clicking on the links, but they are utilizing the services. Why else would the massage services continue to pay so much money per click. Anyway, what it comes down to is the fact that all these websites are acting as pimps.

On another note, I’ve read a couple articles recently that talk about how there are several cities/towns in the US called Shanghai, such as Shanghai, Virginia. Since the keyword Shanghai is bid at such a high rate, these massage ads are appearing in these towns throughout the US.

Lastly, just to give this post an ounce of respectability, the consistency of these massage ads on Shanghai related websites says something about google’s adsense/adwords business model. After all, it was just announced they had missed their projected earnings and that click through rates for adsense were going down on a global scale. This seems fairly obvious when you think about it. If you see the same ads on every site you go to, how many times are you really going to click on them? So it seems all these sites have started to cannibalize each other. My recommendation, and what we will probably do for the NextStep Directory, is using a different service for delivering ads to your site. This way, you are distinguished from the rest of the sites and might actually offer something unique.

Being that our LexDex.com project requires us to stay on top of the newest web and mobile developments, I have become quite familiar with the Google Android project. You may want to have a look at what Google unveiled on the 27th of May by clicking here. This just may set the standard for what is to come for mobile phones. Remember, that the Android project is a mobile phone operating system that will be pre-installed by manufacturers. The OS is not only being developed for touch screen phones. And, how does Google make its money? Well of course, through advertisements. Check it out.