Mr. Page saw a picture of the earth at night. He surmised that where there were no lights there was likely no internet. He felt Africa was kind of dark. Google and MIT partnered to build a $100 laptop. The goal is to put a lap top in the hand of every child in the world.

Essentially the world is split into two parts. The people living in poverty and the people not living in poverty. About 3 billion in each group. You could also assume that folks with out lights might be living in poverty. Take a look at the night picture, and you’ll notice that the stereo types you have will match up with the lights. That is if you assume lights = wealth.

So is Google onto something here? Does it go beyond philanthropy? I think it does. The world is flattening. The opportunities that were once exclusively the property of the western world are becoming more and more the opportunities of everyone. Maybe the 3 billion people living in poverty today will not be living in poverty tomorrow. If that is the case this a is big opportunity for Google to get to them as the information provider of choice and offer an option other than windows.

Google, you sure do have vision.

Back in 2002 I attended SES in Chicago. One of the big wigs from Teoma said something that really caught my attention.

He said that his SE only made the best part of the web searchable. They were only concerned with the authoritative sites.

My initial reaction was who gets to decide what is the most important part of the web to me? I didn’t buy what he was saying. What I really felt he was saying was this: It is very difficult and expensive to crawl the entire web.

Here’s a story I read in the World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. He said there is a user testimonial on the Google website that goes like this.

Dear Google,
I spent the last three years looking for my estranged brother. I found him featured on a website working as a male prostitute in Mexico City. I went to Mexico and rescued him from this dangerous profession. Thank you Google, you saved my brothers life.
Regards,
Jane.

The site she found is and will probably remain the most important site she has ever found in her life. From a moral stand point one could clearly argue that site is certainly not part of the best.

One mans garbage is another’s fortune.

http://ces.engadget.com/2006/01/06/live-coverage-of-the-google-keynote/

This is a cool product idea I would like to see from Google.

In Google Talk when two people are chatting Google Talk would translate everything each party types to the language of the recipient.

Take this example. Two people are chatting, one speaks/types/reads English, the other speaks/types/reads Spanish. Google Talk could translate everything each party types (English to Spanish; Spanish to English).

The look and feel of a website extends beyond the screen of the web surfer. It extends into the mind of the web surfers. So what do I mean by that? Let’s think about MS Office for a moment.If a person learns how to use an Office application, such as Word, they will know how to do the basics on other Office applications. In fact, any program that operated on a Windows OS typically has the same basics. These basics are open, save, save as, new.

Most websites will never have any mind share that extends beyond their creators and owners. If you don’t have mind share you then need to be very concerned with usability.

I had the opportunity to handle sales call for a busy e-commerce site last week. The site is well laid, but maybe a little cluttered. I know where everything is and can find anything I want with just 3 clicks. The customers I spoke to did not have that luxury. They could find there way around, but certainly not as easily as I could.

A site like Google has mind share. People go to it and have learned what to do. They learn it easily and they don’t forget. It is pretty simple. All a user needs to do to access one of the most powerful earth flattening technologies in the world is:

• Get to Google (multiple ways to do this)
• Type a KW
• Hit enter (or click search)

That’s it. Three steps and a user in Africa can be as empowered as a user in San Jose, CA, USA.

What are some of the things that Google does that MSN and Yahoo! won’t?

• No advertising on their main page
• A light, light page. (Google = 3.37 KBs; MSN = 8.38 KBs; Yahoo!=13.3 KBs note this is just source code, does not account for images!!!!!)

I believe in Google. I always have from the very first time I’ve ever seen it. They are such a different company. So different that they are special. And in the world of flattening technologies, one needs to be special and have imagination. Google certainly has both.

Contrast Google and MSN for a second. Think about innovation and imagination. Who would you say is more imaginative and special? Google or MSN? Maybe that is a tough question, since how would one measure that. Lets look at the history of the two companies.

Microsoft has had a history of being the Johnny-come-lately into most of the areas it has competed. They use their massive weight and the control over 95% of the OSs out there to dominate the field they are entering. Think of these examples for a second.

• Nintendo v. XBOX
• Netscape v. IE6
• WordPerfect v. WORD
• LOTUS v. EXCEL

How about Google? Google was very late entering the Search Engine field. But what was different about them? Well, they seem to innovate more and seem to be so un-concerned with what the established field is doing. They have an idea they like and they run with it. They don’t seem to ask: ?€?Company X is doing this, so we should do that plus a little more. Take these examples:

Gmail – a free e-mail service that has massive storage and does not allow anyone to sign-up without first being invited. OK? Did you get that, you have to be invited (or now have a cell phone) to get a gmail account. The big payoff is people are not spamming (en-mass at least) from gmail accounts.

Google Maps – wow! You have to use it to get it. The notable things are that the maps can be dragged, they have satellite views, and they have API to allow Google MAP Mash-ups.

I guess the point to all of this is MSN starts where the competition left off and tries to build a better mouse trap. And most of the time they do. Google starts from scratch and 90% of the time builds a mouse trap that is light years ahead of their competition.

How does all of this tie into mind share? Well, I believe that Google has got a special place in our minds that we “trust” everything that they do. And when they don’t quite live up to our expectations we excuse them and gloss over it. In my opinion, that is amazing mind share.

Microsoft on the other hand needs to stay squeaky clean. If they mess up one little bit people will jump all over them. People just do not seem to have the same inherit trust of Microsoft as they might with Google.

It’s a known fact that relevant incoming links improve search engine ranking. I’ve recently sent press releases to editorial sites that post news. If the press release is posted, a link to your home page is usually included. In the video market, I’ve had good success with eventdv.net, digitalmedianet.com, dvmag.com, weva.com, etc. Most sites are hungry for relevant daily news and it only takes an hour to write a short release and email it to the editorial contact on the web site. It’s a great way to increase releveant links and traffic to your site.

www.roanoketechnology.com

I get solicited all the time by people that want to sell me SEM services. I thoroughly enjoy playing dumb and hearing their pitch. Some are good, in fact some are good enough that I would hire them to work for me. Others, well, they are the snake oil salesmen of 21st century.

One in particular is Roanoke Technology Corp (AKA as TOP 10 Promotions). They have an incredibly slick sales presentation. And their key sales people are slick.

Their gig works like this.

They optimize your pages for you. Nothing to spammy, I am sure. Just text and H1 tags. They also create pages for the bots (doorway pages anyone). And then the real kicker is they place your link on their previous 50 clients websites. Yikes! That is crazy b.a.n.a.n.a.s.

During the pitch I nod along approvingly. And then I lay the question I like to ask them every time they call me. And that is “I heard about this thing called PR. What is that?” According to them, it’s not very important and has nothing to do with ranking. That kind of sounds like Google. But the thing is do you really want a SEM firm that has no PR doing your SEO/SEM work?

Anyway, I pushed him a little more on the PR thing. And he so badly wanted to gloss over it. Kept assuring me it meant nothing. BTW last year when I got the first pitch they used a website called something like top 10 promotions.com that too had no PR.

Here’s the funny bit. I’ve got a website that is black listed in Google. About 3 years ago I messed up and ran a fowl of Google. Google rewarded me by permanently delisting that site of mine. So guess what site I wanted Roanoke Technology Corp to work on. Yep, that site with a nice big fat goose egg for PR. I’ve owned the domain for nearly 4 years now. Um, I wonder how important PR will be to them then.

There are only three reasons I can think of for not having PR showing.

The site is brand spanking new

The site is black listed (it use to be grey barred)

No links what-so-ever. But over time that is hard to avoid.

www.roanoketechnology.com is not brand spanking new.

Be careful who you choose for you SEM/SEO work. If they don’t appear transparent then move on.

Ok – no specifics, but here’s a real gem. Is someone stealing your content? Great! Bust them if you can.

A buddy of mine found one of his competitors ripping his content. It was so bad the competitor site had not even bothered to change the formatting. He asked me what I thought. My reaction was to report it to Google and try and get them kicked out of the index for duplicate content – or at least penalized.

The competitor was reported this AM. It will be interesting to see what happens. BTW – they’ve got a PR of 7. So I think they probably like being in the Google index. It is going to hurt if they get de-listed.

I’m an adsense lover. It’s been a great way for webmaster to monetize small sites. It provides the surfer with relevant ads. Everyone is a winner.

That is until I had a startling revelation. Last week I was in Costa Rica. I needed some info on a zip line tour at Manuel Antonio National Park. I wanted to know what operations were there and how to contact them. I searched Google for [zip line manuel antonio costa rica]. I started clicking through the results and any page that was prominently displaying adsense I immediately left. Not because the ads offended me or anything like that. But the reason, which was instinctually learned I guess, was it seems sites that show adsense ads were there only to show adsense ads. And thus, typically useless. I gave this a great deal of thought, and unfortunately for me, adsense ads on a site is actually an indicator of a lower quality site.

Google is set to make a big announcement at keynote address at CES today at 4PM.? Rumors abound and the stock is going up and up.