Thursday, April 12, 2007

Google in full glory as Rome Empire before the bust

Blow after blow, what will be next - missed earnings expectations? Without any tax manipulation they will have to show jump in earnings from $2.8 (with "normalised tax rate") to $3.3 in this Q1 2007 just to meet the numbers. It is 18 percent increase after the strongest seasonal Q4 2006. Can they make it? I am in very big doubt about it. Traffic on google.com is falling and YouTube is bringing only troubles. Nothing of the announced products apart from search is bringing any substantial revenue, company is still one trick pony with all other initiatives eating out margins from the only one revenue stream. Idea to create business on "borrowed for nothing" content did not found admiration among content producers, whole industries close to extinction should this mass scale automated copyright violation be allowed.
"Wow. When it rains, it pours for Google (GOOG). First, Viacom (VIAB) decided to sue them for copyright infringement last month. Shortly after that, News Corp (NWS) and GE’s (GE) NBC Universal said they were teaming up to create a new online video joint venture.
Sam Zell, who’s buying newspaper publisher Tribune (TRB), said last week that newspaper companies need to be tougher with Google. Then, adding insult to injury, Viacom announced earlier this week that it would use the search technology from Google’s top rival Yahoo! (YHOO) on 33 of its broadband sites.
But despite all the Google-hating going on among big media, the company could always count on CBS (CBS) to be an ally. Until today, that is."

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