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January 04, 2006 | What Google Should Announce at CES

Two words: Google Points.

While there's much talk of a low-priced Google Box being announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, I'm thinking that Google should and may announce a way for people to pay for and get paid for video content uploaded to Google Video.

There's already been much speculation that Google would introduce a Google Wallet, which would be an online payment system that would compete with PayPal.

Certainly there's no reason that sites couldn't support more than one online payment service (think Visa, MasterCard and AmEx), but Google has said it isn't interested in competing with PayPal.

And moreover, the hassles of dealing with micro-payments, banking fraud and federal regulations may not be worth it.

But here's what Google will announce, if not on Friday, sometime soon.

Let's call it Google Points.

Google users who search when logged in, Gmail users, Blogspot bloggers etc. will get points based on their usage.

And what will the points buy them?

Google AdWords.

Say 10,000 Google points will get you $10 worth of Google AdWords.

Think frequent flier program, not PayPal.

Now, I hear you saying, "But, most people don't want to buy Google AdWords! These points would be useless."

Well, think of a frequent flier program that would let you transfer your miles to anyone, not just to licensed partners, such as hotels.

So, maybe someone like, say, eBay would let you pay for listing fees with Google points, or you could watch a documentary downloaded from Google Video or Skype would let you buy telephone minutes or Flickr would let you buy a premium account with those surfing points.

Google could take a small percentage to transfer the points, and those companies could use the points to buy ads. Google could also offer to pay sites in the AdSense program with Google points that would be worth more in AdWords cash-value than a straight cash payout.

If companies like Flickr don't want to buy ads, they could find a way -- outside of Google -- to sell the points. On say, eBay.

Google would gain more market share and would likely see more companies buy ads. But even if they don't the cost of the ads (and therefore, the points) to Google is minuscule.

I'm no economist, but this seems to me to be the best way to drive a payment system without actually having to deal with dirty pennies.

And BTW, if you like this post, feel free to drop me a couple thousand Google points using the Google Tip Jar button to the left.

(Oddly this idea came to me in a dream just before leaving for X-mas visits. Google should feel free to give me just a 0.0001 percent cut after they announce the program)

Posted by Ryan Singel at 05:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 29, 2005 | It's The End of The Year, Wired News-style

It's the time of year for wrap-ups and lists galore, and this year Wired News did it up right.

Sexiest geeks, best foot-in-mouth moments, best and worst tech moments.

My contributions included this round-up of the most predictable tech stories of the year:

The video iPod: Of course Apple would unveil a portable video player. All the signs were present. As with the music-only iPod, other companies had long been selling similar wares. In fact, Archos introduced a mobile video TV recorder 18 months ago.

Apple garnered mammoth media attention in October when Steve Jobs unveiled the company's gorgeous device, which can't record but will happily play back episodes of The Tonight Show that users buy through iTunes for $2 a pop.

Google Maps: In retrospect, how did anyone bear using MapQuest's clunky interface, and why didn't we all realize that dragging a map would feel so good?

Of course, the geniuses at Google recognized that every American's birthright includes not only a search engine that works, but also online maps complete with Ajax goodness, satellite views and adorable pushpins.

I also filed this dispatch about stocking up on gadgets, before they all start shipping crippled:

Post-Christmas sales are a must for bargain hunters, but this year brings a new incentive to stock up on electronics: 2005 might be the last good year to get gizmos that aren't locked down.

As the music, television and movie industries move to make more media available online, they are also attempting to keep that content from showing up on peer-to-peer networks or being copied for friends.

They are looking to Congress for help.

Meanwhile, many consumer electronics firms are hobbling their own devices to protect themselves from potential lawsuits or, in the case of Apple, to make money from selling media to those who bought the company's hardware, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

"We've already seen early examples: ReplayTV was taken off the market after being sued by the television industry," von Lohmann said. "We have never seen a PVR that has offered the same features, like the ability to send shows from one machine to another, automatically delete commercials and a very large hard drive capacity."

Posted by Ryan Singel at 08:16 AM | TrackBack

October 21, 2005 | A Newspaper for the Blog World

My RSS feed reader makes me tired.  Though it makes me smarter, it takes too much effort.

For months now, I've been looking for a better way to get a quick sense of what's going on on the web.

Looks like Gabe Rivera, an extraordinarily nice guy who talked to me at Bar Camp without even mentioning his site, has solved a big part of the problem.

Blog addicts overwhelmed by information may have found their savior.

Memeorandum, which started with a focus on political blogs in 2004 and launched a technology version just weeks ago, aims to be the automated newspaper of the online world.

It attempts to solve the problem of information overload with a few smart algorithms that constantly track the hot topics in tech and politics blogs.

However, it's not just the Google News of the blog world, since in addition to automatically tracking the top stories of the day, it also highlights the conversations between bloggers and mainstream media about each topic.

Gabe Rivera, the 32-year-old programmer who quit his job at Intel to found the site, says he built Memeorandum thinking of the "live web as an editor."

"If you read blogs, you know that there is this conversation and that some articles are the talk of the day, and other posts have important things to say about those," Rivera said. "If you built graphs in your mind of what the talk looks like, I think it looks like what I've done. I get the sense (Memeorandum) is just a natural representation of what is already going on."

Full Wired News take on Memeorandum.

Nathan Torkington and Rael Dornfest, two of the drivers of the O'Reilly media and conference machine, chirped in from Amsterdam.

From Nathan:

"At last, an aggregator that attenuates using the wisdom of crowds. Findory attempted to filter based on what you'd looked at, but Memeorandum filters based on what others are talking about. Memeorandum is as much about aggregating reader intelligence as it is about aggregating articles. It's a great step toward a tool that can turn a flood of grapes into a trickle of fine wine. Google News aggregates the editorial judgement from newspapers, but Memeorandum treats blogs and newspapers equally which means it's tapped into the collective zeitgeist of the net."

Rael sees somes lessons in Memeorandum for folks in old media:

"The role and sustainability of "old media" (let's call it "read-only media") is oft questioned in the context of "new media" (or "read/write media"). What will the New York Times do when user-written news outstrips traditional news--at least in quantity and timeliness? How will Business 2.0 keep up with the appetites of RSS-addicted business persons? Why, the same way they've always done: editorial. Just as nobody in their right mind pages through AP and Reuters feeds, the current trend of clicking reload on one's RSS reader simply can't be sustained.

Just as readers turn to the NYT or Business 2.0 as a lense through which to see the world, these purveyors of editorial guidance will turn their attention to and attenuate the new blog-driven ticker feeds and provide the same service they always have. Memeorandom provides a nice glimpse of what the NYT newsreader might look like."

P.S. This was my first attempt to post (and then edit a post) using the new Flock browser and I'm pretty impressed.

Technorati Tags: memeorandum, web2.0, rss

Posted by Ryan Singel at 04:11 PM