Scoble links Wifi + Search

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Originally uploaded by Beautiful Things in the World.

I dont think Google has any GANT driven masterplan, other than what Schmidt tells the Street and Doer the OC. Engineers do 20% FTE projects which as Messr Burton points out is cheap VC for google. They put the Stanford geek screen on it, then in unison "DODGEBALL" approval. Sometimes it creates adsense, google news, gmail. Bastard childs like orkut also pop-out and the majority are pre-alpha stillborns that go into the g-bin. Its nonlinear. Is search and wifi connected to one another at google at the 'operational strategy level' ? I dont think so. Could they be connected ? Well g-duh, yes. And while there is a fundamental problem with unsecure wireless, the real HUGE problem Google has that connects the two is - Lack of 'user sign in data' - They dont have registered members or paying customers, they have anonymous unique users. I worked for a multi-billion commercial search business with the same problem. Wi-Fi is good as you have to hand over your G-creditcard. I still think its post-rumour rationalisational. Google have to acquire hundreds of millions of signed in members and customers/subscribers to get to where AOL/YAHOO is. Wi-Fi is part of that equation (not to mention tapping into the more competitive, larger, different technology - market of wireless telecommunications. Will Google's Founders PHD on PageRank help solve the wireless questions of the world ? Or is the 20% rule (times PHD's hired eg 3200 engineers hired last quarter / divided by failure %) the key to the supply of new GOOG ideas ? I'll have to reread pre-ipo playboy interview). I'd like to see more precision around the development of these ventures (they could buy McKinsey i guess), just as venture capital firms focus on particular segments or technologies. Maybe Dave Winer is right and they will redefine the connections between Free Starbucks Wifi, Dark Fiber and Google. With the G-Factor you never know; I dont think they will be as successful in telecommunications as internet search and text advertising, but their position their should help some nice trailing commissions : As for the bigger more PC /Web based Emulate and Extend the G-WebOS strategy... WIFI has got the Scobe's thinking :

"I fear Google's WiFi for a whole nother reason: I fear they are using their Wifi to build a better search engine.... Now search engine designers and developers are trying to find "the next algorithm." What they really need is more metadata... Using what users are actually visiting and clicking on... If one engine can get more attention data than another engine they'll win in the relevancy scores... if you are trying to make things better for 100 million people, you don't need to track 100 million. You only need to track a very very small number. Certainly if you could get only 5 million to give you their attention data then you could get enough data to really make a new kind of search engine... if you own the last few yards in between people and the Internet you can really learn a lot. You can watch everything those people click on, what pages they visit, what browsers they use, how often they turn on Skype, and a lot of other stuff... Anyway, it sure has me wondering what kinds of things they are going to learn from folks who sign onto Google wifi stations."