Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) 01 (May 08 - Jul 17)

[winston]

Google: Internet Darling No More
By Rick Pendergraft

As recently as last November, Google was priced at over $700 per share. But the one-time Internet darling seems to have lost some of its allure.

Google took Wall Street by storm in August '04 when the stock debuted at an even $100 a share. Over the next few years, the stock seemed to know only one direction: up. It seemed that no matter how high the earnings expectations were each quarter, GOOG always exceeded them.

But things have changed with the economic slowdown that started last summer. Over the last three quarters, GOOG has missed earnings expectations twice, including the second-quarter results that were released on July 17.

As Google continued to climb higher, the stock price became out of reach for most investors, with a round-lot 100-share purchase costing more than $50,000. This resulted in more institutional investors trading in Google... and institutional investors are far less forgiving than individual investors.

My advice to you is to steer clear of Google. The company seemed invincible, but has proven otherwise in recent quarters. And though the shares may look like a bargain after dropping over $260 from the high, the uptrend in the shares is clearly no longer in place.

[millionairemind]

Google was one of the failed leaders that have broken down (Reversal day was Nov 8 coinciding with the correction).. it was in the IBD100 group for 3 years straight till it fell out during the Nov 07 correction..

See how the LEADERS GROUP ALWAYS TOPPED OUT WITH THE MKT... The leaders group must always lead, if they don't the mkt is DEAD.

The former leaders of each previous rally usually loses on average about 72% of their value over time once they lose institutional support... This is based on historical studies going back 100years.

Nothing has ever changed on Wall Street.

Be careful out there if you still have google.

[millionairemind]

Decided to post this here cos' this will post a threat to google.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 browser a threat to online ads
Last Updated: 6:17am BST 28/08/2008

Microsoft’s latest version of its dominant Internet Explorer web browser could threaten the rise of online targeted-advertising because it allows users to access websites in private.

Internet Explorer 8, which was launched by the software giant yesterday, contains a feature called “InPrivate” which allows users to essentially hide their personal details by automatically erasing so-called “cookies”, and also hides the browsing history from other people using the same computer.

The new feature potentially threatens the business model of companies such as Google, which uses cookies to collect information from users as they visit websites, and then uses it to target adverts at them.

The launch of the new product, in beta testing mode only at this stage, comes as it continues to challenge Firefox, the free web browser, which already offers privacy features.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... und128.xml

[kennynah]

if this is simply a technology hurdle, it is usually a matter of time before this hurdle is tackled successfully.

there are many people who o/s cannot allow them to "upgrade" IE to the lastest version (reason is obvious) and if MSFT plans to hold back GOOG using this...good luck to them...

when one day, Mozilla or whoever free browser provider becomes a big hit, bye bye to IE

[iam802]

Google set to introduce its own Web browser

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc is set to introduce on Tuesday a new Web browser designed to more quickly handle video-rich or other complex Web programs, posing a challenge to browsers designed originally to handle text and graphics.

.....

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 1820080902

[iam802]

Google Launches YouTube-Like Service For Business Subscribers

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/art ... RTUNE5.htm

[millionairemind]

First impressions of Google’s new browser
By Tim Bradshaw, Digital Media Correspondent
Published: September 3 2008 10:11 | Last updated: September 3 2008 10:11

Google denies that the Tuesday release of its internet browser, Chrome, was a competitive strike against Microsoft, as many commentators have suggested.

No, it simply wants to encourage more people to use the web, more often, instead of outmoded means of communication such as the telephone. For that, it says, speed is of the essence, and Google Chrome certainly shines in this respect.

But Chrome lacks that single knockout feature that one might expect from a browser two years in development at one of the world’s leading web companies. Indeed, many of its features are already available in other browsers – although bringing the best of those into a single piece of software is a useful achievement.

I have tested Google Chrome on a mid-range office PC running Windows XP. A fuller assessment can only really come from heavy daily use, and this is – inevitably – only a “beta” or test version, the same status that Google has kept Gmail in for several years. But with that in mind, here are some early impressions.

First, the most important part – browsing the web. Opening regular web pages on Google Chrome is noticeably faster than the most widely used versions of its competitors, Mozilla Firefox 2 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Pages load in a heartbeat, and navigation backwards and forwards between previously viewed pages is also slick. It doesn’t feel quite the same leap forward as the 2004 launch of Firefox, which seemed a lot faster than the IE, but back then the browser market had lacked the invigoration of competition for some time.

Chrome’s speed gap over the very latest releases of Firefox (version 3) and IE (version 8) narrows, but I still feel Chrome has the edge in most cases.

Where Chrome is really designed to improve on its rivals is in showing complex web pages, such as Google’s own Gmail, Docs and Maps. These, along with Facebook and Yahoo’s Flickr photo sharing site, are supposedly boosted by V8, a technology developed by Google’s Danish team to help the browser process Javascript, a programming language common in such applications.

Google’s own demonstrations of its browser has suggested that Chrome is around three times faster than its main rivals at rendering Javascript. But to the naked eye, there is little improvement in zooming in and out of Google Maps or opening emails in Gmail. If anything, Firefox is actually slightly smoother.

It is hard to test some web sites using streaming video, because of compatibility problems. This is to be expected for a brand new browser, but an impediment nonetheless.

There are a number of interesting features introduced by Chrome. Among them is the “incognito window”, which enables anonymous browsing. Ironically, this is the same privacy feature that Microsoft added to IE8, which many interpreted as a way to block Google from collecting information for its display advertising.

Chrome is named after the area at the top of a browser screen which contains the address bar, tabs, settings and navigation buttons – which Google says is another key area of development. By “hiding” some lesser-used features, this area is narrower, leaving more room to show the web page.

When Chrome first starts, you are presented with a set of pictures of recently or commonly viewed sites – like an automated version of the “speed dial” function of another rival browser, Opera.

Tabbed browsing, also pioneered by Opera, has been improved by Chrome: tabs run along the very top of the screen and each contains its own address bar, back and forward buttons and other key commands.

As well as providing more flexibility for multi-taskers, this is also designed so that if one crashes, you don’t have to close the entire browser – a common problem when more than a few tabs are open in Firefox.

Google has consolidated the separate search box, employed by Firefox, IE and Opera, into the main address bar. The result is a cleaner, more intuitive interface. The simplification has removed the usual menu items of File, History, Bookmarks and so forth, which are accessible through the address bar, by a keyword search.

In this respect, Chrome is similar to Firefox 3.0’s new “awesome bar”, which automatically suggests bookmarked or previously visited pages as you begin to type.

This is a good concept, although Chrome lacks the fairly basic ability to sort bookmarks into folders or browse a list of your browsing history. Firefox’s version is also more sophisticated in one respect. Typing a word into the main address bar and hitting return takes you straight to the site which is highest ranked by Google for that search term. The latest version of Firefox can even look at your bookmarks and browsing history to help you quickly arrive at your desired destination. But typing a search word in Chrome’s address bar will only take you to a page of Google results.

Finally, while Chrome isn’t perfect, its main contribution to its stated mission of making the web easier to use for everybody may be the decision to give away all of the Chrome source code for free. This will allow programmers around the world to improve on Google’s own attempt at creating an internet browser.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

[iam802]

Google chief reveals 'defensive component' to browser launch

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a8a6418-7a19 ... 07658.html

Google launched its web browser in part to stop its rival Microsoft from "Balkanising" the internet by carving it up in ways that favoured its own services, the internet company's chief executive officer said yesterday.

.......

However, he also conceded that "there is a defensive component" to the decision as Google tries to prevent Microsoft from using its dominant Internet Explorer browser to outflank it.

"Microsoft has a history of favouring its own applications and I can give you 500,000 pages of court testimony... and so on about that," he said.

.....

Mr Schmidt hinted at Google's long-term aims of challenging Microsoft's dominant position in corporate software, saying Chrome would be a platform for "powerful industrial apps".

"There is an opportunity for a platform and that platform for running these new applications is something that you can't really do on IE7, and that's the argument," said Mr Schmidt.

Mr Schmidt added that Chrome, as an open-source piece of software, could not be used to direct browser traffic to Google's own internet services.

[kennynah]

no difference lah, in terms of who the king pin is...as long as i dont have to pay for the browser... whether lee or tan, anyone can be emperor

[sesdaqfan]

no difference lah, in terms of who the king pin is...as long as i dont have to pay for the browser... whether lee or tan, anyone can be emperor

Kenny,
There is a difference. One fo the eventual emperor may then charge you for a leg, a arm and a heart too.