What Google knows about you? And why it will rule the world?

I didn't want to put the following statement at end of post, wanted to get the message out first.

"I'd complete control over the personal data storage settings in Google's products and still trust Google more than any other company to store my personal information."

With that statement out of the way, now to the main topic.

Google has released so many products that it's really tough to keep rack of all of them, even if you are an ardent Google fanboy. These products are feature rich and knowing all the features of all the products of Google is next to impossible for one individual.

This post is about one such feature: "Search History" (not sure if it's a product).

Like any Google fanboy I tried out "Search history" immediately when it was launched, played with it and after sometime completely forgot about it. The "Search history" has been renamed as "Web History".

To access /activate "Web History" you need to visit this page. Google account owners can access through 'My Account" after "Sign in". "Web History" is listed under "My Products".

Recently I was checking some other stuff in "My Accounts" and accidentally checked "Web History". I was accessing "Web history" after a period of 3 1/2 years!. Though "Web history" was released only on 4/19/2007, I'd data since 2005 as I'd previously signed up for "Search History".

Here are some of my personal data as recorded by "Web Hisory"

• I'd done 3,040 Google searches in 3.5 years. I expected the numbers to be high as I'm hooked to internet most of the time and Google is my default search engine.

So, I started to dig into the data. I picked a month (September) and checked number of searches done over last 4 years. The following graphs shows the trend line.


What do you notice?

• Sudden jump in 2008. In fact ~1500 out of total 3,040 searches were done in 2008 and still 3 more months go!

What is the Inference?
Does it mean I've become more clueless in 2008 and need Google to figure things out?

NOPE! My cluelessness is constant :-)

The unarguable reasons are : -

• "Web history" can record data only if I'm logged in. Its only in 2008 I've started to use "Gmail" more regularly (logged into it most of the time).
• Nobody will exclusively log in (Sign in) to do searches.
  
• However if you are already logged into one of the Google services, cookies are set to automatically sign in users to search service.
• Being signed in is very important. (I'll come back to this point)

The coolest and scariest feature within "Web History" is the "trend" feature. This feature gives information like : -

• Shows My top 10 queries, top clicks, sites in last 1 year, 30 days and 7 days.
• Tells me that I've searched more during week days, however this is changing, even during weekend my search usage is increasing.
• I've done search during all hours of a day, from 0 to 24hrs. Semi insomniac!
  

Other information about me that surprised me.

• I've just clicked only 4 advertisements (Google Ads). Certainly not a profitable customer!
  
• Shows all videos I've seen
• Lists News that I've followed in last 3 1/2 years
• Traces Routes and Map searches I've done
• Books I checked out.
  
• Blogs that I've followed

I know about the popular Google's disclaimer "No human at Google, ever reads user data". So, I can't blame that a Google engineer might know about me. However Google's code (Algorithm) does surely know more about me than I've cared for.

With this data and advanced algorithm, Google's code will surely know : -

• What is the best time to connect with me?
• What is the best time to sell?
• And what to sell to me?

User relevant Data is important, without this data, no matter how advanced the algorithm is, intelligent and useful services can't built.

Relevant user data can be collected only if the user is logged in. The personal data collected is the insurance against any new algorithm or massive data center.

The relevant user data is the 'positive network effect" similar to platform network effect that made Microsoft so powerful.

That is why Gmail is very important and central to Google's service. It enables automatic "sign in" for all its service. It is also equally important to have users always logged in so that user specific information can be collected all the time. That means user should not close Gmail, but let it run in the background.

Lets look at some of recent Google's initiative.

• Gtalk in Gmail. It makes sense to have Gtalk built into Gmail. Always logged in users.
  
• Google Chrome makes running rich application as long as needed without the browser hanging. This enables running "logged in" applications like Gmail as long as needed. If Gmail is logged in most of the time, more user specific information can be collected. (Can you guess why Chrome was built? ofcourse there can be many more reasons)

I'm not sure if there is any method to Google's product or feature release madness. All I can say is that Google power is growing greater than normal users or business can imagine.

Only one company can compete with Google - Microsoft. However the "Window" of opportunity is closing faster ;-)

Human body and non-linear mathematics.

Didn't I promise more articles that justifies the title of this blog!

Recently I attended Prof B.M Hegde's oration, I was forced to attend this, but eventually glad that I was forced.

B.M Hegde was former vice-chancellor of Manipal University. The oration was an eye-opener to the challenges faced by modern medicine. This post is not about the oration, the medical challenges or the brilliant speaker that Prof B.M Hedge is.

It is about one particular theory (actually hypothesis) that the oration touched upon.

"...this talk will point out the fallacy in the very basis of modern medical science (the linear mathematical laws). Human body, in modern medicine, is treated as simple electro-biochemical machine like a motor car engine. Unfortunately, the human body is only a non-linear chaotic dynamic system continuously run by food and oxygen."

Prof B.M Hegde shared that David Eddy (Stanford professor of Cardiac surgery) resigned his job to study mathematics to give modern medicine a better mathematical base for non-linearity.

Prof also said that 30 years research on non-linear working of the heart will be presented soon and went on to say that if the heart were to be simple muscular pump pushing blood into the vast swimming pool of millions of miles of capillaries which are so narrow that even a single red blood cell cannot pass through without changing its shape, it would have stopped functioning almost when we were born! There is a lot more to it than what we have been thinking so far! The present concept of heart as muscular pump makes a mockery of all known physical laws of the universe.

I've been making related statement to my friends circle for a while: "All human scientific advancement so far has been made based on linear mathematical model, however all future advancement will be made by understanding of non-linear mathematical models"

When I mean all...I mean all - electrical, computing, civil, mechanical and medicine (you could add all streams of education). I added medicine after listening to prof's oration, it re-enforced by own understanding that indeed its all fields of study. All these field's goal has been to build a predictable system (linear system).

Look around, gadgets, white goods and most stuff used in every day life is based on linear mathematical model except love, happiness, sorrow, fun and sensex !(list is not complete)

Just in case you need to know what is linear and nonlinear system?

What is linear system (mathematics)?

- Linear
- Linear system

What is non-linear system?

- Nonlinear system

Ain't there any popular example of non-linear system. Yes!

Google is the first glimpse of true non-linear man-made technical advancement and of course Sensex. However the credit will still go to Google as Sensex is not build on non-linear system, in fact it completely relies on linear system. Number of share in one's DMAT account doesn't change randomly, only the value of shares change to reflect market value, but number of share is same unless one buys or sells shares, it is just the market dynamics which is unpredictable.

But the truth is we're surrounded more by non linear systems than linear - e.g Traffic pattern, Disease spread, Progression of Rumors, City's growth, audience clapping for a performance, Star hysteria, Climate, fashion trends....countless.

Its just that we don't see them yet as non-linear mathematical models.

Googlable Flex/Flash Application

Until now Flash and Flex content could not be searched. In fact in even couple of years back I was advised not to use flash, as it is not search engine friendly.

Not being search engine friendly can make or break many companies. I personally know of a company that makes 10cr annually purely relying on search engine traffic. I can't give link as its a closely guarded secret :-)


So, when Google and Adobe announced plans to make flash/flex searchable, it created waves in RIA community. This is important if RIA application (mostly flash/flex) have to become pervasive rather than just being used for advertisement banners.

Adobe platform evangelist Ryan Stewart, announced a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) contest for Flex application. Here is the link.

As per the rules it looks like this application might win. Try googling "fleximagically searchable" and this is the first application.

On line Business: A Thought paper

Being part of the Google (Yahoo- Scale players) Ecosystem

With time, even Google's simple self serving service like Adsense will grow in complexity. With many additional Google service offerings in brewing; Google will rely on partners for servicing last mile- there in lies the good opportunity to grow along with Google (Yahoo other large web scale players)

Adsense:

–Nurturing Google certified Adsense professional talent and skill. Building and managing this pool of recourse is an innovation in itself that can be leveraged for Gobal Market

–Build resource pool that could harness all the power of Google API. The API working knowledge harnessed will be a valuable IP worth pursuing

– GMail will be soon provided to Very Small, Small and Medium enterprise. It will make lot of sense for these companies to lap up the Enterprise Gmail service as it will free them from poor in-house maintenance and support. I needn't say more about the power and beauty of Gmail – use it to believe what I'm saying


Blogs will become more professional and organized – atleast will “look” like it

Why I'm saying “look” because blogs will not loose its flexibility, freedom or the characteristic of grass root phenomenon but the sheer explosion of blogs across all categories will call for some organization. Organizing (Collection, Editor's Pick...which is an innovation in itself) blogs and one who can do it will be the next media mogul.

Organizational Structure

Every online business is structured around three teams:

1- Content
2- Marketing
3- Technology


In the nascent stage of the industry the technology will rule (thus the differentiator) the content and then as the technology is mastered the content will be the differentiator. If the market is competitive with similar standards of technology and content, the marketing team will be the key for growth. The marketing team should be well versed with technology in the nascent stage and as the technology matures marketers should be content savvy in order to market the products better. Even the content team should be well versed with the technology in the nascent stage and as the technology matures content team should be market savvy.

The culture and management of each team is different. Companies takes pride in building and nurturing these teams e.g , Certain companies are know for the editorial value, take for the instance Newspaper, how many of us buy the news paper for the quality of the ink or the paper? Exactly as Newspaper is more than 100 years old and the technology is mastered by most, it is the content and marketing that will make the difference.

Internet is still in the nascent stage and technology is the king (not the content as people believed in dot com boom). Developing and Managing (Program management, Project management) the technology team and its culture will be the key to organization growth and innovation in the market.

Content creation is yet be mastered – Structure is the Key

Very few companies have got the following right mixture of skills and required project management capability to create online content. This task is increasingly difficult because the grammar of online content is evolving and most of the current rules are set by technology.

Online content creation consists of following team/process. Nurturing, Structuring and program management of following team will be the key to success.

-UI – Usability
-Visualizer / Conceptualizer
-Designer
-Web programmer HTML/CSS/XML/JavaScript
-WebDeveloper:ASP/.NET/JAVA/PHP/Python/Perl/Database/Content Management System
-Content Writer