Brad Myers - Get Your Geek On

There's a lot of talk lately about Google buying up tons of Dark Fiber around the country. Everyone seems to be speculating that their goal is to somehow create a "Google Internet" seperate from the existing internet. This idea seems pretty far-fetched to me. Why would google, an Advertising company, want to create an entire internet on their own? Some might say this is because they are currently fueding with Verizon and some of the other major bandwidth owners. That may be, but I don't think there's much to be gained by creating a second internet on their own..atleast not for regular users.

On the other hand, you have Google hiring 2 sharp guys to build shipping containers crammed with networking, hard drives and CPU's. Robert X. Cringley mentioned this back in Nov. in a great article. The idea is that google will dump about 300 of these "mini datacenters" around the country. Why? Most speculation I've seen so far says "Really fast searches!". Come on.. text searches don't take data centers located within 20 miles of where you are.

My belief is that Google is buying this dark fiber, not for public consumption, but rather to create the backbone between their mini datacenter shipping containers. Why? To Sell ads.

If you have ever owned a Tivo, or DVR of any kind, you quickly realize that it changes the way entertainment is brought to you. Everything is on your schedule.. AND.. you can fast forward thru those commercials. Think of a Tivo as a client device. Now, imagine an infinite hard drive in your tivo.. Any content of any kind.. brought to you .. wherever you are, quickly.. and most importanly, with Advertising targeted directly at you. Server Based Tivo with advertising based on your current location, your previous buying trends, by what you are watching. I believe that is were Google is heading. IPTV ..with google supplying the third-party content..and the ads.

Google has Google Earth.. combine that with a GPS cell phone, which they already have google earth for your cell btw, and now.. put ads in it.

If you put all of Google's existing products together, and think just a tiny bit out of the box, you see where everything is going.
Google Local : Find stuff close to you
Google Froogle : Find stuff the cheapest
Google Mobile : Have Google wherever you are
Google Earth : Know exactly where you are, and more importantly, where the nearest taco bell is
Google Base : a database of stuff for sale ..or anything you want to find
Google Video : Videos on demand

There was a lot of speculation last week about Google releasing an iTunes competitor or buying out napster.com. I don't think this will happen immediately, since Google has already declared their commercial offerings on video.google a bit of a loss, but I think it's immenent overall. They do own googlemusic.com. Why? because, they will want to make that content available.. but.. only if you see their ad. Imagine free mp3's..but only if you listen to the 10 second commercial before you play it. Free TV shows, but only when you see a google ad first. Look no further than the top of this web page to see an example in action.