links for 2006-11-13

Web 2.0 – not a bubble until it bursts

Over the last few weeks I have noticed more and more talk that this Web 2.0 thing is really a bubble and about to burst. For me it started with MySpace being picked up for US$580 million by News Corp and just getting hotter and hotter with the biggest indicator we are going to pop Google buying YouTube for US$1.6 billion! VC’s have lots and lots of money and seem to be throwing it at everything with Web 2.0 startups raising $US455.5 million in 79 deals so far this year, more than twice last year.

For me it is a bubble, period.

Today I see the Top 10 Lies of Web 2.0 has been published (via RSS Blog and Matt Mullenweg):-

  1. We learned our lesson last time.
  2. This is not a bubble.
  3. It’s all about community and sharing.
  4. Online advertising will pay for everything.
  5. These sites are so easy, my mother could use them.
  6. The analysts are trustworthy now.
  7. There’s no glut of social networks — young people are always up for trying something new.
  8. Our site is still in Beta.
  9. We’re different from all those other sites.
  10. We look forward to working with our new partners at Google.

I ponder what will happen to the likes of Jobster, Recruiting.com, Indeed, SimplyHired, recruit.net, mkt10.com, in2Vista etc post-burst. Will they be impacted, will they be profitable beforehand, should I get my cash together to buy so great assets at really, really low prices?

Checkout accounting jobs, UK at AccountantCareers.co.uk.

Using Gmail and Google Reader together

I have been using Gmail as my primary non-work email platform for as long as I can remember like many people I find that it rocks! In fact I find this with many of Google’s tools with the exception of G Calender and Google Reader .

While I have begun to use the Calendar more and more I am yet to find a good way of integrating it with my work Exchange calender, CompanionLink just does not get all the timezones right during the sync, but more on that later. The other Google product Google Reader I just found the UI just strange and I have already been through so many RSS readers that the thought of changing just makes me cringe!

Over the last few weeks there have been some changes within the Reader tool. A completely new UI was released that made a bit of a stir within the blogosphere, I had a quick look but still no switch.

Then a few days ago I discovered a small tweak to Reader made by Winston from Singapore . He had modified a Greasemonkey script provided by one of the Google Reader team, Mihai Parparita to combine Gmail and Google Reader into a single screen, I was interested. (If you don’t know what Greasemonkey is check out the Wikipedia entry for some background, in short it is a series of Javascripts that change the way a web page works.) Reader shows your feeds in a single views in a “River of News” style.

Now I have moved all of my feeds into Reader and use Reader as my main RSS client one of the best things is I can now have my feeds sync’d between multiple computers. The Greasemonkey implementation is not without it’s nuances but the benefits out way them many times over.

links for 2006-10-31

links for 2006-10-30

The environment

A few connected thoughts.

The environment, climate change, and global warming are the talking point of every politician and news organisation at the moment. I get the feeling that there has been a “tipping point” reached and we might actually be making some progress here. Not sure what the trigger event was, maybe Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has had something to do with it but does it really matter?

Speaking on An Inconvenient Truth we finally got around to seeing it on Sunday afternoon. If you have not seen it do so. Personally I found it a great movie and I think Al Gore put together a great presentation that should appeal to a vast majority of people. The movie gets you thinking, “what am I personally doing to help the environment?” There also a blog, and a great ad on You Tube:-

Next thought, this week the WWF released a very interesting report, their update to Living Planet Report 2006, and they have had lots of press around the world. Australia has faired very badly in the report, with the 6th largest ecological footprint! Australian’s are using 6.6 global hectares per person per year we are only behind United Arab Emirates, the US, Finland, Canada and Kuwait, but above New Zealand, UK, Russia, China and Japan. Australia is also the 13th largest water users per person between 1998 and 2002, this is NOT included in the WWF footprint analysis for a number of reasons. Take a look at the full report.

The report also goes on to discuss what could will happen in the future and provides a number of options to reduce our demand on the planet. In a scenario called “Business As Usual” if we do nothing by 2050 our demand for cropland and CO2 generation will have increased by 60%, demand on grazing and fishing by 85% and the use of forests by 110%! We would be in debt to the plant for around 34 years of complete biological production! Guess what it confirms we need to reduce our footprint to a level that is sustainable.

The report also covers our footprint growth in the last 40 odd years. In 1961 our Global Ecological Footprint was 4.5 and the planets capacity was 9.0 (global hectares), in 2003 our footprint was 14.1, capacity 11.2. Under the 3 different scenarios to fix the problem by 2050 with “business as usual” the footprint would be 23 to a capacity of 11, “slow shift” a footprint of 16 compared to capacity of 13, and “rapid reduction” a footprint of 12 to a capacity of 13. Very scary!

What can we do?

Al Gore provides us some great tips on his Climate Crisis site, including a carbon calculator which unfortunately only cover the US. But his 10 tips are great really simple to implement and should be your first step. Sign up at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org show your support. You can also listen to Treading Lightly a podcast about the environment.

So back to the question what am I doing, me personally and my family?

  • We only own 1 car, and that one is powered by LPG
  • We recycle
  • We have 100% green power, again
  • We walk instead of driving when we can
  • We catch public transport to work, I am looking to ride to work as well
  • We live in a townhouse with no unnecessary garden to water
  • We only use vinegar, ammonia and bi-carb soda to clean the house with, exception being the dishwasher
  • We have a low water usage front loader washing machine
  • We eat as much organically grown produce as possible, we have a box delivered once a week. We have also been reducing the amount of red meat we eat.
  • We have signed up at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org

Now what do you do?

Google tweaks its hiring process

I kind of think that Google is becoming just like everyone else.  They are adjusting the process just a bit, is this in response to candidates going else where or a recognition that they need to grow faster, ie put on candidates as greater speed?  Or is it as the article suggests they are transitioning from a start up to a traditional company?  Probably both.

At the end of 2003 they had 1,628 employees, now they are at around 9,378!  A growth of 7,750 employees in just under 3 years.  Basically they are doubling their headcount every year. 

They have increased their hiring rate from 13 employees/day to 16 employees/day.

They have slightly reduced the average number of interviews from 6.2 to 5.1.

Some of the other changes:-

So far, Google is experimenting with changes, such as additional short questionnaires for applicants and different interview formats. The company is also considering trying out an abbreviated hiring process, which would allow it to make an offer to some candidates after just two interviews.

Google is also moving from a format in which interviewers provided candidate feedback using free-form text and could give only one overall score to a format in which they offer targeted feedback grouped around four attributes (Google declines to name them) and multiple scores rating a candidate’s knowledge, skills and abilities.

They are also making it harder now to work for them.

In July, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told analysts the company was “able to now in fact increase the standards by which we select and hire new people.” While Mr. Bock says it’s hard to say specifically how Google has raised the bar, he adds that his own team is looking for people for human-resources jobs who “can be promoted four, five, six times” and that other departments also hire people who are overqualified for the specific position they’re recruited for. Mr. Bock says that the company’s brisk growth means that the scope of any position generally expands rapidly.

Over the next 12 months it will be interesting to see the changes at Google as they transform into a traditional company.

Some other interesting statistics, with nothing really to do with recruitment but interesting all the same. 

Google are on track to break US$10 billion in revenue for the year.  Their stock is at US$480, up from a 52 week low of US$331, their market cap is now US$146.33 billion, with a P/E of 70.24.  From a cash position they are rolling in it!  At the end of 2003 they had US$148 million at the end of the last quarter they were standing with a cash reserve of US$4 billion.  (I could be wrong here, not the best at reading financial reports.)

Microsoft on the other hand has revenue around US$44 billion, stock at US$28.4, up from a 52 week low of US$21.46 , market cap of US$283.65 billion and a P/E of 23.79 and approximately 71,000 employees.  They also have about US$6 billion in the bank, down in the last 2 years from about US$15 billion.

One final note Eric Schmidt Google Chairman sold US$28,607,802 worth of stock on 26 June this year!  Ok it was all through indirect holdings but I reckon he got a bit of that 28 million dollars.

 


Checkout Las Vegas jobs at NV Job Search.com.

Are you missing an iPod?

If you are missing an iPod David Berlind may have it.

Last week, I found a beautiful, sleek, black video iPod. It’s one of the 30GB models that looks very much like the one pictured to the left. The owner of this iPod has been taking very good care of it by keeping it in a case. My guesses are that the owner lives in the New England area and flew on United Airlines on or about October 9th or 10th.

 Pity it is not mine it looks like a nice one.

 


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