Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

despite the world taking notice of N Korea's deplorable actions, the US stock market had performed well the other night. it started out as mixed, but if there's one thing that was remarkable, it was google's acquisition. why is it that google's acquisition was such a huge deal? why was youtube such a huge deal? it's what i call positive market forces. people can smell a good deal from a mile away. and they can smell a rotten deal a mile away. but no matter what they can smell a deal. usually, during a buyout a company's stock goes down. not this time. if you read my article on the business section here, you'll notice how i mentioned what this implies for the media industry. i want to venture and say that the acquisition represents progress. for the stock market to grow, you need to demonstrate a clear path to progress. i think a lot of people in the market over the past few years have reacted negatively because of the massive lawsuits, lack of growth, and general negative connotations from all the bad deals in the market. we were promised in 1999 a new era with the internet. people felt disappointed. step forward to 2006. we're looking at a bigger playing field with a better understanding not just of the technologies involved, but the businesses and how businesses treat each other. with that foundation of a mindframe set, what you're seeing is pure progress in terms of movements in society. google represents that movement promised in 1999 but was at an infant stage. unlike other players at that time, google has made major strides in moving forward. compare yahoo vs google. yahoo attempted to expand everything at once. how could you see what was going on underneath the hood when there was no clear focus? why should providing horoscopes contribute significantly to the bottom line? the thing is that when you expand, you need a clear path. google does expand but makes certain that their expansion occurs one step at a time with clear deliverables. if google launches something, you know where to look. they don't just launch everything at once but push forward products that they see as being relevant. perhaps this is marketing, but i see it as focus. i mean, for instance, upcoming.org is part of yahoo. where do you see them being advertised? or del.icio.us? yahoo doesn't utilize its name brand to promote other brands it owns. instead, everything appears cluttered and unfocused. now, the only thing they possess is the small retainership of people that came with them from their initial setup. i think what google has taught is that when you do something, do it well. focus on it or make sure what you're going to buy is the best of its kind. then clearly and simply state that it exist so other people can use it. don't do a clusterfuck. web 2.0 shows that clusterfucks are a bad approach to design. mac/apple proved it with the ipod. again the "Eddie Van Halen" approach with guitar effects.