Tag: google

Anthropic launches Claude for Chrome – Google Chrome Extension for AI assistance

Anthropic is launching a research preview of a browser-based AI agent powered by its Claude AI models, the company announced on Tuesday. Claude for Chrome is initially rolling out to 1,000 subscribers on Anthropic’s Max plan (priced at $100-$200 monthly). The company has also opened a waitlist for other interested users.

With this Chrome extension, selected users can chat with Claude in a sidebar that maintains awareness of everything happening in their browser. Users can also authorise Claude to perform actions in their browser and complete tasks on their behalf.

Google Search revenues becoming smaller as a percentage of total Google revenues – cloud, subscriptions and YouTube rising fast!

Alphabet’s revenues are become more diverse over time – and quickly!

Google Search revenues now make up only 56.1% of their total revenues and the gap is getting smaller every quarter.

Google Cloud is driving growth in the other areas, but YouTube is also climbing fast as well as other subscriptions and devices (and lets not even talk about Waymo and its potential).

What are the Benefits of Using Notion Calendar Over Google Calendar

While both Notion Calendar and Google Calendar are effective tools for managing your schedule, they cater to different needs and offer unique benefits. Here’s a breakdown of some advantages Notion Calendar might have over Google Calendar:

Integrated Workspace:

  • Notion integrates seamlessly with other Notion features: You can connect your calendar to databases, notes, project plans, and other elements within your Notion workspace, creating a centralized hub for managing various aspects of your life and work.
  • Google Calendar functions as a standalone app: While it can integrate with other Google services like Gmail, it lacks the level of in-depth integration that Notion offers.

Customization:

  • Notion offers extensive customization options: You can create different calendar views (e.g., calendar, table, list), personalize the layout with colors, fonts, and icons, and embed various content formats like images and videos within your calendar entries. This allows for a more visually appealing and personalized experience.
  • Google Calendar offers limited customization: While you can choose from different calendar views and color-code events, the overall visual customization options are more restricted compared to Notion.

Flexibility and Functionality:

  • Notion allows embedding other functionalities within calendar entries: You can directly add checklists, to-dos, and even embed other Notion pages within your calendar events, creating a comprehensive and multifaceted view of your schedule and tasks.
  • Google Calendar focuses primarily on scheduling events: While you can add descriptions and attachments to events, the functionality is more limited compared to Notion’s ability to embed different content and information within calendar entries.

Offline Accessibility:

  • Notion offers offline access within its desktop app: This allows you to view and edit your calendar even when you don’t have an internet connection.
  • Google Calendar requires an internet connection for most functionalities: While some limited functionalities might be available offline within the mobile app, full functionality requires internet access.

However, it’s important to consider some potential drawbacks of Notion Calendar:

  • Learning curve: Notion’s interface and features can be more complex to learn and navigate compared to Google Calendar’s more user-friendly design.
  • Performance: Notion’s web app can sometimes experience performance issues, especially with very large workspaces.
  • Limited platform availability: Currently, Notion primarily functions as a web app with limited mobile app features compared to Google Calendar’s mobile app.

My Thoughts on Google (GOOGL) and Their Market Share and Investment Opportunity

A lot of people have been giving Google a really hard time of late over their troubled entry into AI – with their chat interface Gemini. Additionally, there are investors out there that think OpenAI, Perplexity and others will start to disrupt their search business which is their main revenue stream via ads.

I don’t think this is going to happen and here is my take:

  • Google has 93% market share in search and 50% in total digital marketing. These are not going anywhere.
  • Cloud is growing 30% YoY with margin expansion.
  • Forward PE of 19 is reasonable compared to industry average and to its historical median.

I think I will be buying more for my own investment portfolio.

YouTube advertising revenues grew by 12.5% in Q3 2023

YouTube’s advertising revenues grew by 12.5% year-on-year in Q3 2023, according to parent company Alphabet. This growth comes after a period of decline, and is a sign that YouTube is still a major player in the online advertising market.

One of the key drivers of YouTube’s ad revenue growth is the rise of YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts are short-form videos that are up to 60 seconds long. They were launched in 2020, and have quickly become one of the most popular features on YouTube.

YouTube Shorts are popular with advertisers because they are a highly engaging format. They are also a good way to reach younger viewers, who are increasingly spending their time on mobile devices.

In addition to YouTube Shorts, YouTube is also investing in other ways to make its platform more attractive to advertisers. For example, YouTube is developing new ad formats, and is making it easier for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

YouTube’s ad revenue growth is good news for both YouTube and its creators. YouTube creators rely on ad revenue to make a living, so the more ad revenue that YouTube generates, the more money that creators can earn.

Overall, YouTube’s ad revenue growth in Q3 2023 is a positive sign for the platform. It shows that YouTube is still a major player in the online advertising market, and that it is investing in ways to make its platform more attractive to advertisers.

What is Google’s Gross Profit Per Employee

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported gross profit of \$280.126 billion in the fiscal year 2022. As of March 31, 2023, Google had 163,959 employees, which means that the company’s gross profit per employee in 2022 was \$1,708,512.

Google’s gross profit margin is calculated by dividing the company’s gross profit by its revenue. In 2022, Google’s gross profit margin was 62.44%.

Google’s gross profit is generated from its advertising business, which includes search ads, display ads, and video ads. The company also generates revenue from its cloud computing business, its hardware business, and its other businesses.

Google’s gross profit per employee is one of the highest in the tech industry. This is due to the company’s strong competitive position in the online advertising market and its ability to generate high-margin revenue from its cloud computing business.

Google AI Has Been Testing News Article Generation with NY Times, Washington Post, News Corp and Others

Google is reportedly testing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can generate news articles.

The tool, codenamed “Genesis,” is still in development, but it has already been demonstrated to a small group of journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and News Corp.

Genesis can generate articles on a variety of topics, including current events, business, and entertainment. It does this by first gathering information from a variety of sources, such as newswires, social media, and public data. It then uses this information to create a “story skeleton,” which is a basic outline of the article. Finally, Genesis uses its AI capabilities to fill in the details of the story, such as the headline, lead paragraph, and body text.

The journalists who have seen Genesis in action have been impressed with its ability to generate accurate and informative articles. However, they have also raised concerns about the potential for bias and misinformation.

YouTube is Looking to Offer Free cable-style TV Channels

YouTube is reportedly in the process of negotiating with media companies to provide their TV shows and films as part of an ad-supported hub of channels. The platform is already in the process of testing viewer interest in this idea and could potentially roll out the hub to more users before the end of the year, according to The Wall Street Journal. This could be a significant opportunity for YouTube to expand its platform, as well as to increase its revenue from advertising. Furthermore, it would give media companies the chance to reach larger audiences and potentially create more engagement with their content. This hub of ad-supported channels could be a mutually beneficial venture, with YouTube and media companies reaping the rewards.

How do you check if Google AdSense ad code is inserted correctly?

I have recently added Adsense to Crenk.

I wondered how long it takes before the ad code starts to show correctly on your site once it has been added.

Answer = random.

If your using the same Google account or the same IP address as you did when you inserted the code then Google won’t show you an ads and you will see a big white blank space.

However, if you get in touch with a friend and get them to test the site for you then they should be able to generally see the ads. It normally takes a few hours after the ad has been inserted, but sometimes it can be faster.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai Announces They Are Currently Changing Their Offices to Adapt to a Hybrid Model in Future

Google seems to think the future of work lies in between the office and working remotely.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that Google were currently making changes to its physical spaces to better support employees in the future. He didn’t specific state what those changes were.

“I see the future as definitely being more flexible,” Pichai said during a video interview for Time 100. Pichai was an honoree on this year’s list of the most influential people in the world. 

“We firmly believe that in-person, being together, having that sense of community, is super important for whenever you have to solve hard problems, you have to create something new. So we don’t see that changing, so we don’t think the future is just 100% remote or something,” he said. 

Pichai said that Google is “reconfiguring” its office spaces to accommodate what he called “on-sites” — presumably, days where employees, who mostly work from home, gather in the office. 

Personal / Life Moments Hard to Select via AI – Google Shutting Down Print AI Subscription Service

Droid Life has learned (via The Verge) that Google is shutting down the AI-guided trial service on June 30th.

Google didn’t announce why it is closing the printing service, but I would assume this won’t be the last time we see this service being offered.

The service was $8 per month and it had AI pick your 10 best picture and print them on 4×6 cardstock.

There are some things in life which aren’t going to be improved by AI and I think one of them is selecting moments to print from your life. People like to be in control and taking the time to look through all the photos is actually the most rewarding part of the process.

In what ways is Google Waymo a threat to Tesla and its Self Driving Technology?

Waymo at present has a private valuation that is twice as high as Tesla.

How can this be?

Margins! Tesla is focused on the full production of the car where Waymo is focused purely on the underlying technology with self driving cars. Thus, Waymo will have a Gross Margin that is extremely high in comparison to Tesla.

Eric Schmidt talked about this a lot. How Google and its products always wanted to be focused on providing the technology sub stack instead of the full product as it keeps margins at a high level and thus maximising value.

Is Google Play Music Closing Down?

Yes.

Google Music is scheduled to close down later this year around (September or October). Google Music has been an outstanding product, but it seems as though it hasn’t got as much traction as they wanted and they are merging it with YouTube Music and will put all their efforts behind the YouTube Music initiative.

Do I Have to Join YouTube Partner Program (YPP) Before Being Able to Join a YouTube MCN?

Yes.

YouTube have recently changed their rules for YouTube MCN’s which means that all channels within the MCN’s need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program before they become eligible to be added to the MCN’s.

YouTube have been frequently changing the rules for MCN’s which is leaving a lot of channels up against it.

What is the Biggest Tech Company That Uses Contractors or Remote Workers?

Google is one of the world’s largest technology companies and at present the majority of its work force are contractors. Its reported that there are over 90,000 direct employees at Google.

Google’s Alphabet Inc. employs hordes of these red- and green-badged contract workers in addition to its full-fledged staff. They serve meals and clean offices. They write code, handle sales calls, recruit staff, screen YouTube videos, test self-driving cars and even manage entire teams – a sea of skilled laborers that fuel the $795 billion company but reap few of the benefits and opportunities available to direct employees. 

Source: Fortune

How to Fix Your Permalinks in Google Cloud WordPress Deployment via SSH Due to Internal Server Error

Whenever I create a new WordPress blog on Google Cloud and then try to edit the permalinks it gives an INTERNAL SERVER ERROR.

This happens in every Google Cloud deployment of WordPress.

The reason is because you need to Enable mod-rewrite in Apache because the .htaccess files need to do what it needs to do. Here is now to fix it.

Step 1) Make sure you have enabled mod_rewrite in apache. This can be done by going through Compute Engine>VM Instances > identify the correct instance and to the far right on the line will be SSH. Click it and it will take you securely inside a command line interface. Run this command: 

$: a2enmod rewrite

Enable Apache AllowOverride

2) Check your virtualhost configuration in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and make sure that it is configured with AllowOverride All instead of the default AllowOverride None for your web root directory. This tells apache it is ok for settings in .htaccess files to override settings. Use this command to modify the file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
Once you're in there, find the right spot and change it.

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride ALL <----(edit from none)
        Require all granted
</Directory>

After you’ve made that change, make sure to restart the server:

sudo service apache2 restart

Now, your .htaccessshould work. You can also make this change inside a virtual host, which would normally be preferable, but that depends on the way Apache is set up.