Archive for March, 2007
Would you survive a nuclear bomb?
Sick, twisted but ultimately very cool. This brilliant “mashup” (i.e: the union of external datasources typically plotted onto google maps) illustrates what you can expect within the different zones of overpressure. Overpressure is the term used to express the quantity of force exerted upon physical and organic entities; buildings and people at a given distance from the epicenter of a nuclear blast. If a nuke where to hit downtown manhattan, I’d probably suffer glass cuts but then again it doesn’t account for radiation…….cheery thought.
Here’s a handy chart to guide your findings.
| Overpressure | Structural effects | Human injuries |
| 1 psi | Window glass shatters. | Light injuries from fragments occur. |
| 3 psi | Residential structures collapse. | Serious injuries are common, fatalities may occur. |
| 5 psi | Most buildings collapse. | Injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. |
| 10 psi | Reinforced concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. | Most people are killed. |
| 20 psi | Heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. | Fatalities approach 100%. |
Ownership of the Search Landscape
Over a decade of dot com M&A from the big guns of search have produced some insightful collections of web properties. Google’s latest 10-K filings is a good time to do a quick summary of who owns what in the world of search.
Google - See Google’s full portfolio of subsidiaries
GGLs list of acquisitions exhibit an impressive grass roots approach, their buy-outs have often contributed to eventual product releases in one form or another.
- JotSpot and Writely have contributed to the launch of Google Apps for Domains and the Google Docs and Spreadsheets products.
- SketchUp, now re-branded as Google SketchUp - a 3D authoring environment.
- ZipDash - provides traffic maps, recently incorporated into Google Maps.
- Urchin which is now Google Analytics.
- Keyhole Corp - now Google Earth.
- Applied Semantics which no doubt contributed to the Adwords/Adsense platforms.
- The list continues with heavy weights like YouTube, Orkut, and host of Payment transaction holdings to support Google Checkout.
Clearly Google are masters in acquiring enlightened technology companies at their early stages, fostering them and later bringing them to market as rich, comprehensive products.
Yahoo - See Yahoo’s full portfolio of subsidiaries.
Yahoo’s story is quite different, their holdings feature a great deal of search engines which Y! had to acquire to build up the search engine technology intellect base to compete with Google and move away from their original strong editorial model. More recent acquisitions are highly successful and promising enterprises such as Hotjobs, Kelkoo and Delicious.
You might remember Compuserve, once the only ISP available in Belgium which soon became a bottom-less pit for my pocket-money!
Microsoft - See Microsoft’s full portfolio of subsidiaries.
The folks at Redmond have apparently favored an in-house approach with few M&A deals in the search sector.
Ask (IAC) - See IAC’s full portfolio of subsidiaries.
IAC holds a truly diversified and exciting set of subsidiaries:
- TicketMaster
- A multitude of online dating sites like Match.com
- Parts of Excite
- CollegeHumor.com
- and countless more…
In summary, the strategies at play here are very different. IAC is excelling at diversifying into disparate fields, Google is holding and capitalising on smart investment moves, Yahoo is striving to get back into the game and, alas Microsoft is caught sleeping as usual!
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