Baidu’s borrowed OS strategy, outsourced apps, and Facebook’s liked un-likes

Baidu’s Cargo-Cult OS Strategy

Google’s move into operating systems makes sense: reducing Microsoft’s leverage over them, and increasing the aggregate number of Internet users are both great for their business, and they both directly benefit Google over competitors. None of those advantages really apply to Baidu’s decision to enter the OS market.

Fortunately, Baidu doesn’t have to get the strategic questions right. The optimal strategy from a risk-reward perspective is to just copy features from other markets, and copy strategic decisions from more successful companies. The Chinese economy, on the Internet in particular, is growing fast enough to bail out such a strategy.

More on the CrunchFund

BetaBeat tries to piece together AOL’s actual attitude towards CrunchFund based on the confusing and contradictory quotes of many of the people involved.

ReadWriteWeb has a decent writeup (not worth if for anyone who has been following the story) with an excellent title: “The Kingmaker Who Would Be King].” Kara Swisher calls it “business as usual,” and TechCrunch’s Paul Carr is outraged by the PR push-back. Fueling our prior suspicions, Carr calls CrunchFund “Mike and Tim’s baby,” further evidence that this may have been Armstrong’s idea.

Google’s “Fall Spring-Clean”

Google has killed several more projects, including Aardvark (Quora won), Desktop Search (pushing users to save on the cloud), and Fast Flip, a news product.

Google Desktop is the most interesting. Early on, the point seemed to be for Google to a) test local search technology in order to sell enterprise products, or b) get their logo in front of more people. But now, Google Desktop actively hurts their broader strategy: it gives people more reasons to save items on the desktop, which further entrenches desktop-style file sizes and customizations.

In other Google news

• They’re now creating on-the-fly PPC copy based on landing page text.
• They’re showing three-line sitelinks (slightly more real estate for paying customers, slightly less for organic, and more brand-focused ads: one #1-ranked ad now displays up to seven links).
• They’ve clarified an earlier policy change to note that subdomains have not changed for ranking purposes.
• Their app engine price increase has killed at least one app. (On the other hand, a pricing update that doesn’t price anyone out of the market is obviously far too conservative).
• CNN is using Google+. This doesn’t look natural, though: CNN is the kind of organization where this choice has to be sold, and Google is likely to do the selling.

IP Update

“Why does folk music collector Alan Lomax have a copyright interest in “Takeover” by Jay-Z?”

It’s interesting to compare this to the fairly low-cost licensing regime among companies that just play other people’s music. Businesses like Pandora and now TurnTable.fm can be built on this standardized, API-like pricing. In some sense, this shows that the problem isn’t licensing costs but transaction costs.

Why Bangalore Won’t Produce the Next Angry Birds

BusinessWeek has a weird article on the idea that outsourced developers in India will produce the next big iPhone game hit, since they produce games at a fairly low cost. But that begs an important question: what was the last hit app that was produced by outsourced developers, anywhere? Successful apps are almost always built by people whose core competency is apps: even the best app agencies (and there are a few) tend to produce apps for companies who are not app companies per se.

One of the easiest specs is just a feature-for-feature copy of an existing app; BetaBeat has the story on that.

Amazon’s Brick-and-Mortar Play

Amazon.com may be testing out a private PO box system using 7-11s. This is a smart move: if Amazon does their job right, they’ll reduce the demand for retail space. This lets the accrue some of the benefits of that trend.

Facebook Values Un-Liked Like Buttons

JWZ points out that Facebook blocks features that delay like-button loading. Part of Facebook’s long-term plan is to have enough identity data plus browsing data to operate an effective display network (though that business is competitive enough that they might just sell the data).

Yelp’s Filtered Review Problem(s)

Yelp has gotten some bad PR from their filtered review policies, which happen to be pretty helpful for their business model. Meanwhile, Yelp itself has some damaging reviews.

Yelp is in a tough position: their product is much harder to charge for if it doesn’t somehow improve reviews. But anything this heavy-handed isn’t sustainable. Fortunately for Yelp, transparency in reviews isn’t enough of a hook for the next local-reviews startup. Unfortunately for them, it’s an advantage they’ve ceded.