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Technology Stocks : Alphabet Inc. (Google) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (13542)	10/21/2012 5:40:18 PM
From: Win-Lose-Draw	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15857

Publishing isn't the same as content - publishing is about restricted access to the distribution network. That's why Google, a virtually content-less company, is such a threat - it's exposing the (lack of) underlying value of the content when it is stripped away from the legacy distribution channel, which was the piece that actually held most of the value. Look, Google is a parasite. I look at it exactly opposite - legacy publishers were the parasites - new distribution channels, such as Google, are freeing us from them, much like Napster (and what came later) freed us from the record industry's oligopoly.

To: elmatador who wrote (13542)	10/21/2012 7:44:18 PM
From: Kirk ©	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15857

I think you overlook that Google IS in the publishing business. Its YouTube is becoming its own broadcast network and they have tons of people making web content for them where they split the advertising fees. For example, I wrote this article Social Security COLA for 2013 and it didn't cost Google a dime (above what it cost them to buy blogspot and host the content) yet they make money sharing ad click revenue with me. If I say so myself, that is probably a better description of the latest COLA than most newspapers since I can dedicate as much space as I want. Publishing existence pre-dates Google. Google exists for how many months? 120? And in that short period publishing lost all value? No, but now everyone with a smart phone and twitter or facebook account is their own news organization. The competition means the VALUE of each reporter is much lower than in the past. Reporting is becoming a commodity rather a generic smart phone vs an Apple iPhone or a handbag from Sears rather than a $10K LV bag... If you felt an Earthquake in the past, you probably turned on the television or radio to get info on what happened or read about it the next day in your paper.... Today you probably check FB or Twitter to see if your friends felt it or if they heard any news about it... Just last night a friend posted she felt a quake and asked if anyone knew more about it. I get a feed from the USGS of big quakes and had a link in my email so I posted it to her FB so she could get the full details of the 5.3 quake. This morning, the SJ Mercury news had the story.... The value of what news organizations had in the past is made less valuable with social media. Look, Google is a parasite. The zebra tick cannot multiply so much as to kill the zebra. Else its source of food, the zebra's blood, dries out as the zebra dies killing the ticks' colony. It might be a useful parasite so someone can find their stories over the noise of the untrained reporters.