<story><title>Google Continues Slump After Ad Revenue Growth Slows</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/alphabet-revenue-misses-analysts-estimates-shares-fall</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sytelus</author><text>Quarterly reports are used for estimating &lt;i&gt;second order&lt;/i&gt; derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy. So friends don&amp;#x27;t let friends use quarterly reports without smoothing :).&lt;p&gt;That aside, one thing I have never understood is why Google shutdown their Product Search and then re-incarnated as some half-assed effort. When Google&amp;#x27;s product search was alive and well, I often used that for comparison shopping, finding related products etc. I&amp;#x27;d hopped one day they would add integrated payment, inventory and offer a viable platform for lot of retailers who have no real IT departments to compete with Amazon. I also thought this was perhaps much higher valued search (intent to buy!!). Instead they shut down the whole thing. Now Amazon is the only well known comprehensive place for product search. It looks to me Google handed over one of the most lucrative search segment to Amazon on a silver platter and now we are seeing the result of that decision.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>threezero</author><text>Google shut down their product search because of antitrust issues. It took a while before they realized that they were about to get into real trouble. Hence the “half-assed” replacement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Continues Slump After Ad Revenue Growth Slows</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/alphabet-revenue-misses-analysts-estimates-shares-fall</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sytelus</author><text>Quarterly reports are used for estimating &lt;i&gt;second order&lt;/i&gt; derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy. So friends don&amp;#x27;t let friends use quarterly reports without smoothing :).&lt;p&gt;That aside, one thing I have never understood is why Google shutdown their Product Search and then re-incarnated as some half-assed effort. When Google&amp;#x27;s product search was alive and well, I often used that for comparison shopping, finding related products etc. I&amp;#x27;d hopped one day they would add integrated payment, inventory and offer a viable platform for lot of retailers who have no real IT departments to compete with Amazon. I also thought this was perhaps much higher valued search (intent to buy!!). Instead they shut down the whole thing. Now Amazon is the only well known comprehensive place for product search. It looks to me Google handed over one of the most lucrative search segment to Amazon on a silver platter and now we are seeing the result of that decision.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ec109685</author><text>They tried a bit of that with Google Shopping Express. Unfortunately that turned into a me too product versus when it launched you could get same day delivery from a variety of places.</text></comment>