Friday, May 16, 2008

Google does not love open source

Google the internet giant who uses open source technologies to make billions of dollars every month is actually an enemy to open source just like Microsoft.
Google embraced open source technologies that were geared against Microsoft, and trampled on Microsoft to become web King. But right now their core business (Google money making machines: - Adworks and Adsense) are not open source.
You might think Google is open source but let me make you see this clear.
Google can give you the source code of gmail , google maps, docs and the rest so that you start your own version of the solutions, but they know you will never get a better adverts provider so you will still employ them for adverts and they will make money from your business.
But if you could get a better ads provider they can not give you the codes for free and hence they are scared of open source.
Nobody on earth will have such power and make it open source, and I believe if an open source rival surfaces around the corner it will be a threat to Google’s kingdom.
I personally think if there could be some open source web advertisement solution for websites, where individuals could install the software on their sites and marketers could come and buy space right on their site and they make 100% of the money then Google’s business will drop to some extend.
Ok lets say I build Admark, a php engine (application) which you can install on your site as www.your-site.com/admark, and you put a link for marketers (ad buyers) on your site at www.your-site.com/admark/adbuyers where they can login, choose keywords or sections of your website where they can include their ads, then the Admark engine will bill them for you and then they pay via paypal or e-gold. It will be just like www.google.com/adworks but this time you market to websites that you know and believe in their traffic. For example I want to market only on cnn.com, if CNN has installed Admark; I will put my ads only on cnn.com and on a given page and it will reduce my ads spending. These way marketers will have to study websites where their adverts will make more sense and pay for ads there.
The killer is such a system will run alongside Google ads on the same site with no issues, just like Linux can run alongside windows.
You can login to www.your-site.com/admark/admin to view all the transactions, clicks and also profit you have made just like on www.google.com/adsense
Enough of the technology talks, lets get to the implications of such a system.
The system must be open source:
You know open source is always the answer to proprietary technologies like Google’s ads money making engine. Since its open source, many developers on earth will contribute to make the solution better so that they can host it on their sites, blogs or web business’ and in about a year the engine will become as good as Google’s and after some years it will be better because Google’s employees can not out smart the cloud of open source developers around the world.
The system must be written in php and run under Apache:
Php and apache is synonymous to the web, if you don’t use apache and php then you are not on the web. Php has a short learning curve and its also open source, and I believe 99% of web developers know how to code php and the best web developers are php guys who also know java. If the system is done in php, I think many developers will be able to improve the system and also build new plugins and utilities to make the system better, at that point web publishers will have what they want free or paid to improve their adverts engine.
The Admark system won’t be licensed to any company or any person. It will be an open source framework that any person can use to make money off his/her web traffic. Before you know it we won’t depend highly on Google anymore for monetizing our web traffic and in five years the Linux of Google will be finally born.
Question:
If such a system is put in place, do you think Google’s dominance on the web will still be as strong as it is?

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