Google Inc.'s Eric Schmidt was upbeat about the company's new social-networking service and said it is only the beginning of Google's attempt to personalize its products for individual users.
Speaking to a crowd of reporters at investment bank Allen & Co.'s media conference here Thursday, Google's executive chairman cited the strong demand for invitations to the week-old service—called Google+ —as a promising sign for the ambitious social effort. Mr. Schmidt has previously admitted to not investing heavily enough in social networking as rival Facebook Inc. grew.
He said Thursday that the company is working hard to accommodate the millions of users waiting for invitations to Google Plus, which allows people to share links and media among people they have divided into "circles" based on their relationships. If trends continued, Mr. Schmidt said, the company would look to spread the circles concept across other Google products, including search and its video site YouTube. "There is a lot coming," he said.
A Facebook spokesman reiterated the company's initial response to the service, saying "we're in the early days of making the Web more social."
Mr. Schmidt, who ended his decade-long reign as chief executive of Google in April, covered a range of topics in his annual catch-up with reporters on the sidelines of the conference, including the multibillion-dollar valuations of young technology companies and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe of the company.
Unlike previous years, Mr. Schmidt was flying solo without Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have been regular Allen & Co. conference attendees. Mr. Page, who is now the company's CEO, was working hard at the office, Mr. Schmidt said, and Mr. Brin was on a business trip.
Mr. Schmidt said antitrust probes from the European Commission and the FTC, which began a formal review of Google's business practices last month, haven't affected business beyond a few internal meetings about how to deal with it. "We are calm about this. There is not a lot of drama," he said, repeating his regular refrain that Google has long expected scrutiny from regulators.
Shifting to potential deals, Mr. Schmidt declined to comment on whether the company was considering buying video site Hulu LLC. The site is in sale talks with a number of suitors including Google, people familiar with the matter have said. Mr. Schmidt added Thursday that if the companies were to end up in some sort of deal, Hulu's hoard of current TV shows would complement, not replace, YouTube's Internet-only content. "Anything with Hulu would be additional," he said.
Hulu's owners include a consortium of companies, including News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.
He added that YouTube, which has been a financial drain on the company, is getting better at making Google money but whether it is profitable "depends on how you do the accounting."
Amid heavy investor demand for newly public technology companies, Mr. Schmidt also expressed concern that the valuations of such companies are misleading because they are calculated too early. He said their valuations are "mathematically incorrect" until they have more stable shareholder bases and the lock-up period where certain shareholders are prevented from selling ends. Investors won't know whether these companies are overvalued until 2012, he said.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303365804576432651342386510.html#ixzz1RW1rLMdH
Speaking to a crowd of reporters at investment bank Allen & Co.'s media conference here Thursday, Google's executive chairman cited the strong demand for invitations to the week-old service—called Google+ —as a promising sign for the ambitious social effort. Mr. Schmidt has previously admitted to not investing heavily enough in social networking as rival Facebook Inc. grew.
He said Thursday that the company is working hard to accommodate the millions of users waiting for invitations to Google Plus, which allows people to share links and media among people they have divided into "circles" based on their relationships. If trends continued, Mr. Schmidt said, the company would look to spread the circles concept across other Google products, including search and its video site YouTube. "There is a lot coming," he said.
A Facebook spokesman reiterated the company's initial response to the service, saying "we're in the early days of making the Web more social."
Mr. Schmidt, who ended his decade-long reign as chief executive of Google in April, covered a range of topics in his annual catch-up with reporters on the sidelines of the conference, including the multibillion-dollar valuations of young technology companies and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe of the company.
Unlike previous years, Mr. Schmidt was flying solo without Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have been regular Allen & Co. conference attendees. Mr. Page, who is now the company's CEO, was working hard at the office, Mr. Schmidt said, and Mr. Brin was on a business trip.
Mr. Schmidt said antitrust probes from the European Commission and the FTC, which began a formal review of Google's business practices last month, haven't affected business beyond a few internal meetings about how to deal with it. "We are calm about this. There is not a lot of drama," he said, repeating his regular refrain that Google has long expected scrutiny from regulators.
Shifting to potential deals, Mr. Schmidt declined to comment on whether the company was considering buying video site Hulu LLC. The site is in sale talks with a number of suitors including Google, people familiar with the matter have said. Mr. Schmidt added Thursday that if the companies were to end up in some sort of deal, Hulu's hoard of current TV shows would complement, not replace, YouTube's Internet-only content. "Anything with Hulu would be additional," he said.
Hulu's owners include a consortium of companies, including News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.
He added that YouTube, which has been a financial drain on the company, is getting better at making Google money but whether it is profitable "depends on how you do the accounting."
Amid heavy investor demand for newly public technology companies, Mr. Schmidt also expressed concern that the valuations of such companies are misleading because they are calculated too early. He said their valuations are "mathematically incorrect" until they have more stable shareholder bases and the lock-up period where certain shareholders are prevented from selling ends. Investors won't know whether these companies are overvalued until 2012, he said.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303365804576432651342386510.html#ixzz1RW1rLMdH
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