This Week In Google 235 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It's time for TWIG, 'This Week in Google', Matt Cutts from Google, joins Jeff, Gina and me to talk about the latest Google news, Google's quarterly results. What's going on with the shakeup at Youtube, the shakeup at Microsoft and Google's settlement in the EU. Lot's more too. It's all coming up next on TWIG.

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This is TWIG, 'This Week in Google'. Episode 235. Recorded February 5, 2014

The $4000 Dongle

'This Week in Google' is brought to you by Personal Capital. With Personal Capital, you'll finally have your entire financial life in one place. And get a clear view of everything you owe. Best of all, it's free. To sign up go to personalcapital.com/twig. And by Legal Zoom. Visit legalzoom.com to save on your legal needs. You'll gain access to a network of legal attorneys for guidance too. Legal Zoom. It's not a law firm but provides self-help services at your specific direction. Visit legalzoom.com, and use the offer code TWIG to get $10 off at checkout. And by 99 designs. The world's largest graphic design marketplace. 99 designs connects businesses seeking quality, affordable designs with a community of more than 270,000 graphic designers. Visit 99designs.com/twig to receive a free power pack upgrade valued at $99. It's for TWIG, 'This Week in Google', the show that covers Google, Twitter and more. Look at that! It's snowing in beautiful Brooklyn. Gina Trapani in her mom's basement. 

Gina Trapani: That's beautiful New Jersey actually. 

Leo: That's New Jersey.

Gina: Yes. 

Jeff Jarvis: Not so many trees grow in Brooklyn. 

Gina: Not so many. Just one.

Leo: I thought you liked lived in the Botanical Gardens. I didn't know. That's Jeff, okay, not Gina, okay. So, what's cool about this, I got to say is that, you get that thing that only happens after there's snow and then a melt and then are freeze, we get ice...

Jeff: Oh. It’s so much fun. We get...

Leo: ...coating the branches. I love that. Love that, when that happens.

Jeff: Oh, I hate you Californians.

Leo: Jeff Jarvis from the City University of New York. 

Jeff: It's so obnoxious. 

Leo: No, it's pretty. It's really pretty. I love seeing all the Instagram pictures when I woke up this morning. Beautiful sunny day in northern California. I see all the Instagram pictures of ice, snow. 

Jeff: We should get a video of me with a snow blower. 

Leo: I talked to mom this morning. She is in Providence. She said, Graidy, her nephew lives around the corner. My nephew, her grandson. Came over to shovel the walk this morning, very early and then he came back an hour later and shoveled it again. That's depressing. Hey that’s Matt Cutts laughing. 

Matt Cutts: Hey there!

Leo: Matt and I are in California. 

Matt: Good to see everybody.

Leo: Where do you get a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex decal? That's awesome. 

Matt: You can get it from Amazon. you know.

Leo: That's on the internet.

Matt: It was a Christmas present.

Leo: For you? or your son?

Matt: Yeah! No son.

Leo: No son, so it had to be you.

Matt: Just me. 

Leo: See, that's the best part about kids. You get dinosaur decals on the wall and blame the kids. 

Matt: Right. I'm just weird. It used to be Hello Kitty, so I figured...

Leo: Oh this is an improvement. Much more macho. Also with us Gina Trapani. She is in her mom's basement. 

Gina: I am. I am. I might as well just own it. 

Leo: I think we would have known. I hate to say it. The maple paneling. 

Gina: I'm going to be a grown up and have my own place. So, by next week, I'm getting a new place.

Leo: You're just confirming what Erin Sirkins has always known that bloggers live in their mother's basement. Sirkin's watching this right now going, "I told you!. Lifehacker my ass. She hasn't figured out how to pay bills yet, let alone hack life." Anyway, nice to have you, Gina Trapani, founding editor of Lifehacker and now at ThinkUp, which is a wonderful start up that analyses all your Twitter and Facebook posts. Very nice. Very cool.

Gina: Thank you. Nice. Everyone needs this. 

Leo: It's from RooMates, $18 bucks.

Gina: $18 bucks, that's well worth it.

Leo: Dinosaur peel and stick. How big is it?

Matt: It's pretty big. 36 inches. 

Leo: 36 inches, 3 feet. Wow. 

Matt: It's pretty large. Turns out you can get all kinds of weird wall decal. So I’m trying to like resist the temptation.

Leo: There is a company that makes those for sporting figures. So you can have a giant...

Gina: Fathead and stuff like that?

Leo: Yeah, fathead.

Gina: Yeah and it was a weird name.

Leo: Not only did you know the weird name, you remembered it. 

Gina: I did. Well, I guess that worked then.

Leo: Yeah. So you can get a giant clay mask or something on your wall, which sounds a little scary frankly coming at you. You can also get a princess.

Jeff: I want a giant Leo Laporte. I think that's the next TWIT...

Leo: Fathead has not contacted me, but I would be willing to do a licensing deal. 

Gina: In what position/ You have to be like holding a keyboard or i didn’t know maybe a phone. 

Leo: Here's a giant Richard Sherman head. That's a good thing to put on your wall. Wow. They jump right on those trends, don't they. Look at that. So, ladies and gentlemen, now let me ask you, Matt, you work at Google. We should mention this, Matt Cutts is the guy who fights spam for us all, keeping spamy results out of our search. He's been in the news a little bit lately. Talk about that in a bit. But, there is a couple of big Google stories today, including Google and the European Commission settling their three year on-going investigation. Anti-trust investigation, putting that behind them. Did the bells ring? did the church bells ring on the Google campus? 

Matt: I'll say in advance, the standard 'don't-fire-me-I'm-speaking-from-a personal-perspective' disclaimer. A lot of different people helped out with this. And when it's three years long, you're always happy that you can find a good way to resolve it and have it be constructive. 

Leo: Google will not be fined. And there is no fining of discrimination against competition. FTC dropped their investigation in the US a year ago. The FTC said, which must have made you feel good, "Google was motivated more by innovation than by trying to stifle competition." I think actually that's true. The pledge to the European Commission for five years says that, you can "add new services or alter your search page as long as..." , this is always the weird thing these stipulation, "you grant three links to rival services next to your own." 

Jeff: I kind of love this. It's like Google is a genie, you rub it's lamp and it grants three wishes to you. 

Leo: So, "if you have specialized search results like as Google Shopping...",which is really, Google Shopping is an ad, all those results are paid, then "competitors can pay at least 3 euro cents to bid for a spot in a shaded box next to it." That is bizarre. Just bizarre. 

Jeff: I am going to Brussel's to the EU next month to talk about government and the internet and of course, you know what I am going to say is just "Stay Away! Goodbye"

Matt: It' would be a very short address. 

Jeff: It will be. Yes. 

Leo: Actually is the bidding is you know, real bidding, Google can actually make some money on this. It starts at 4 cents but it doesn't mean it ends at 4 cents. And I would imagine you'd want to be in that shaded box there. Anyway, good news that's over. The other big story, which I think happened after our show last week. Yes, Lenovo buys Motorola.

Jeff: We talked about it last week. 

Leo: We did, okay. 

Gina: Oh yeah, it was breaking as we...

Leo: It happened as we spoke. That's right. We were doing basically breaking news, okay. And then finally there is a new head of Youtube. 

Matt: Yeah. So, it sounds like Salar and Susan Wojcicki are going to sort of trade roles a little bit. In that Susan is going ot come over and be the head of Youtube and Salar is going to presumably work on some new project that they'll reveal at some point in the future. 

Leo: This hasn't changed Kinsel's role?

Matt: I don't believe so. And I think, Salar has built up a great organization. They have done a fantastic job. If you think about it, several years ago, people said Youtube has to be costing Google a ton of money, and now everybody realizes that it's a great outlet, it's a great opportunity. True there's more we could do. I always hear the complaints that you mention about, the spurious DMTA complaints and I pass those on to people...

Leo: Oh, thank you. I thought i was thoroughly ignored on all that. 

Matt: No, no. It took a little while for me to like get to the threshold, where I was like okay I need to go find someone to mention that about. 

Leo: Thank you. Thank you.

Matt: Yeah sure. But Salar, Susan, and even Sridhar who is now taking, it sounds like he will be the sole person responsible for all of it. They are all fantastic people. They are all data driven and they are all extremely capable. 

Leo: That's good.

Matt: Well you know, there are some people with outsize personalities, but for the most part...

Leo: Oh, now we are going to get some juice. That Larry Page guy I tell you, he acts like CEO. Who put him in charge?

Jeff: We are going to get Matt fired one way or the other.

Leo: No, we are not. So, we don't know what Kamangar will do, the former head of Youtube. Susan Wojcicki was the head of ad sales at Google.

Matt: Yeah, it was a shared responsibility for ads between Susan Wojcicki and Sridhar. And so Sridhar is doing all of ads and Susan is going to take over Youtube, is what it sounds like from the public reports. 

Leo: She was senior vice president in charge of product management and engineering for advertising and commerce.

Jeff: Of course it was her garage where Google started...

Leo: That's the greatest story right. Her mom's garage was where Google started in Menlo Park in 1998. 

Jeff: Her mom is a magnificent journalism teacher at Palo Alto High.  

Leo: Such a great story.

Gina: See now I don't feel so bad about being in my mom's basement. 

Leo: And her sister met Sergey Brin as a result of that. That's right. You know it's a time honored position. Do you have a brother?

Gina: Two.

Leo: Two! Very interesting. We'll get some people over there right away to start a search company or something. Those are the big stories and I think there's not much to say at this point. 

Matt: Well and speaking of search companies, it's interesting that Satya Nadella is now the CEO of Microsoft and he started in Bing. He back in 2008, he was at search conferences like SMX and Pubcon and then he went on to the server group at Microsoft. 

Leo: He ran R&D at Bing and that's actually in a way a big part of I think why he was able to become CEO is that they needed somebody who had experience in a broad range of areas and he runs currently, or did just until Tuesday, run Cloud and enterprise for Microsoft. But having had little bit of techie experience as R&D, having had little bit of consumer experience at Bing, I think made him the front runner frankly. 

Matt: I think it's a fascinating thing because a lot of the old guard at Microsoft might be more, thinking it through a client PC sort of frame work but Satya, he understands the Cloud natively and I am very curious to see what Microsoft does following that.

Leo: He has been very, in his 22 years at Microsoft, very available to people. Everybody's interviewed him, except me. But everybody's interviewed him. And has nothing but great things to say about him. We will watch with interest, you think. Maybe that will end the Scroogle thing or that'll continue on. 

Matt: It sounds like Mark Penn is...

Leo: Yeah, Mark Penn's running that. 

Jeff: Mark Penn, I saw him at Davos.

Leo: You did! Was he there?

Jeff: He was there. 

Leo: Did you say 'Hi'?

Jeff: No. I wanted to have a smart ass thing to say but I thought no, it's not worth it. 

Leo: Scroogled! 

Gina: If he manages to turn Microsoft into an internet company that would be tremendous. 

Leo: Well, so what he said at his session speech. The first all hands meeting, we talked about this on 'Windows Weekly', if you want to get more excessive detail. Software, software, software. 

Jeff: Innovation, innovation, innovation. 

Leo. Yeah, but that is an important, maybe distinction between him and his successor Steve Ballmer, because it was Ballmer who began this transition to a devices and services company. That doesn't sound like 'software, software, software', in fact, it sounds like 'hardware, hardware, software.' And so, he was at great pains to say 'look it all runs on software.' And in fact, Paul Thurrott and I came up with a new, because if you go to the Microsoft webpage it says 'Devices and Services', and Paul and I said, you really got to rename that to Microsoft make the software that power the devices and services you use. And that's probably more of the angle he's going to take and he is a techie. He is a programmer. 

Gina: That sounds like Operating Systems though. That's what it sounds like to me, which isn’t a bad thing. 

Leo: But you know this, ThinkUp software.

Gina: Yes. But it's web software like that's different. You know Microsoft's whole thing has been...This is a Windows Weekly and I don't really know what I'm talking about, when it comes to Microsoft for sure. But, Microsoft is still Windows and Office right and I know there's a lot of Cloud components to that. But that feels tagged on. 

Leo: Well, that's what they are saying. That's what they are saying. 'We are not.' That's what 'Devices and Services' as their tag line says. 'We were office, we were Windows, we are now devices and services.' Even Windows and especially Office now is offered as a service.

Jeff: You know what I just realized recently that I don't use, except at the moment when I am on Skype thanks to you, I don't use a single bit of Microsoft software. Nothing. Not because I am anti-Microsoft or tried to stop using Microsoft or any of that. It's thanks to my Chromebook pixel, you don't need to.

Leo: What's interesting is you could use Microsoft Office on your Chromebook pixel. The web versions of those run quiet well on Chrome.

Jeff: But I don't need to now because I am on Cloud.

Leo: Right. And of course Nadella ran the Cloud services, so he's very familiar with Cloud. I think this is part of the transition to the Cloud frankly. But he's emphasizing...

Jeff: What would you say Microsoft's key skill is these days?

Matt: Well, there was a really interesting point whenever Satya wrote his letter about who he was, is posted on the website, he mentioned innovation, talent all the right notes. But he also mentioned perseverance. And I think that's something that Microsoft really shines at compared to a lot of like web based companies that expect to just get a ten times multiplier in one week and then you call it a day. Microsoft realizes they need to sometimes show up, talk to the customers, grind things out, support things for years, that's something they are really good at. 

Leo: He says, "It is an incredible honor for me to lead this company." He mentions Bill Gates is going to come back as a support. He says, " While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more. Our industry does not respect tradition, it only respects innovation. This is a critical time for the industry and for Microsoft. Make no mistake, we are headed for greater places as technology evolves and we evolve with and ahead of it. As we start a new phase of our journey together, let's consider tradition, let's consider..." yeah persistence is one way to say it I guess. He says,” This is a software-powered world." I think that's also the correct way to look at it. In fact, it may be, but to Microsoft's kind of failure in hardware space surface has been a little bit of a flop certainly. 

Jeff: I still don't know what that means though. What software do we need them to make?

Leo: Well everything is software. 

Matt: It sort of echo’s...I mean is it Andreessen who said, "software is eating the world"? So, it sort of echo’s that...

Jeff: Alright. But then if software is everything, then saying you're software is saying nothing. You have to get down to decide what kind of software? Where is your value?

Gina: Right and they have to make that shift from being the desktop PC, the company that built software for locally on devices to being more web centric. That's what I was saying earlier. That's a really big cultural shift. I think that like companies that started after the web, started building for the web, or in the Cloud, to begin with, it's in your DNA in a certain way that I don't think that necessarily is at Microsoft and if he can make that shift for them, that would be huge. And I should say, Microsoft R&D does some amazing, amazing, amazing things. I've had a chance to see a couple of really neat things that I would just love to see them ship that stuff and get just more press for that. You just don't hear about it as much as...

Leo: He very much acknowledges this. He says, “in our early...", this is also in his letter, "in our early history, our mission was about the PC on every desk and home, a goal we have mostly achieved in the developed world. Today we're focused on a broader range of devices. As we look forward, we must zero in on what Microsoft can uniquely contribute to the world. We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization." So I think he's clearly positioning himself. 'Where we really add value is in the software that goes through these devices and services.'

Jeff: So who is their primary competitor? Is it not Google now? Is it Apple? Is it...

Leo: Apple is a very good example of a company that doesn't have the DNA to do Cloud. 

Jeff: Who do they go after?

Leo: IBM.

Jeff: Maybe you're right. Two old dinosaurs. 

Matts: I don't know. It's interesting because the competitor question is the good one to ask, but I really like Gina's question about whether they make the transition to a web company. And by web it doesn't just mean devices like mobile or the Cloud, which I do think they'll chase, I think there's going to be really interesting fork in the road because web companies are brought up to believe in interoperability, open standards and federated data and all this sort of things...

Leo: Right on.

Jeff and Gina: Yeah.

Matt: I'll be very curious if Microsoft, which way they go on that fork. Because if they make a decision that says, you know what you're not allowed to run Chrome on our latest operating system, that's  kind of the old Microsoft still poking through.

Leo: You watch with interest. You nailed it. The bellwether will be for instance, can Chrome ever be installed on our T or and this is the one we're watching with interest right now, how long before Office which is adamantly great important product for Microsoft appears on iOS and Android. 

Jeff: And Skype on Chrome and so on. I think you're reference to IBM is right because the re-invention that IBM did of itself around open source, around services and other things is probably a good road map for what Microsoft needs to do now.

Leo: Yeah, they are very much like it. Google had a good fourth quarter, we'll talk about the results, find out what it all means in just a little bit. There is also lots of news including Jeff's new glasses.

Gina: Oh, I can't wait to hear about this. Jeff do you have them? Oh, I want to have this conversation!

Leo: But first let's deviate a little bit and talk about Personal Capital. This episode brought to you by Personal Capital. Today I want to share with you a free and I got to emphasize, secure tool called Personal Capital that solves two barriers to building your net worth. Let's face it, maybe you'll say, 'Oh! That’s not a goal of mine to build my net worth', look someday you got to have to retire and I wouldn't count on Social Security to keep you afloat. You got to build your net worth at least so that you can enjoy your life in your older age. Trust me, I know. First barrier of course in doing this, is hard to keep track of your life. As you get older, your life gets more complicated. You've got mortgages, you've got loans, you've got credit cards, bank accounts. One hopes you've got investments, 401K, stock investments all in different sites, different user names, different passwords. And then of course you have to pay somebody to manage all that stuff and you can really overpay on that and get some not so good advice either. Personal Capital solves this problem. All your accounts and assets are in a single screen on your computer, your phone, your tablet. They've got great free apps, real time intuitive graphs, makes it very easy for you to understand what you are looking at and then drilled down to find out, am I overpaying in fees? How can I reduce those fees? What are some investments that are appropriate for my goals? It's really great and best of all it's free. It's free. Go to personalcapital.com/twig. You'll get clarity and transparency so you can make investment decisions. And you get great advice on making the most of your financial life. personalcapital.com/twig. It's free and the smart way to grow your money. Try it today. personalcapital.com/twig. We thank them so much for their support of 'This Week in Google.' 

Alright, let's start with the Glass. I did see that the NYPD is going to be testing Glass. That is not a good thing, I don't think. 

Jeff: No, it's not because at the new opportunities...

Leo: Yeah it's a dash cam all the time. Yeah, I guess.

Jeff: Yeah it is.

Leo: They are not using...it's a trial. A law enforcement official said, "We signed up, got a few pairs of the Google glasses, and we’re trying them out, seeing if they have any value in investigations, mostly for...", as you hypothesized, "...patrol purposes. We’re looking at them, you know, seeing how they work", says a New York City law official. Exactly like that. 

Matt: Forget about it.

Leo: Forget about it!

Jeff: You've got a problem with that?

Leo: So what's your problem Mr. Jarvis?

Jeff: Well, alright. Here they are. So, I didn't mean to mean to cause or kerfuffle, but Business Insider chose to write about my little Google+ post and Tweets last night. And, because I had gone after Business Insider some time ago for dismissing Glass offhand. So, when I came off being critical of Glass, 'Ah! See! See!'

Leo: We were right!

Jeff: So here's the box right. 

Leo: So these are the prescription glass Glasses?

Jeff: These are the prescription frames. Now, the problem is, that I've had with Glass is that I have to wear them over my glasses; they don't really work so I really haven't been using them so I feel very impractical. I'm $1500 bucks in. So then I get, I think, finally I can use Glass, prescription lens. Okay fine. So here is the case. It's big enough to be a bomb. 

Leo: You can put that in your back pocket can't you?

Jeff: You've got to carry...

Leo: That's your Glass kit

Jeff: Yeah. So then you get this, so then I open them up, here they are right. Okay so they are fine. I'll take them off, now I'm blind. Okay so fine they are glasses. But here's what gets me...

Leo: Where's Glass? I don't see Glass.

Gina: Those are nice. Yeah, where's the Glass?

Jeff: Because I've got to send my first pair back to get the second pair to put on these, because the first pair doesn't work on these. Which is my first primary problem right. So, I'm at $1500 bucks for this. For something that I really don't use, to be honest. Google's out another $1500 bucks because they are not making profit on this. It's probably that much in sending me another pair, thank you very much, but that's a lot of money. These cost two and a quarter. With my old screwed up eyes, my lenses costs upwards of $300. So, all in their money and my money, we're talking about a $3500 investment.

Leo: Oh, my God! You could have bought a Mac Pro for that.

Jeff: Well, yeah or two Chromebooks. 

Leo: Two pixels.

Jeff: Two pixel, ten...

Leo: Ten Chromebooks, yeah. 

Jeff: Ten Chromebooks. And five golden rings. So that just started to really bother me. But what me last night I guess, besides the Merlot was...

Leo: So you admit, you were a little toasty when you wrote this. 

Gina: Drunken Glass Tweets.

Jeff: I talked to a nice guy from the Google team today and of course told him it was the Merlot and I didn't intend to cause this fit. But what gets me is, I don't know if you can see here, this...

Leo: What is that point at the end there?

Jeff: This is where you put the Glass in, but it's a sharp edged thing. So, what hit me with the humorous, the design over functionality of this is that I can't use. I'm going to spend probably upwards of $600 on these Glasses...

Leo: And you can't use them without Glass.

Jeff: And I can't use them on their own.

Leo: Or you could poke your eye out.

Gina: Right. That's the thing when they said that it doesn't work unless the electronics are attached right.

Jeff: That's ridiculous. Plus they don't bend. Right they are titanium and so they come with this huge case so I need to carry a briefcase to carry my glasses. 

Leo: Now the case if because you are going to put your Google Glass in there as well right?

Jeff: Yeah, but still they could have...What I said to them today was, the nice guy called in saying I just want your feedback for the team. And I said, happy to give it for what it's worth and I didn't mean to cause a huge kerfuffle. But my advice is, get this fricking thing to the market sooner than later. This is design over market sense. And the market is going to yell at you. Instead of just me yelling at you and say No, no, no, no! They should have been talking to customers. It occurred to me that they should have been using Google+ and the Glass groups there to say, ‘all you blind bats using Google Glass, what would you like the Glasses to be?' They didn't use their most powerful tool which is this incredible community of explorers, they put around it and Google+ to avoid what I think is a mistake. Danny Sullivan was rooting me on last night so he agrees. And it just, at some point I just got offended by the total cost of something that is still novelty, I don't use very much. I still salute them for making it. I still say that Glass is to whatever follows, what the Newton is to the smart phone. This is an important advance. I know it's a Beta, I know it's just a start. Yes I get sick of all the first world problem jokes on Google+. But having said that, I don't know what to do now. So I'm going to go to my optician and see what they lowest price is I can get for lenses for me. But my lenses are really expensive because they've got 5 levels and all kinds of stuff. And it's just really expensive.

Leo: Do you still want to...? You started your post saying, "I want out!" 

Jeff: I can't get out of Glass. My point was, yes I knew there was a 30 day return of the original Glass. I almost returned, but I do that too often. Don't I TWIG fans? So, I didn't and I kept them. But now, I'm going to go to Google and Google's going to send me another...they are out of another $1500 bucks and that actually kind of bothers me, for something I don't use that much. So then I am out of another $600 bucks on top of it for total of frames and lenses. And, if I am stuck with the Glass, I might go ahead and get this. But then I have another problem. Which is in my case, and this is unique to me, I want to use this in education. But Glass is tied to my account and so I can't really pass the Glass and will soon be tied to my screwed up prescription. So, I can't really pass them around in school. So it becomes less and less useful to me and more and more kind of offensive. I enjoyed having the first, I enjoyed demonstrating them, I've never worn them on the streets of New York because, I think I look like a dork and they wouldn't work on top of my glasses and I'd get hit by a car. If I go ahead and fill these with lenses and get Glass, maybe it might change my mind entirely but I just think Glass ought to get in the marketplace and get to real consumers and I'll probably be a lot happier about whatever that product is than this sand box. End of spiel. 

Leo: Well I'm kind of with you. I didn't buy Glass in the first place even though obviously I could have. I paid for it and I gave them to Jason. Actually that's right, it's worse than didn't buy them. I did buy them, I just didn't wear them.

Gina: So the arm not bending, while I appreciate is clearly a difficult technical problem, it makes it really impractical. In that case, it's crazy. But Jeff those lenses are really nice. I mean much nicer than the visor. The original explorer version visor, in my opinion just from seeing you sort of hold them up. And you haven't gotten the electronics yet. So you haven't even gotten a chance to wear those, right. But you are going to. You need to swap in the new version and then you need to get your lenses, the lenses that help you see.

Jeff: These glasses are nice if I could wear them with and without Glass, I might actually wear them. That's part of my point is, I don't off and spend $600 on glasses, just to wear occasionally when I'm going to be a geek. I'm not going to wear Glass all the time. You don't wear Glass all the time. 

Gina: No, no I don't. And I have to tell you, when I saw these new frames, I saw the bit that said these frames won't work unless Glass is attached and that was a little bit of a red flag. I was like what a second. Look, if you are going to spend the money on your prescription lenses and the frames, you should be able to. I mean I would love it if you could snap the electronics on and off. 

Jeff: Or for that matter to give me as an add on, a little plastic thing to cut this sharp thing so it doesn't cut into my skin so that if I go to the effort of taking them off, I can still use these as $600 glasses. But I can't do that.

Matt: Yeah, that would be helpful. Yeah something, a little plastic piece that would let you use it, dual use, that would be nice. 

Gina: Somebody's got a maker bot somewhere that can print one of those out for you. 

Jeff: Yeah exactly!

Gina: That's definitely going to happen. But yeah, I mean I agree. I hear where you are coming from, but I also kind of feel like you kind of knew what you were getting into. But I also want to hear your review once you get the whole setup on your head. 

Jeff: So you are telling me you'll cost me another $700 for the review. You are shaming me into spending another $700.

Gina: No, no, no! So wait, you paid for the frames and you paid for the electronics so the other $700 are the lenses for you?

Jeff: Well, the lenses for me. This is $250 for the frames...

Leo: The frame doesn't include the lenses?

Jeff: Of course not. Because they are going to get special lenses. I've got tri focal...

Leo: I didn't realize that. So the $250 is not for glasses plus lenses. It’s just for the frames.

Jeff: That's the cost of these frames which these are very nice frames right.

Leo: Yeah, frames are expensive but that seems a little odd.

Jeff: My lenses cost as a rule upwards of $300. And I can only use those lenses when geeking out with Glass. That's the part that just made me say, oh jeez really!

Gina: Oh, yeah I hear you.

Jeff: Yeah that's all. I didn't mean to cause a big fit.

Gina: But no, I think it was good for... you’re little bit of the canary in the coal mine and I think it was good to realize sort of...

Jeff: Yeah they were very good at asking that. I gave them earnest advice an said get this sucker to market because the real market is going to tell you better than I will. I think this was a designer not being forced to deal with real customers. The point of the Explorer program, is that Google has real customers. Crazy first adopters, nicer customers, and I think they could have done a better job of using that. 

Leo: The original rumor was that they were going to go with Warby Parker to do it and Warby Parker has equivalently nice glasses like $90 bucks. 

Jeff: That's true it's a lot cheaper. My optician hates people going to Warby Parker. Because he makes profit on the frames. 

Leo: Oh yeah. And going to 1-800 contact lenses, whatever it is, because they don't. That's why their services are going up. Let me such on Warby for some titanium frames for you. And just see what they have. Because I think they are like $100. 

Jeff: Really?

Leo: Yeah.

Jeff: These are nice and light.

Leo: I would have expected Google to say to this guy, hey look we are going to give you some profit but shouldn't charge more than cost on these, you shouldn't make the usual certain markup.

Jeff: These aren't cheap. These frames, these are the plastic-y bending ones, which I like quite a bit. They are like the titanium ones I had. Very, very light, extremely light. These cost $250-$300. 

Leo: Well yeah, but you are over pairing because Luxottica has this monopoly. Warby charges, including lenses...

Jeff: Including lenses? No, they don't give you lenses. They just sell the frames.

Leo: No. You send them your prescription, they put your lenses in. 

Jeff: Really?

Leo: Yeah. So, I am really feeling like you are paying Luxottica prices, when you pay $250. 

Jeff: These are nice guys in the town, I support the whole business, I support Google. 

Leo: Well here are the Marlowes. These are $145,. It's copper, not titanium. And that includes prescription lenses with anti-reflecting coating. You can a nice box and wiper rag too. 

Jeff: Google sent me...so I got a wiper rag, a Glass wiper rag. Oh, that's worth $50 at least!, extra nose pads...

Leo: Oh! you don't get extra nose pads from Warby. These are platinum, brushed platinum. $145 bucks. 

Gina: Wow! that's cool.

Leo:That looks as good as titanium. And here's a nice selling point, it doesn't have a pointy eye poker on one of the side of the temple. 

Gina: An eye poker!

Leo: Special eye poking unit is missing.

Jeff: Well now I am in trouble, I can't find...they send little screw driver and I can't find it.

Leo: Oh, you lost the screw driver!

Jeff: Oh, here it is. I also got a little tiny screw driver. 

Leo: So if you have tri focal they tell me that you have to, Warby won't do those so. 

Jeff: Well you see exactly. 

Leo: I have progressive tri focals as well. Not just the tri, infinite focals. 

Jeff: Age is a terrible thing in math. Don't get old.

Leo: Don't get old. Fourth quarter results for Google and fiscal year results for 2013 coming up in just a bit. I'm being Scott...

Jeff: Scottish?

Leo: That's right. Because it's all about saving money. Google's going to do a stock split, are you happy about that?

Matt: I don't mind that. 

Leo: You know it doesn't mean anything right, because the value of your stock does not change one wit. You just have more shares for the same amount. 

Jeff: Is it a more shares or a different kind of shares stock split?

Matt: You get a dividend which is technically a Class C share, which is basically the same as a regular share. So it's basically almost exactly like a 2:1 stock split and Leo is exactly right. Mathematically it means nothing, it's just psychologically stocks tend to go up after a split, which is very weird. 

Leo: Well because the price of a single share is lower so I can buy one now. Google stock being well over a $1000 for one share, I couldn't afford one.

Matt: Right, for Google might be more of a factor but if you need any evidence that stock markets...

Leo: It is interesting that these are non-voting shares you'll be getting.

Jeff: New shares are non-voting.

Leo: Yeah. So, you retain your Class A single Class A share and you get a second Class C share which is non-voting. I guess that's not unusual. That means that, they don't want to double your vote. So, that makes sense. 

Jeff: Well, there is a third part of the split which is Sergey and Larry hold on to super voting shares. 

Leo: They get 10 Class B shares which are really good.

Matt: Like 10 votes to one or something.

Leo: 10 acts. Yup, 10 times more than the Class A shares. But you know what, that's great. I think founders should retain control of the company. You really don't want a Carl Icahn to come along by and buy 1% of your stock and suddenly change the company's direction. 

Matt: They were very clear in the founder's letter that they were going to try crazy things and if you don't like that, don't buy Google shares. So it seems like, you read the disclaimer before you buy Google. 

Leo: It's also important to you Matt because, having this non-voting stock means they can give out more stock to employees without diluting Larry and Sergey. So, a part of this is about getting, and this is really the currency in Silicon Valley, it's not just the salary, it's how much stock am I going to get. So having more stock available to give employees is very important. 

Gina: Dumb question. More shares, same price that means that the company was evaluation...?

Leo: No, no, no. The price drops.

Gina: Okay.

Matt: Basically think of it, twice as many shares and the price drops in half basically.

Leo: Yeah, so if you have a 100 shares worth a $1000, you'll have 200 shares worth $500.

Gina: Gotcha. Gotcha.

Jeff: And full disclosure I own some Google stock.

Leo: well, you're going to have twice as many shares! But not twice the votes or twice the dollars.

Jeff: We have the TWIG vote. That means nothing.

Matt: Yeah, that's true. The TWIG vote is probably more important than the share votes. That's true.

Jeff: Yeah.

Matt: No, I'm serious! So, I was running, I was jogging and I hadn't listened to last week's, 'This Week in Google', and so I was listening to it yesterday and I don't remember exactly what the subject was. All I remember is, at an hour and 39 minutes in, I have to go and find that podcast again and report a bug. 

Leo: Oh my God!

Gina: Wow!

Matt: Well I think it was Leo Laporte, I think it was your Audi, the Google Earth...

Leo: Well, that's not your fault.

Matt: But no, it's a fair bug report. Like, hey you sent us through a lake or whatever. 

Leo: It does use Google Earth, but I think Google Earth is not the fault here. That Audi is saying to Google Earth, 'he is in Bodega bay right now, what's that look like?' And then all Google Earth does is say, 'well if he's in Bodega bay, he's going to see the continental shelf from here.' It's the funniest thing to drive on the continental shelf, I got to tell you. 

Matt: So, basically reports and bug reports via TWIG, they carry a fair amount of...

Leo: Thank you! thank you. From now on we should have a little bell or something that we ring when it's for Matt Cutts attention. 

Matt: I think Jeff's rant clearly got people's attention even before TWIG started. 

Jeff: It wasn't a rant.

Matt: Well yeah sorry. There was some body in the chat room who was like, we should have a section called 'Jeff's rant of the day' or something like that, so that was on my mind. But you're right. 

Leo: It's been done. it's been done, by Jeff and others. We don't need no stinking rants. I think I have a picture of me and the Bentley, let me look through my Google+ photos. I have been taking some of the more interesting pictures. Yeah, here I am driving downward. Looks like a typical California street, but according to Google maps. I'm just off the coast of sea ranch. 

Gina: But if you pulled out your phone...

Leo: Oh the phone would be fine. 

Gina: Yeah the phone would be fine. That's a car bug. 

Leo: That's a bug of the car. By the way...

Gina: GPS bug.

Leo: ...apparently, not only did Matt Cutts truncate his run during this podcast but somebody at Audi did, because I got a call from a dealer shortly thereafter, saying Audi America wants us to fix your car. 

Gina: Wow, the TWIG vote. I like it. 

Matt: It's probably a little screw. You can use a little screw driver to twist the GPS coordinates. 

Leo: It's actually...of course, there is a screw and they fixed it once. I brought it in and they said they'll reset that. And they reset it, and it worked for a day. And then I sent them this picture saying, 'you fixed it sort of.' You know what's nice about having Google Earth in your car GPS? You get some vivid views of where you aren't. You know you're in trouble when it says, because you know it gives you a credit on the Google Earth to where the satellite photos came from, when your credit is United States department of Agriculture, that's when you know, and literally it is. And then this one is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the US Navy. 

Jeff: You know what happened to me Leo? I would get a fear of that. When I go over, honest to God, you know my bridge problem? When I go over bridges and I have my phone with ways on it and I see blue on the phone, I get nervous and I turn off the phone. 

Leo: I'm on a bridge! I'm on a bridge!

Jeff: Yeah. So on your car, I'd be driving on the street and suddenly get sweaty palms. 

Leo: Literally four miles out to sea. I don't think there's a bridge out here. This is cool because you turn the knob on it and you can zoom in. I've zoomed out to 4 miles. You can zoom in and then you tap the knob. As soon as you zoom in to the 30 meters level and then you tap the knob, you get street view as you're driving down the street. 

Matt: Or submarine view. 

Leo: It's so weird to get street view of where you are. 

Jeff: See the fishes. 

Leo: Well, I don't know what happens in the water, but you can see there, I'm actually getting the topographic oceanic, topographic map. Courtesy of no know and the US Navy. Now, we've got a sub out there somewhere. It's fun. I love bug reports on the show. Let's do the quarterly results right now. Consolidates revenues of, survey says, $16.86 billion for the quarter, ending December 31st. That's up 17% year over year. Nice!

Jeff: Disappointed somewhat. 

Leo: Well, it's all in the stock market. 

Jeff: No.

Leo: Traffic acquisition costs. That is what? The cost of getting people to use Google I guess. It's marketing.  

Matt: Yeah or payouts to partners for example...

Jeff: Like Wikipedia and stuff like that.

Leo: 24% of revenues, $3.31 billion

Jeff: Wow.

Matt: Or like AOL. 

Leo: Yeah, acquisition costs. 

Jeff: Ad senses is going down, it's getting weaker, which is probably a commentary on competitive things like programmatic buying and other things of some websites out there but that's a concern.

Leo: Net income was good and using the GAAP method, $3.38 billion up considerably from $2.89 billion year to year. 

Jeff: And they just saved $5 billion EU fines.

Leo: Yes. So all in all a good quarter for Google. Now mobile would be one of the things to watch carefully. Mobile revenues. And this is one of the things that surprised me with Facebook's quarterly results. That mobile suddenly, they flipped it. It was more important than desktop revenue. Google a little soft, I think on mobile revenues still. 

Jeff: And Facebook has been surprising on mobile. I'm not sure exactly why it is.

Leo: Yeah that's what I'm saying yeah. That's a big deal.

Jeff: Yeah.

Leo: Just looking through these numbers. So, Apple's effective tax rate was 20, I think, 22, 24%. Google's effective tax rate 16%. So, good job on the accounts there. That's thanks to the Irish reach around. Cash assets...

Gina: Sandwich.

Leo: No, that's sandwich in the Irish whatever. There's a term I don't remember. I prefer 'reach around' anyway. The cash holdings $58.72 billion. Well, less than Apple, but not shabby. Not shabby. 47,756 full-time employees, abut almost 4,000 Motorola so, those will be disappearing. Although that might take a while incidentally. That's got to be approved, not only by US regulators, but Chinese regulators for Lenovo. So, mobile struggles continue. But revenue and profit up. Mobile's tough. It's a tough nut to crack. But you got to crack it, because if you can't get mobile advertising to work, you don't have much future.

Jeff: Well, my contention has been that, mobile is not as simple as just putting ads on here. The mobile strategy and I've said this show many times is that Google is in the signal industry...

Leo: Absolutely.

Jeff: This generates signals for Google and Google uses across all kinds of parts of the relationship so it's not directly attributable. The value of mobile to Google is not directly attributable to the banner ads sold. 

Leo: In fact, really yeah, if you think Google is an advertising company this is very important. But really I think it's become clear Google is not an advertising company, it's a data company. Data driven, data collection, 'what can we do with data? What can data do for us?'. They are getting the mobile signal, that's a valuable piece of information even if you can't monetize it immediately. Nevertheless, you still have to figure out how to monetize mobile. 

Matt: True, but I think we're also pretty well positioned. It's kind of funny because if you go back 6 years ago, the bet on Android was a pretty big bet and not every company bet on mobile the way that Google did.

Leo: That's right.

Matt: Certainly, Google did and they have been profited. But I remember in the early early days of Google, everybody thought cell phones and wireless would take off and WAP and WML and all this will last...

Leo: Yeah WAP yeah..,

Matt: And so, I remember when Google's mobile strategy was half of one engineer's time. And it really took smart phones and I give Apple a lot of credit for opening up those vistas because a lot of companies just didn't see mobile coming at all. I think it's interesting to see how many companies are now shifting to 'okay we have to go mobile first.' Hopefully Google will adapt well with that. 

Leo: And with Facebook with their new paper app really has shown that they have, they kind of know, found the way to success in mobile. Admittedly paper has no ads yet. But it's really beautiful and it really is a better, frankly a better Facebook experience than anywhere else including the desktop. The issue is...

Jeff: If I don't have iOS, I just don't know, I got to drag out an iPhone and play with it. Paper is a subset of Facebook? or it is a new skin to all of Facebook?

Leo: Do you want to see it? No. It is a mobile app designed kind of as a Skunk Works and Facebook brought in really good designers like Lauren Brictor, we've talked about before, Mike Matas and then what they said in effect was, 'start from scratch  to design a new app.' Extensively it's a news app, it's more like a competitive flip board. I running it on an iPad by the way, but it's not an iPad app. It's an iPhone app but you can see it better on an iPad. So, this is the interface. There are kind of two rows here. The top row, I could choose contents. So I am seeing my Facebook content here in the bottom row, but I could also go more like a newspaper to news headlines. I've chosen the categories; you can chose your categories. I used news, text, scores, there's sport's category. So you see as I change...

Jeff: So compare this to rich Twitter, this is a lot richer.

Leo: It's gorgeous. So 'exposure' is a good one because these are picture right. So, down here these are not my Facebook friends, these are major content players and images from them. Wait, I mean look how gorgeous this is. It's still Facebook content, I can 'Like' it, I can comment, I can re-share it on my timeline. It does this kind of beautiful kind of parallax thing with it. I can scroll down, there's a lot of scrolling involved. When I go back to...Are you playing with this Gina or do you have an iPhone?

Gina: I don't. I actually haven't had the chance to look at this, so I appreciate you doing the...

Leo: So, this would be my timeline on Facebook. These are all Facebook friends. So, these are all things that would appear in the timeline, but even when they share something, it's kind of more beautiful than it would be on... like for instance, Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective, shared a picture of a layer of ice on the sidewalk of his office, and that's a big deal because he lives in Kentucky. Look at how they move it around and stuff. I mean it's very tactile. I think they've done a great job with this. It still is Facebook. If I pull down, I get all of the same things I get in the Facebook app including...If I pull down and go to settings...I keep forgetting it's settings, that I much of the same collection of settings including things like the app did with the code generator which is very...This replaces the Facebook app, I think in terms of full functionality. 

Jeff: Wow. wow.

Leo: And I still have friends, and I have comments and I have...

Jeff: That's a fascinating thing to do. Now, that I understand, thank you Leo. It is also using your service as an API. 

Leo: Yeah. Because now I have content in here that is not Facebook content. I can't remember how to scroll. Oh, there it is how I scroll through it. They have a very good tutorial too. I didn't pay attention to the tutorial and I should have. When you first out, it talks to you, shows you pops-ups, explains how to use it and if I had paid any attention, I would know. 

Jeff: If it needs a tutorial...

Leo: It kind of does because it's pretty intuitive but it is all swipe-y. There's no menus, there's no...This is the new thing right: Swipe. Try swiping, see what happens kind of a thing. But you know what, this is gorgeous. Facebook's never done a good mobile app. This is gorgeous. 

Gina: Yeah, it's pretty. The panning and the big images reminds a little bit of Facebook Home. 

Leo: Yes. It's Facebook Home but it doesn't take over the launcher right. It's just an app.

Gina: Right. right. I've never gotten into the like flip board magazine type like media apps, just personally. I know a lot of people really love them. I've just never like in a position...and this is just part of me being busy and being a new parent and all those things, but I'm never like I need something to read. I always feel like I've got this pile of things that I'm behind on reading, so I would go for like insta paper before i would want something like that.

Leo: This is by the way, and this is the first time I can remember Facebook doing this and this supports insta paper. 

Gina: Oh really?

Leo: Yeah. So in the settings, you can select a 'read later'.

Gina: Service. Ah nice! It's got pocket, pin board, safari reading list, wow safari reading list and an insta paper.

Leo: Yeah, isn't that interesting. 

Jeff: You know what I use Gina? I use Play in Newsstand more than I would have thought.

Gina: Really! So are you subscribed to...

Jeff: I'm not subscribed to anything. No I don't pay for anything.  

Leo: What do you use it for?

Jeff: Oh, I read Verge. It's a way that I can quickly see Verge and Daily Beast and Gadget and Gizmo without going to all their sites. 

Gina: Right. right. 

Leo: Well, that's...yeah and if I were the Verge and other I would worry a little bit.

Jeff: Wouldn't it be the same with flip board? Same exact issue with flip board, right? And what you have to do I think, is we have to start building the business model in. I've talked on this show before about Repost.Us, how it makes articles embeddable like Youtube videos, with the business model, brand, revenue and letters and links all built in. By the way Matt, I'll say hello next Friday and when it comes to Google+ people, I constantly wish that we could embed entire articles into Google+ with brand, revenue and letters and links attached. Then, publishers will look upon it as a friendly thing to be there because they can get new audience and new advertising opportunities. And so i think, content has to travel with its business model and it has to travel with its credit. Credit right versus copyright. We have to rethink how that happens and then you can enable things like Facebook Paper and flip board to be beneficial. Because the reader likes them and the publisher gets something out of it. But we haven’t thought that far ahead. we keep on saying, 'no you have to come to our site.'

Leo: This came up because we were talking about mobile revenues and I think the big issue with mobile revenues isn't so much that, people aren't clicking on the ads or maybe  it is, but the ad rates are going down. Both Youtube and mobile ads are making less money through advertising because their rates have gone down. So, that's a cause for concern. And I think, that saying, advertisers saying these don't work. So, really the issue is coming up with ways to monetize mobile that work for advertisers and they have to work for consumers. One of the reasons they don't work is because consumers don't like them. Let's take a break. When we come back, lot's more. We’ve got the Change Log from Gina Trapani, gear up there. Go over that Encyclopedia Britannica. Look up a good article for us.

Gina: This is no Google, Britannica. 

Leo: What if you look in under 'G', you don't see Google huh?

Gina: The internet is my encyclopedia. 

Leo: The internet, yup.

Gina: The web

Leo: We were talking about this before the show. I have one in my office a world book encyclopedia from 1998, at least your Britannica was from an era when encyclopedias made sense. 

Gina: I did book reports and school reports using these encyclopedias, when I was like in 4th grade.

Leo: I love those! Yeah. I bought the leather bound, gilt pages, all this beautiful world book because I thought, oh my kids will really cherish this throughout their high school years. 

Gina: And now it's a really good monitor or like laptop stand?

Leo: Yeah, they put their stuff on it yeah. Actually the reason it's at my office is because I found it and my Oxford English Dictionary on the ground on the floor in the garage where they had been moved because nobody was ever looking at them. 

Gina: Now a dictionary is a different thing. I still am hanging on to my paper dictionary. 

Leo: Oh you don't understand. It's the Oxford English dictionary. It's 20 volumes. It's bigger than the world book. It's huge. And they were all sitting in the garage. I was like 'I'm coming Queen Elizabeth!', I was...anyway. Ah, my God! 

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Time ladies and gentlemen to play the horns because my friends it is in fact time for the Change Log. 

The Google Change Log. 

Leo: And here she is Gina ‘Change Log’ Trapani. 

Gina: The Google wallet app for Android and iOS got some updates this week. You can now scan in your loyalty cards and Google will push the wallet app push notifications to you, letting you know if you are near by a store that you have a loyalty card stored in there. You just take a photo of your card with the device and the loyalty program information will auto update in your wallet app and then if you walk by the CVS or whatever you will get a little push notification, if you want, that reminds you to shop and earn rewards. Google maps app also got an update this week for IOS, it’s constantly looking for faster routes, so as you are driving, if traffic conditions change or something changes and there is a faster route to where you are going the maps app will show you a little update and let you know, Hey here is a faster way to get here, you see a screen shot of that right there. There is a brand new Nexus 5 available; it is a very bright red.

Leo: Now is it product red or is it just red, red?

Gina: It’s red, bright red.

Jeff: I am so mad.

Leo: The name is bright red.

Gina: The name is bright red.

Gina: The name is bright red. Yes, It is entirely red back and a black front, but the ear speaker is a little red you got a kind of a little red dot on the front, the specs are exactly the same as the black and white models, the pricing is the same to its $349 for a 16 gig and $399 for a 32g, and it’s in the play store right now, shipping in stock one to two business days.  I was like hey, that’s a really good looking phone, I kind of paused because it’s a little too crazy for me, like I don’t want to, you know attract thieves…

Leo: It says here I am, steal me.

Gina: Here I am, steal me! Steal me red.

Jeff: If it’s true that they are phasing out Nexus I am going to be so upset because I do love my Nexus, even if I have to waste my Google glass.

Leo: I believe it’s true.

Matt: So, Leo, what makes you think that’s true where are you?

Leo:  Here is my thinking: I have a big elaborate story, you might imagine, and we will get back to the change log in a second.

Matt: Sorry, I didn’t mean to derail.

Gina: No problem, I want to hear the elaborate story.

Leo: A big elaborate conspiracy story! So, Google does a little thinking, they bought Motorola, and by the way, I am sad about that because I missed my MotoX because that’s the phone I carry and I just got wood and I love it and by the way this was less than a Nexus, 32g for $350, because they had that sale on Monday, the day before they announced they are selling it!!

Jeff: Ooh

Gina: Oh, look at you!

Leo: It’s going to take a while, I’m sure Lenovo is, I think Lenovo is a good company and I am sure that they will see the value in this.

Jeff: Just take it back and put the Chinese spyware in it!

Leo: That’s fine, I don’t mind. Believe me, my life, nothing to follow here it’s, let’s keep moving. But what I do hope is Lenovo will put in a higher res screen and so forth. I believe it when Larry Page said that we couldn’t go all-in on phones and mobile is one of those areas you’ve got to go all-in on. But here is what I really think between the lines he is saying is, we shouldn’t be selling phones, this is a channel conflict because we make money, not on the phones, clearly not on Motorola phones, we make money on Android, we want people to use Android, we want people to use Google apps and we don’t care if we make the phone or not. So, why are we pissing off Samsung chiefly, but every other Android handset manufacturer, pushing them to create their own operating systems like Tisane or to hide the Android operating systems and to take Google apps off like Amazon, we should be friendly and not coming off like the competition. So by selling handsets we are getting the new cheese, let’s get out of their way , let’s sell Lenovo handsets because it’s nice and it has another manufacturer with a lot of class in the United states and  Western Europe, where Lenovo isn’t but wants to be, it’s good for Android, and interesting, I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, at the same time they announce a side deal with Samsung A) to stop suing each other but B) to stop Samsung from crapping up its versions of Android, but not only put less crap-ware on there but to make the crap-ware un-installable so end users don’t have to live with that. This also has something to do with the South Korean government passing a law to the same effect, but I think they made the agreement with Google as well, and I think that, that’s Samsung saying to Google, Okay you’re getting out of our business, you’re not going to compete with us, that’s nice, we can work something out and I think part of the deal was, we won’t make Nexus phones or tablets anymore either, now they never really made them, the Nexus 5 is made by LG but it is to Google’s specification and is sold on Google’s store. So what they said is, Hey no, we don’t need to make Nexus phones  we will do Google play editions, you want to make a galaxy S4 play edition, GalaxyS5  play edition, galaxy note 3 play edition, HTC one play edition, a MotoX play edition, whatever, great! We will sell it but it’s your phone and you make the profit. All of that is Google’s way of, I think, saying, well I think first of all, I think probably buying Motorola, they knew this going in, this was all a very cagey chess move by Larry Page to try and get these concessions out of these companies, to get the patents which notice, they kept, and they were able to sell off enough of it which I don’t even think anyone lost any money on the whole thing because they sold off the set top box division and everything, so I think this was actually a very cagey 19 month play .

Jeff: And there is one further conspiratorial note here, which as a consumer disturbs me, Google was also showing what a phone could be and showing what a price could be.

Leo: Right.

Jeff: And we are losing that non-market influence of Google.

Leo: No.

Jeff: No? Why Not?

Leo: No, we are not. No, so Microsoft tried to do the same thing, by the way, we were talking about this on Windows weekly, with a signature PC, they were getting pissed off that HP and everybody else was crapping up Windows. So Microsoft had this initiative called sit

Jeff:  Kind of hard to do but go ahead.

Leo: It’s an ascetic judgment, but you could make Windows worse by putting trial-ware out of crappy antivirus software, things like that. So, they created these signatures PC’s, that were crap-ware free and none of the partners made them and that’s why Microsoft by the way did Surface. I’m convinced they finally said, look we have got to make a version of Windows and that’s the way it should be and I am convinced that that’s why Google did Nexus, but Google’s declaring victory, they’re saying, first of all, they got Samsung to, well everybody’s offering Google Play editions, they sell well, except Verizon, and I think they can declare victory and I think they always had that threat that they could come back, I mean it doesn’t say we will never do it again. I think they have demonstrated effectively to Samsung, HTC, LG and others  that consumers want a pure Google experience , you’re better off if you don’t junk it up, you know the rumors we’re hearing now about the Galaxy S5, no more eyesight tracking, they are getting rid of features!

Jeff: Which, for the first time, made me interested in the Samsung phone.

Leo: Yeah

Matt: Well, I do agree that with the Motorola deal there is a lot of nice compliments as far as what Lenovo beings to the table and I’m not privy to those sorts of discussions by a long shot, so I have no inside knowledge whatsoever, but it does feel like the Nexus line has always served as a really good way to demonstrate a vision and a best of breed,  even down to like the Chrome book pixel, like, no not everybody wants it or is going to buy it, but you can really see just what’s possible and  some people, Jeff and me, we love pixels and we use them and then some people are like, okay I am going to use this.

Leo: Larry was very clear, we are not getting out of hardware, we’ve still got the Nest, we’ve still got Glass, we’ve still got pixels.

Jeff: And Nest is indeed now in charge of the hardware division.

Leo: We were getting out of is, one category, phones, and they are smart to because they have never made any money on phones, they did phones for that exact reason I agree Matt, to say here is what it could be, but you don’t want to do that to the loss of Android entirely, and they were about to lose Android.

Matt: Sure, well I don’t know if I would go that far but it is the case that it’s true, with Motorola you had to hold them at enough of an arm’s length to reassure everyone else that Motorola was not getting any special treatment, which in some sense it was almost not fair to Motorola, so whether you call it Nexus or not, I have no idea what will happen but it feels like Google will still want to demonstrate that best of breed and that vision of what’s possible.

Leo: Maybe, they will do that as long as they can get, and maybe they have side agreements unpublic side agreements with all the manufacturers that we will offer Google Play Edition because if you can get a Galaxy S4 or as Gina has, an HTC one Google Play Edition, that demonstrates it and  it lets the hardware manufacturers show their best stuff.

Gina: But you don’t get the reference device for developers particularly with new sensors, right? So, like if there are new sensors that Android supports or new Android features that require hardware compliments, right? Like, Google still wants to release devices that they can develop in parallel with Android and launch a new Android version on it, I mean that’s kind of my concern I mean look, did the Nexus devices really sell? They weren’t really about making money it wasn’t about trying to make the best phone it was a marketing thing for developers and super nerds, right?

Leo: Well, here is the risk, you have got Samsung, that makes 80% of all Android devices, doing a developers’ conference, doing Tisane. I really think that Samsung was saying, you’re going to lose us, we are going to skin Android, we are going to take off Google apps and they already started to move Google apps off of favor of their own.  And I really think that Google was afraid, that Android was much more important in the a long term strategy than Nexus.

Gina: Without a doubt, without a doubt.

Matt: I will just put my vote in, since I have no knowledge and no power in this if Soondar or whoever is listening to this broadcast, I vote we keep Nexus around!

Jeff: Yay!

Gina: Laughing

Leo: Well we will find out, it is just a rumor. And I don’t think they will drop the brand name, I think it makes sense for them to stop making Nexus phones do Google Play Edition and it doesn’t have to be permanent.

Gina: Hopefully some Googler has just cut his or her rah and is going to talk to the right person.

Leo: I think it would make sense for Google as long as the other OEM’s play nice, to say okay, we don’t want to hurt you guys, it’s just your business, we don’t make money on phones but we always have the Nexus hammer behind our back, but we don’t have to use it.

Matt: I loved Gina’s point about a reference device that especially includes, like, with the MotoX, you have a compliment of other chips that show it’s not just about the software and  that kind of vision only gets demonstrated if you have got that opportunity . So I hope so, who knows what will happen, but I hope so.

Leo: It does make sense.

Gina: And Google has collaborated with other manufacturers, I mean all the Nexus devices are from other manufacturers, they are not developed in house, like the MotoX was the only Google, right?

Leo: Well I would guess, that Nexus 5, given its difference, is from the LG, G2 is somewhat to Google’s specification, not made by Google but somewhat to their specification. I do think you make an excellent point Gina, that if you wanted an add hardware capabilities to Android you would need a platform, or reference platform, so maybe Google continues to sell Google Play edition and Google developer Edition, I don’t know.

Matt: And maybe the developer edition or the Play edition essentially becomes the Nexus, I don’t know, seems like that kind of cooperation between Google and hardware manufacturers is really useful to show people a path forward.

Leo: Oh yes, I don’t disagree at all, but I think Google wants to go to great pains to demonstrate to Samsung particularly, we are not competing with you, we’re partners. That’s my only thinking, but you know what? Your vote carries a lot more weight than mine, Matt that

Matt: I wouldn’t say that!

Leo: I would, but I think that Microsoft’s seeing that right now with Surface and with Windows phone and buying Nokia, nobody else, now that Microsoft owns Nokia, nobody makes Windows phones but Microsoft. Nobody makes windows RT, but Microsoft, and that’s the risk you run of making hardware to compete with your channel.

Jeff: Wow.

Matt: Yeah, that’s true.

Leo: And so I don’t think, I think Google looked at that and said, we don’t want to get in that situation... We don’t want to be the only ones making Android phones. I love Nexus phones, but you know what, I love the MotoX’s even better because it was, like, a Nexus phone with some really cool additional hardware features.

Matt: Yeah, I hope they fold that into the main branch of Android.

Leo: They will, If you look at what Lenovo did with ThinkPad, I think what Lenovo will  build a 1080 piece screen around the same platform, this M7, you know Google kept the R and D, the Asha and all of that they kept. So I don’t know where the M7 chip came from, whether it was a Google or a Motorola thing, that’s the additional hardware that lets it sit and  listen all of time without a depleting battery and shows you the active notifications and all of that stuff, yeah Google needs to keep doing all of that, or somebody. Anyway, back to the change log!

Gina: Back to the change log.

Matt: Sorry, Gina!

Leo: Not M7, X8 you’re right

Gina: So back to change log, 2 new chrome features  launched, first a feature that warns users when their browsers have been hijacked so the Chrome team says it settings hijacking is their #1 user complaint and that’s when malware like screensavers or free games changes the user’s browser settings without their knowledge, to do bad stuff, like inject ads, so Google engineers added a new feature to Chrome and I believe this is just on Windows, that automatically warns users when browser settings have been altered by malware. So if it gets triggered it’s just a pop up shows up and it reads something like you know chrome detected something that your browser settings may have been changed without your knowledge would you like to set them back to their original defaults? This new featured is designed to kind of compliment that new feature that we talked about a couple episodes back where you could reset to kind of factory settings,  or brand new or original defaults, if it gets mucked up or if it added a bunch of extensions or if you have changed  a bunch of settings. So yeah, nice new feature, hopefully this will reduce the Chrome team’s user customer service duties and I believe, like I said, I believe this is just on Windows. And Google Now notifications are now in the Chrome Beta so I think a couple episodes ago I talked about how it was in Chrome canary, it’s been graduated to chrome beta and this is for Mac, Windows, and Chrome book computers. I was really, really excited about this I enabled this instantaneously , I was running stable Chrome and Canary chrome , so I ditched them both, so now I am just in the Beta which I

Leo: I’m on Beta, now what do I do?

Gina: So you go to Chrome colon slash slash flags(://) there is enable Google now, there is a setting to enable Google now, you change the setting to enabled, you relaunch your browser and then you will see a little “Welcome to Google now, you’re going to get notification cards here.” So Google Now is awesome!

Leo: Careful, these experiments may bite, okay enable, canvas today, there is too much stuff in here!

Matt: There are a lot of experiments, a lot of them

Jeff: A lot of experiments, you have to know what to search for, or just do a search.

Leo: Search for Now? Google now

Gina: There you go, enable Google Now, enabled, okay relaunch, Ooh, ooh, Matt must laugh when he sees all of this!

Gina: yeah, Relaunch. You probably had this for like ages!

Leo: Oh Yeah

Jeff: He is so far beyond that he doesn’t have Google Now, he has Google tomorrow.

Leo: Yeah, what am I doing tomorrow?  Now where does this show up?

Gina: You’re on a Mac, it should have showed up on a little welcome card, if not there is a little bell, a menu bar, do you see the little bell?

Leo: Little bell in my menu bar? Yeah Google Now, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Gina: Yeah, and its Chrome notifications, see anything about Google Now? Right, now it’s 35 and overcast in Brooklyn.

Leo: These are now, that’s now?

Gina: That’s now.

Leo: So it added a menu, even when Chrome’s not launched, would that be there? That’s interesting, and these are my Now things.

Gina: Those are Now things, I don’t believe it will be there if Chrome isn’t launched and I believe that’s a Chrome notifications bell.

Leo: And these are all of the things that I can have

Gina: That’s non now related, those things

Leo: Its notifications

Gina: Yeah, it’s extensions that you have granted permissions to show you notifications

Leo: Now for more Google Now for Chrome this really nice, if people haven’t used Now, well I guess everybody’s

Gina: Now is really doing a really good job with seeing stuff that I read, like articles that I read and then recommending articles.

Leo: That’s a really good point it’s a two way street because now it’s seeing your browser.

Gina: Yeah, well it was doing that on my phone and it was clearly, well Google obviously knows a lot of my browser history, if I am signed into Chrome so, it would say, like, oh hey, you searched for the good wives or here’s an article about the good wife or whatever on my phone. Which when it first started happening I was like, Oh, this is pretty good, then you can say, don’t show me this again or don’t give me this again, or this card useful, so you can kind of train it.

Leo:  Nothing location based though right or is it? 

Gina: Well no, Google now does do location base, like if you have if there is an airline ticket in your email and you want to arrive at the airport on your phone.

Leo: I’m in Petaluma, so yeah.

Gina: yeah it knows you are in Petaluma so I have only got a weather card right now so you got a few other cards so pretty happy about that.  Welcome to Google Now.

Leo: This is neat.

Gina: That’s all I got

Leo: And that’s the change log, with a little diversion for Leo’s conspiracy theory.

Gina: that was good! I like to talk about the Nexus; I especially want to hear what Matt had to say.

Leo: Well you raise great compelling arguments for keeping Nexus alive, so maybe they won’t get rid of it.

Matt: I am just happy to see the malware stuff because that’s not my team it’s like a sibling team, but  I’m  sooo excited to see them, it’s like a Seattle Seahawks fan just watching a rout, like you know, 29 to nothing, no! I want to see 43 to nothing! You know.

Leo: In that vein, let me ask you, because a couple of weeks ago, we heard about the two Chrome extensions that have been sold to ad guys and they started popping up ads you know and overlaying ads on the website. Is that related to this settings thing or is that something different?

Matt: Well, it’s the same basic umbrella, I mean, the thing to remember is, in my opinion, search has your back and Chrome has your back they care about speed, stability and security. And Chrome by auto update is able to protect you and Chrome, by moving the extensions away from third parties at the web store are able to protect you and then the spammers move, to like using enterprise policies that businesses usually use and then they lock that down, And so the next place that the spammers are going to go is just try to do sort of the equivalent of expired domains for web spammers, they buy existing extensions but that’s okay because then that’s just the next factor and then we will respond to that  factor and

Leo: You just kill those extensions when you see that!

Matt: Yeah exactly! So in some sense its fine to hear about this trend happening , but it’s not like the chrome team is going to let that go they are going to protect people and they are going to keep iterating and finding ways to  protect people and that’s why I love  Chrome so.

Leo: Well I’m a big fan

Gina: Chrome is awesome the permissions law of the chrome I feel like has a little bit of the Android I the model problem and I have talked about this on the show before about how I mean when you make a chrome extension often you want to do almost kind of anything, you have to ask for permission to the persons browser activity across all websites which seems like very broad permission to ask but often I just dabbled a little bit in chrome extensions about it. But that’s what you need as a developer in order to do what you want to do you need to do things across websites  or on any website, but that kind of you know when you have extensions sold that permission , which I just wished it was more granular or I wish it was just clearer to the user you know what’s happening or what date is getting sent back and forth , I mean pretty much every extension that I have got installed  could be just logging all of my browser activity  without me knowing because  of the kind of permissions model, and I have had the rant about Androids to but I mean I love the permissions model because it’s very granular when you install an app you a list of all the things it needs access to but I often am left wondering why you know why does this need access to my contacts, why  and you know I wish that it was kind of inflow or that is was a little more sandboxed or that it was just kind of more  information about what’s going on behind  the scenes because any and all of our devices are just always connected and without all our permissions like that I feel like those kind of situations where extensions get sold or apps get taken over and then bad stuff just gets injected and I just no idea because its installed and running and doing what I need it to do.

Leo:  It’s hard to think of a better solution though,

Gina: It is

Matt: Well, I think Chrome was especially good for 2009 or so whenever they started to install the extensions like to give you that transparency but think there is always room to reiterate and do a rethink and say okay is there  something we can do to make things more clearer as far as extensions getting sold I’d rather focus on that specific problem because usually you are establishing good faith and I trust this extension and your point is you keep trusting that extension unless there is some reason to change like, change of ownership , if you can see those kinds of transitions , then you can save people from having  a lot of work or mental stress or a lot of overhead  while protecting the vast majority of people.

Leo: you definitely don’t want to get too granular on permissions because that will, well people will just go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gina:  Well, then you have the Windows Vista problem, like, are you sure?

Leo: IOS I guess you would call that in stream, the idea that it asks you before an application wants location information and then you can give it permanent access then

Gina: Right

Leo: But IOS can do that because you grant permissions period. Really, when you install permissions you never are told what permissions an app has, you trust that Apple wouldn’t approve the app if it was inappropriate.

Gina: Well yeah, you are sort of depending on their review process but they inbox certain things right, like they say inbox photos, location access, contacts access so like in the course of using the app, it’s just those three and yeah so things like camera, I mean and I don’t know what else.

Leo: You see that all the time at IOS and Apple say, Can I access your photos in your camera now? And you say yes and you can do it permanently or one by one usually

Gina: Right

Leo: But at that point, so there is other thing so like just recently, what was it? Some app just added a huge number of permissions in a very scary way. Was it ever noted?

Gina: On Android?

Leo: Yeah, facebook, so the new Face book app and I guarantee you nobody noticed   this but I think Google handled it as well as you could handle it too. The new Face book App on Android, one of the permissions it ask for was for is one of the ability to send and receive text on your behalf f and it reads all of your texts. Pretty scary right? So before I could install it, because it was a changed permission, the play store said permissions have changed you have to read this and it said New! And it out it right at the top actually there were several new ones besides that

Gina: Yeah the play store handles that very well

Leo: As well as you’re going to do it and Apple doesn’t have a place for that. That one had just happened I don’t even know if it happened already

Gina: Right

Leo: It might be on an IOS and we don’t know

Gina: Yeah there is really, there is a balance with simplicity and then obfuscating information you know and I mean like Apple would argue that it’s a bad user experience right to have to like read through a generic list of permissions and decide whether or not you trust Face Book enough to read all of your text messages which is sort of a jarring experience right? I would have paused and really think about it but the flip side of the coin is that you should know  if an app is looking at your text messages , looking through your text messages that’s pretty personal.

Matt: Yeah, but I think its fair feedback, I think its room to ask ourselves is there some better way we could think of to do it, I think that’s a fair question to ask.

Leo: FaceBook did post a page why it’s asking for this and a lot of this has to do with permissions are clumped so in order to do one of those things it has to ask for permissions to do all of them.

Gina: Well, that’s the other thing; I would like to say NO! You can’t have my text messages, you can have everything else but you can’t have those.

Leo: And then that breaks the App.

Gina: But you should be able to say, I will give you all of the functionality of the App except, I know this puts a lot on the developers and functionalities are a whole different thing but like, the Face book should be able to function I should be able to read my newsfeed and send a face Book message without Face book having access to my text messages right? That’s not unreasonable.

Leo: So, the reason they did this and by the way it wasn’t to send text messages but merely to read incoming text messages, the reason the added this is so that when they are confirming the phone number, you know you enter the phone number they confirm it, you don’t have to wait for you to see the text message and enter the number, it can all happen automatically. So that’s reasonable

Matt: right

Gina: It is?

Leo: It’s funny, so what’s app does it that way?  When you give what’s app your phone number and it goes okay got it and then  you know and then you wait a little bit , what’s really happening is the text message is  being sent, received and deleted I think? Face Book you had to see the six digit number, enter it and now you have got a confirmation code.

Gina: And from that point on they don’t need access to your text messages but they have access to your text messages,

Leo: This is what Face Book is saying.

Gina: yeah

Leo: Another one download files without notification, that’s risky but they say this how we can preload news feed content this way.

Gina: Reloading Newsfeed content, right. And they can, and they also do the updates themselves right, they push their own app updates.

Leo: But they don’t mention that but yes, reroute your contacts, this allows us to import them to Face Book and sync Face Book contacts. SO, you know what you said the word trust. Was that you or Matt? It was Matt. Ultimately it comes down to, do I trust this app then I am going to give you these permissions.

Matt: Yeah and trust matters because if Google or Apple or whoever, don’t handle these things well, then people lose trust in us. And so that was the funniest thing about the Chrome extension  fluffle, because II think people said , Oh Google is somehow looking  the other way, no, no it’s just hard to  be aware of all the different attack factors and be with all of this at the same  factors, but the Chrome team takes this very serious .

Leo: Yeah, I thought you would take action because it seemed like I, yes it wasn’t looking like it was something done on purpose it was a new vector a new attack factor and it is a flaw because I have to approve the extension, you have to approve the extension to get on the store but you don’t have to approve the updates, so a malicious update could be added to a non-malicious extension after the fact.

Gina: And so it is about trust but it’s also about control right? So the platforms have to build in ways for the users to be able to control  you have to say you can have access  to my text messages  for the next ten minutes then after that then you can’t. And I know that this creates a lot of UI and

Leo: That would be better

Gina: and could be tedious and maybe your risking going Windows Vista there is trust and then there is also control. And I think that there has to be a balance like and part of that’s on Android to give users the ability to deny you know certain permissions, part of it is on developers to be clearer in their communication, I mean if Face Book needs access to all my text messages forever and ever just so they can read one text message when there setting up my phone, that seems crazy to me. Yeah

Leo: That’s what they ask; do you have Face Book on your Android device? I do but I am going to uninstall it after the show

Leo: because if you updated it in the last couple of weeks that’s what happened.

Gina: you know I don’t use the Native messaging app, I use Google voice.

Leo: It wasn’t messaging it was the face Book app.

Gina: well right, but when they are asking for my text messages they are asking for access to my Native messaging text messages, do you know what I mean?

Leo: right

Gina: And I don’t text that way so they actually wouldn’t be getting Google owns on my text messages , so you know I have decided  to trust them

Leo: you got to trust somebody.

Gina:  Just thought I’d cohost this week in Google.

Leo: I want to look at this Face Book and I thought I’d go back and read the permissions that I have granted to this app.

Matt: It’s under App info under settings

Leo: Oh okay, so you can go back and actually look Gina and you actually probably approved it.

Gina: I probably did

Leo: take a look at it

Jeff: At one point in Face Books changes to privacy they got better about telling what you were doing at the moment you did it, you’re sharing this with blank, and I think it’s not always workable but it’s not a bad way to do it, at the moment you are taking an action if there is a choice involved it will give you the choice then, unless it becomes too wearing and you are tired of choice. Or let me say don’t ask me again, but let me understand in the context of what I am doing.

Gina: Right, right I mean it’s a huge challenge really on mobile I mean creating more friction right? Like frictionless sharing, its friction with sharing just like seeing the new permissions dialogue, you’re like oh wait, there is a balance between control and being informed and also having experience with a tiny tiny touch screen with your thumb you know?

Leo: So by the way I have also apparently at least given the Face Book app to directly call phone numbers. It can call phone numbers, it can read text massages, it could  take pictures and read  video, and  audio, location , it does you know,  So yeah your right Chad you go into the app center phase, you can read all of the , or was it Chad or Jason that said that  you can read all of the stuff.

Matt: Yeah its app info and a quick way to get to it is form your launcher, if you are in the thing you can click and hold and instead of uninstall, just drag over to app info.

Leo: So I am curious Gina, if you actually gave it permission and just weren’t paying attention. It just shows that the mechanism is broken because you’re a smart person.

Gina: Yea at some point I enabled Android to update my app but it doesn’t have the update if they are due permissions.

Leo: This one where it would have said, Face book can’t be automatically updated unless you say yes.

Gina: But that’s via the play store and Face Books app updates happen in app right?

Leo: no, this was, well not this one and of course you can do an update that changes capabilities without asking permission. Because those are intent you have to have OS level permission to do that

Gina Right.

Leo: you can’t just say no! I changed my mind I don’t want to read text messages!!!

Gina: Yeah

Matt: And it seems like maybe Face Book wanted to d o it that way and we said no, so all updates have to require permission to go through the store.

Gina: Uh Hmm

Leo: Hey Chrome cast is now getting new developers and I don’t know what this means, Gina will explain. The Google cast kit for developers who want to build chrome cast support has been released as of Monday. Still have to get permission from Google though right? Or no? What I want is that I can write an app right now that is like chrome cast

Jeff: I think so; Porn is prohibited so I think they got to find a way to kill that

Leo: Why would you prohibit porn? Who cares? Wait a minute, come on.

Jeff: I don’t know

Leo:  Who cares? I downloaded a porn app and I want to send it to my porn chrome cast, that’s me!

Jeff: In your lonely apartment sitting in your skivvies

Leo: That’s not illegal

Matt: You bought the device

Leo: No they can’t, really they are blocking porn?

Matt: Actually I don’t know whether they require permission now but I think the big step here is the SDK is available for everyone to start to use, so I don’t know whether there is still one gating factor beyond that.

Leo: We haven’t seen a flood of new apps there must still be the issues of you have to be approved.

Jeff: Terms of servicers’, developers have to agree in order to make their apps chrome cast compatible in any conditions explicit content is a no go

Leo: Oh stop it, come on

Jeff: We don’t allow content, get this, and get this, so this would actually get rid of HBO. We don’t allow content that contains nudity, passive sex acts or sexually explicit material.

Leo: That’s game of thrones

Jeff: That’s cable

Leo: That’s Cinemax

Jeff: Nudity

Matt: Well l

Leo: HBO go is chrome cast enabled though so

Matt: Maybe people don’t want chrome cast to be known as porn cast in beginning or something

Leo: Yeah and maybe they will lighten up later on, I mean that was or this is the whole Steve Jobs thing, you can’t do porn in IOS. But I got to point out Porn is not illegal in the United States and if its adults downloading you know porn tube .com app why should Google get involved there?

Jeff: Google doesn’t have to promote it, doesn’t have to list it among apps that you can do but if anybody wants to enable the chrome button in their app

Leo: But that’s like the side app, what I really is the TWIT apps and we don’t develop our own app but there are a number of people who do, can be in a work for chrome cast and I suspect that that’s still, we are getting closer.

Matt: And I think that the chrome cast, there was a person who had like reversed engineered the API

Leo: Coche Coosh

Gina: Coshe yeah

Matt: Yeah and I think people said we are still working accurately on the API and the SDK, so now since the SDK is actually released  if you own the device in theory if its frozen in stone , at a 1.0   somebody could reverse engineering and

Leo: That his app, all cast so now it works again, so they immediately went back fixed it and it works.

Gina: That is great news that is one thing I want to

Leo: He is upset because  he had a non approved kind of hack around  Google disabled it probably not but  I think he even agreed not aimed at him but  just it was never approved it was deprecated  it broke all cast so all cast is working now. That’s good.

Gina: very very cool

Leo: By the way you can stream your porn with all cast.

Gina: Right because it’s from your device right?

Jeff: Oh God, Leos going to have his porn on the big screen

Leo: I don’t care if it’s 340P

Jeff: How big is that Chrome screen of yours Leo? How big is it?

Matt: Well and I think Plax also works you know and were at the point where you can stream whatever your own content is

Leo: Plax, It’s probably one of those things where we want to make sure

Jeff: We say it

Leo: Yeah we say it we don’t have to enforce it.

Jeff: Gigantic sexual organs, Google brings you gigantic sexual organs

Leo: That’s a double standard because if it were your gigantic sexual organ you wouldn’t mind so much it’s just other peoples you don’t want to see.

Jeff: Exactly

Gina: I have a because we haven’t moved in to our new place yet  I’ve been sort of in transit and staying with relatives and  the chrome cast is so small  and so easy like I just have it in my back pack  and that’s been my primary media center basically  for over a month and I just absolutely love it it’s so  easy to set up, but have often wanted to you know  come home at night and be like oh I want to show pictures of the baby  to my mom and I just want to throw those photos up on the TV  that I have and I show her on the phone . So I am really excited about this, this is really good .I have installed all cast right now because sending out my personal media is definitely something I wanted to do.

Leo: One thing I’d like to see and it’s ridiculous because it’s a $35 device I wish it supported a 5 giga hertz as well as 2.5 wifi

Matt: Yeah I agree with that

Leo: And that’s mostly because I use a Sonos which is on 2.4 and basically I cannot use a 2.4 because we have Sonos all over the house, I can’t use 2-4 it’s just not reliable in my house I have to use %g for everything, the 5 gigahertz band and so the chrome would be nice because it would work so well in the distant reaches of the house. Other than that

Matt: I was this close to buying a new TV so I could use it with my chrome cast , because chrome cast actually supports CEC’s so you can switch  channels without fiddling your input  source and  I have got an ancient TV that doesn’t handle that well.

Jeff: I was about to do the same thing Matt, I have one TV that only has One HDMI   the $35 Dongle that’s going to cost you $4 grand.

Matt: And then they stopped making the Panasonic ST60 and I’m like okay I will wait a few more years

Leo; Get it while you can. No if you can find anybody that’s still selling it get it.

Leo: I think its MHL I don’t think it does power

Matt: Yea they have stopped

Leo: They have stopped?

Gina: I have plugged my chrome cast into many TV’s in the past six weeks and I  have yet to find one that powers it , like I have to plug it in every time

Leo: I have an MHL port I known HML port and it didn’t work you still have to plug the little USB thing in.

Matt: That’s another I thought it could take power from the HDMI?

Leo; well it needs to be MHL if it’s MHL its and MHL port.

Jeff: well in that case yes

Leo: I think it’s not because I tried it on my MHL and it didn’t power it,  I don’t think it does power I’ll try it again maybe I just missed something. But you know many TV’s now have USB ports so you just plug the

Gina: OH yea so you just plug in the oh yea that’s smart, that’s way smarter that’s the only bad part of the experience like I will be like where’s the plug because you know  behind the entertainment center is always like this massive  unavailable outlets so it’s always a pain plugging it in.

Leo: That’s why we all think of the television as the $4000 Dongle from chrome cast. Now you have got your priorities straight, CEC is really cool it works very well with the chrome cast if you have a properly implemented CVC. Actually I think the Vireos are a little funky

Matt: Oh Okay

Leo: I’m using it, it works great on Samsung CEC is funny

Matt: Yeah everybody has a different name for it

Leo: Yeah Samsung calls it NE share or something like that. Standards! Twitter results out, twitter crushes, it says Tech crunch, fourth quarter revenue of 242 million dollars when you’re talking profits  Apple profits of 13 billion Google profits of what 4 billion dollars

Jeff: Leo, Leo, give them credit I was not that long ago when I made   fun of   Fred Wilson and many of us did saying there was no discernible Twitter business modeled. So Dick Castillo as he got in and got real revenue it’s a start. The stock went down after that because of the supposed user growth issue but there is a path visible now for Twitter which just wasn’t in the beginning.

Leo: Earnings share of 2 cents  Ann lesset thought they would lose 2cents Nick Builant said an interesting thin when he was on our triangulation show he is the author of Hatch and Twitter probably now more Twitter than any human alive. He said, they completely have the dials to how much profit they make that’s up to them, they tweak it.

Matt: But that also is trade off is how much you piss of your users.

Jeff: Yeah

Leo: Well even more than that how much they reinvest, they have got control, they have got the revenue, that’s the point and how much profit they make on 2 million in revenue is up to them, They could be 5% , 10% 0 %,  in revenues so they decide to make a little bit of profit, not a whole lot just a little bit of profit. They can’t control user growth and I think that’s why the stock market may be a little bit, so what happens with user growth, it slowed. They still grew but the growth slowed.

Matt: Gina using think up it’s been really interesting because it shows you the people who follow you and has this notion of kind of people who are interesting or important, it’s a little scary because whenever I check these people out I am like ooh that’s 30,000 fake followers this guy has

Gina: Oh No! That’s not good. That means are adware needs to be better.

Leo: Think up should not make you insecure

Matt: well hopefully I mean  ideally , Twitter  wouldn’t let these guys have 30,000 followers  in the first place but yeah maybe it’s more me in the one I played around in, like me and Danny Sullivan had a lot of fake followers but ..

Gina: oh Yeah you probably do because you talk about

Leo: I would follow him if I were a spammer I would be following Matt for sure

Matt: Like there is this Mitchell Mary and they have got like 30,000 followers and I am like that is pure utter generated spam

Gina: yeah

Leo: Yeah, you recognize it don’t you and you can see spam in your sleep

Gina: yea you smell it from a mile away

Matt: Well to be fair the ad is for cashforyourightnow.com

Leo: It is embarrassing when cashforyou.com has more followers than you do.

Matt: But I mean Hatching Twitter was such a good book, and I had no idea how much went on and it’s a real testament to Twitter that they built something so important, you know given there has been a lot of shift in tectonics shifts you know , within the company and outside the of course

Leo: Isn’t that a great story

Jeff: It’s an amazing story

Jeff: If I may be so bold I think we have Gina’s out coming as mine as well,

Leo: Let’s Go lets wrap it up all right, we got all of the important stuff

Jeff: we got all of the good stuff

Leo:  Hash tags recorded 57% of the Super bowl according to Danny Sullivan and his daughter who counted a very scientific method, calendar  google calendar  now lets you subscribe to calendar for 30 different cultures, up from 12 or whatever, Google goes to war on fraudulent YouTube video views

Matt: get them get them

Leo: Get them get them, that’s like you rooting for the Seahawks again Get them

Jeff: and by the way you’re at it, get rid of those darn Google comments spammers they are back

Leo: Are they?

Jeff: Somebody will like 20 posts

Matt: I will pass that on.

Leo: YouTube 1 billion dollars in music payouts, still some labels are unhappy and Flappy bird! That’s all I have to stay two words Flappy Bird, its IOs so

Gina: yeah I don’t know what you are talking about

Leo: you don’t know what I am talking about?

Gina: No I do all I know is that it’s a popular game.

Leo: How can you not!

Matt: Its on android

Leo: Is it on android oh I wish you hadn’t had told me.

Gina: Same

Matt:  You know me and my Nexus 5 right?

Leo: Our show today brought to you by 99 designs, my friends if you are good at something that is not designed if you’re a great chef, you’re a  great story teller , you’re a wonderful programmer , and why is it that people that have great skills in one area think they can be designers? Design is literally an art, your either good at it or not  and you see so many ill designed and poorly designed you know ads and medicine news , web pages , go to 99designs.com and get a  great design from really , really great designers. 270,000 designers at last count at 99designs.com, 99designs.com. Whether you are looking for a new logo, don’t do your own logo that’s just not right, responsive website, stationary, t-shirts there is a designer at 99designs.com that can bring your designs to life. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could start your new website and have dozens of designers to choose from? Just a few days later you can, selection, speed, creativity even if it’s having several designers work on your project instead of just one. When you launch design content that’s what they call them, you will get lots of creative ideas, just give the designer feedback you end up with a perfect design in a week, the process is fun fast and 100% satisfaction guaranteed and affordable, you can start your next graphics design for as low as $199 and when you go to 99designs/twig you will get a $999 power pack of savings free. That gives you more designer time and attention 99designs will bold, highlight and feature your project in the marketplace and you will nearly twice as many designs. Have we started the design contest the design t-shirt because we have 5 really nice designs actually its for a hoodie a TWIT hoodie we are going to sell

Jeff: I have been waiting for a Hoodie

Leo: yeah, did you see it we put it on Google Plus we out it up Lisa put it up, anyway great designers from all of the designs we picked 5  we are going to have a showdown , its so fun, and its good help the world look better one design at a time, 99designs.com? Twig to get the power pack and savings worth $99 bucks for free. We thank them for their support.

Leo: I think that’s the one that’s winning right now, now that’s a t-shirt but it will be on a hoodie .I really like this one.

Jeff: That’s nice I like that one

Leo: Yeah, Lisa says that’s kind of simple kind of fun little retro design

Gina: yeah

Leo: this is all from 99designs, this is kind of punky? Isn’t it great?

Gina: really cute

Leo: Yeah

Jeff: steam punkers scare me

Leo: we couldn’t pick just one , there is a graffiti style design

Matt: Oh that’s great

Leo: These are all from designers at 99designs and we are going to pick one  we went crazy and we are going to sell that I think next month on T spring 99designs.com. It is time for Gina Trapanis’ tip of the week

Gina: so okay this tip is kind of nerdy but its kind of amazing so I had to share it, this is a blog post by Nehi poparita who is I think is currently a Googler , I know he was  on the Google reader team and he did a post , Matt do you know if Nehi is still at Google Nehi is still at Google Yeah?

Matt: I think Nehi has actually left but yeah he was actually on the Google reader team and he was a great guy

Leo: nehi has left the building

Gina: He is amazing he has published all these grease monkey scripts and he is a really great coder writer  always great at sharing a post and he wrote this post about  these internal system Gmail labels, he actually kind of well he didn’t reverse but he watched request back to Gmail back and forth over the line just to see how users would mark messages certain ways , if they were muting conversations, if they were marking them  as spam because you know Google had that bug where  for a very small percentage of users , messages that shouldn’t have gotten marked as spam did  or wound up in the trash and they said hey you should you know check to make sure that or just take a look through your spam folder and make sure that  everything there is legitimately spam because we did have this bug and its been fixed but check it out so Nehi found these internal system labels that you can use to search your Gmail, so he published a little search query that you can use inside Gmail to say show me all of the messages that are spam that  I  explicitly marked as spam and its using  one of these kind of searching labels. So the search is, is:spam which is a normal regular users search minus label:  and the internal system label is at carrrotOS, so your basically saying show me all of the spam that Google didn’t mark automatically, show me just the spam messages  I marked. Which, comes in really useful if you fat fingered something or if you accidently marked a legitimate message as spam you can go back and see them without having to through all of your spam messages

Leo: Thank God! I do that all of time I click it and then I go oh shoot!

Gina; Yeah exactly

Leo: I feel bad

Gina: And if you are interested I how Gmail works this post is kind of amazing especially now that he’s not Google anymore he obviously knows how some of Google’s web services work , he writes in detail how he kind of figured out what all  the system labels and there are quite a few of them , you can say show me all of the messages which I have muted , show me all the messages that were marked as phishing attempts, show me all  my chat transcripts and a lot of these are  posed as regular search terms  for users but some of them aren’t so  like show me all my Google voice messages, show me all of the option for Gmail to unsubscribe me  from them, so really really  cool stuff here if you are interested in how Gmail works.

Leo: it’s like a secret menu

Gina: yeah it is, it really is

Matt: really cool

Leo: Wow

Matt: Really good find

Leo: yeah

Gina: yeah, and how Gmail smart labels work and yeah some really good stuff here

Leo: nice, good tip, thank you Gina, that’s worthy of life hacker, that’s fabulous!

Gina: Yeah, that’s got life hacker written all over it for sure!

Leo: Jeff do you have a number this week?

Jeff: yes I do it’s a fun post if you got it in the run down the Google’s first server bill, I’m sorry, I’ve got to do this fast because I have to go 9 put up the first server bill and a extra megabyte cost  $1400 and look at it later and Sergey adds in the discussion  along with a few very very nerdy points

Leo: Wow, really in the comments

Matt: Yeah he does

Jeff: Fabulous

Matt: He shows up and he is like the sea machines skip for crawl and then the Brak and just named them A and then C and then all of this

Leo: Oh this so, thank you Sergey, that is awesome

Jeff: I apologize but I have got to run, Gina does to

Leo: See you both take care all right

Gina: Thanks a lot matt thank you

Matt: bye bye

Leo: always a pleasure, take care, Matt has a tip master for all of you webmasters out here if you don’t see Matt’s webmaster videos on YouTube you have got to they are a requirement

Matt: Yeah if you’re a SEO it might be worth your time, so I did a post on my personal last week that basically just said look guest blogging has gotten out of control in terms of SEO purposes. So if a random guy writes you out of the blue and says Hey I’d like to do a guest post, you should be suspicious, you should be especially suspicious if they offer you money or something like that , because at this point it’s gotten to be really , really spammy and so  we just wanted to telegraph that and people know to be on guard if not a little bit cautious, we have been taking some action on some pretty large  length networks and some pretty large websites across the web that have been using or abusing these kinds of techniques so, if you get a random email solicitation be skeptical about that . If it’s Leo Laporte and he wants to do a guest broadcast that’s  good, that’s the sort of thing you want, but if its someone you have never heard of , there are spelling errors in the email, just be pretty suspicious about it.

Leo: What are the YouTube best channels? Where your webmasters are?

Matt: I forget, but if you search for webmaster videos it ranks #1 in Google

Leo: What a surprise!

Matt: Yeah if it ranks organically no worries about that, so it’s YouTube.com/user/webmasterhelp. I always search for it that way

Leo: Yeah it’s easier. Matt Cutts in effect according to Adam curry the most powerful man in the world. Simply or

Matt: or most hated

Leo: Always great to have you on Thank you Matt we will let you go to.

Matt: Okay Thank very much

Leo: My tool of the week Floppy bird! Floppy Bird! I knew it was on Android all along in fact, I had already installed it. I just was trying to forget, do not install this thing on anything you have it is the most, it is totally viral I cannot figure out why and it’s really hard to play. Who’s the Flappy Bird record breaker at the brick house? I think its Josh he has got like 40. Yeah, how many? Yea the idea is you are flapping this bird to get him through the holes, that’s it. That’s all there is to it and I don’t know why its so addictive but it is , it is literally like #1 in like 20 different app stores, yea always go from below. I noticed that stay low is the tip.

Matt: I feel like you have been with me four hours now Leo because  I don’t have to install it

Leo: Yea I am doing you a favor, if this makes you want to play this you should just go hide, because this is the most frustrating game ever, and yet it is absolutely viral. Matt Cutts Thank you so much you rock, most powerful man in the world

Matt: Yeah

Leo: Yeah, Also most humble

Matt: You have got the votes!

Leo: It’s a good combination humble and powerful nice to see you Matt thank you, thanks to Gina Trapani of think up go to Thinkup.com and take a look at it , it’s really great I have . I think its opening to the public very soon. But it will take your Face book and your Twitter accounts and mong it and give you lots of information I don’t know does. There’s new stuff all of time it’s really great thinkup.com who followed you  and what you have tweeted in years gone by and I think you will be able to get an account soon Gina’s opening that up. You can also follow her on Twitter at Ginatrapani of course on Google Plus as well. Jeff Jarvis is a professor of journalism   in the city of New York he is also the author of Public parts a great book. What will Google do? And we do this week in Google each and every Wednesday 1p.m. Pacific 4p.m.  Eastern Time 2100 UTC Please stop by we love when you’re watching the chat room is a great way to interact with us we obviously pay attention and even refer to the chat room quite frequently but if you can’t watch live you can get the on demand audio or download from Twit.tv /twig on podcast or wherever you can download, even on iTunes!