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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

But Twitter doesn't make any money, and Facebook not that much. The bulk of Google's revenue comes from leveraging the openness of the Web; were there only Facebooks and Twitters there would be no Google Search because there would be nothing to index.

This may be completely off, but the killing of Reader looks like a desperate move to help Google+: since Google can't kill Facebook, they're willing to hurt themselves instead -- to cut their left arm so that their right arm can grow stronger.

If this is indeed the case, it's very shortsighted.

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"The bulk of Google's revenue comes from leveraging the openness of the Web"

Does not compute. Google makes its money selling ads. Those ads appear mainly on Google's website, which is very much closed. Nobody knows how Google comes up with search results and why specific ads are shown.

"were there only Facebooks and Twitters there would be no Google Search because there would be nothing to index."

Google existed before social media: before Myspace, before Friendster, even before LiveJournal. When Google started, 'blog' wasn't even a word and Geocities was one of the most popular sites on the web. Social media is still a small part of what happens on the web. But imagine, were there only Facebooks and Twitters, surely Google would be offering ads there.

Google displays ads on search results that are possible because it indexes the open web. No open web > no index > no search results.

Were there only closed systems, there would be no way of building a transversal search system.

If it's displayed on a networked computer, it can be indexed – Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort. But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads. Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company.

> Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company.

I would avoid defining a company by its current monetization strategy especially in an industry where monetization is frequently an afterthought (it was for Google).

Furthermore, it doesn't do much to define a company since there are only so many monetization strategies.

What if we'd start defining companies by whether they are "for-profit" or "non-profit" instead? We'd end up with such non sense as "Google is a for-profit company, not an Internet search company." Or with, "B2B" vs "B2C": "Google is a B2B company, not an Internet search company."

If you are going to pick only one thing that defines a company, at least pick something that really makes them stand out (Google - search, Apple - consumer electronics, Facebook - social networking, etc.).

Facebook and Twitter can be indexed, it just takes more effort.

It's not really about effort; it's about the fact that FB & Twitter don't really want Google indexing them.

But let's imagine there would be no way for Google to index the web, then they would find other places to put their ads.

What makes you think they'd be successful in finding such places?

Google would buy them, like they've bought many such companies before (YouTube, DoubleClick, AdMob, DejaNews, Zagat, Frommer's, etc).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...

This may be true, but I think you are turning the discussion in another direction.

The talk here is of Google's current/primary business model. It is, in fact, based on the open Web as was stated previously.

Sure, they could buy other properties. But that just implies a changing business model (ex: content destinations). For that matter you could extend the argument and say that they might buy Facebook or Twitter.

But the need for them to buy such destinations in order to continue their advertising business actually itself speaks to the closing of the Web.

And that's pretty much what Yahoo! Tried to do without so much success.

I guess OP meant that if you could see only a part of the web available to you as a logged in user of some service, then you couldn't build an index which globally scans a whole website, since it cannot log in.

NOTE: well spiders could technically log in and index public shared stuff, but those services could forbid that via terms and conditions and sue any company violating them

> Google is an advertising company, not an Internet search company.

Those were perhaps the good old days. Today's Google makes less and less from ads and more from big data i.e., spying and selling (and trading) ever more extensive information about individuals, business entities, governments and other organizations. This is where the New Google (post "don't be evil") is competing Any service or app that doesn't return it's investment in PII (Personally Identifiable Information), Corporate Espionage (as it used to be called before there was Big Data) or state secrets is at best a loss leader.

Facebook definitely make a lot of money.

Twitter makes more money on mobile than Facebook does.

http://mashable.com/2012/09/06/twitter-mobile-ad-revenue/

Twitter does make money on its API. It's done through channel partnerships. Is it as much as advertising? No. But still significant.

Twitter's API is still sufficiently open. There's plenty of data to be had. The limitations and constraints breeds creativity, and we'll finally see new integrations and ideas that do something new rather than simple enhancements and user-annoyance-fixing-as-a-product.

    " but the killing of Reader looks like a desperate move to help Google+ "

 I'd +1 that.

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