Google's worth is not only preoccupying Wall Street advisers and investors, but has generated a great volume of argument on the web itself, which can of course be tracked by using Google. One of the first into the fray was Australian economist John Quiggin, described on his own website as "more intelligent than Britney Spears". A popular market guess of the value of Google's equity is $US20 billion ($28 billion) to $US25 billion, with more recent estimates of $US30 billion or more. Quiggin, who is in fact quite bright, said he couldn't draw a plausible earnings path that would yield a present value of $US25 billion at any reasonable discount rate.But what's really interesting is that I didn't have to look for the article. It was sent to me by Google news alerts. As I said in the original discussion, I use Google all the time, but unless text ads have a subliminal effect for which Google is being paid, I've never contributed a penny to its revenues, and quite possibly never will." This implies that the social value of Google is more than its market value. Posted by jquiggin at July 24, 2004 07:00 AM | TrackBack
"This implies that the social value of Google is more than its market value." When we be relieved of this troublesome pseudo science called economics .The assumption is that the measurability of an object(/service/whatever) is in terms of it market value .There needs to be a broader measureability theory which subsumes what is currently called economics ; one which could aspire to be true science rather than a collection of just so stories .
Posted by: Biill O'Slatter at July 24, 2004 07:50 AMI have never, ever clicked a Google ad. But I use it (and particularly Google News) on a daily basis.
Posted by: Robert at July 24, 2004 02:56 PM"who is in fact quite bright"
Do you think he meant "quite bright" in the American sense (very bright) or in the English sense (not very bright)?
Posted by: Dave Ricardo at July 24, 2004 07:10 PMI was wondering about that too.
Posted by: John Quiggin at July 24, 2004 07:15 PMI have a grandiose theory that blogging, particularly on sites like this which attract a lot of links, helps google in two ways:
1. by increasing the general attractiveness of the internet and
2. by clogging it up so that people who want commercial information will click on the side ads.
We don't do it but we are not using the internet for commercial communication.
Posted by: David Tiley at July 25, 2004 03:28 AM"...who is in fact quite bright"
Jeez, talk about damning with faint praise!
As opposed to praising with faint damns ((Sotto Voce)- "Damned bright, that John Quiggin, damn it!")