Financial / Business News vs. Tech Opinions

Why did GOOG shares recently fall about 5% overnight?

It seems like hardly anyone even noticed that it happened. Even more remarkable (sort of) is the fact that Google’s own “finance” site did not show any news which might help explain why it happened (I find Google’s launch of another “health” property does not suffice to explain very much).

So I did some research

It turns out, Microsoft (MSFT) announced its “Cash Back” program the next morning — so I assume perhaps some people on Wall Street were betting on rumors they might have heard regarding the new program (and/or its announcement).

When will Google launch Google BS?

But things get even curioser and curiouser! I did a “Google News” search — currently, the top result for “Microsoft Cash” includes a video hosted on youtube.com ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSS4xuwuMLE ) that has nothing to do with the Microsoft announcement, but displays the Google logo prominently at the beginning and repeatedly throughout the video (see this screenshot) What a laughable “search engine”!

Why did Wall Street sell GOOG on the MSFT news?

This is particularly intriguing — especially because the tech news reporting was quite reserved about Microsoft’s “new & improved” approach. Perhaps investors have a different view about the direction the tech market is headed than do tech analysts? “Fascinating!”…

PS / Addendum: I notice that I can no longer replicate the split-second flash of the Google logo at the beginning of the video (perhaps this was a “bug” at Google News?) — indeed: very curious….

This entry was posted on Sun, 2008-Jun-1 at 10:58 and is filed under Marketing, Advertising, Commerce, Audio-Visual, Media Types. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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