Eric Schmidt talked about Bitcoin on MWC Keynote

[Wandering Albatross]

Advertising. En masse. It is 97% of their revenue, and making it targeted is in the interests of the advertisers.

Your source?

[rjk]

Advertising. En masse. It is 97% of their revenue, and making it targeted is in the interests of the advertisers.

Your source?

SEC filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312509150129/dex992.htm
Article of interest: http://gigaom.com/2009/07/17/where-does-google-get-97-of-its-revenue/

[Wandering Albatross]

SEC filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312509150129/dex992.htm
Article of interest: http://gigaom.com/2009/07/17/where-does-google-get-97-of-its-revenue/

Trust those sources if you want and trust the bankers and the u.s. chamber of commerce while you're at it.
And trust google too.

[rjk]

SEC filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312509150129/dex992.htm
Article of interest: http://gigaom.com/2009/07/17/where-does-google-get-97-of-its-revenue/

Trust those sources if you want and trust the bankers and the u.s. chamber of commerce while you're at it.
And trust google too.

Tinfoil much? An SEC filing is a legal document, if it is substantially incorrect then Google would have some 'splainin to do, Lucy! and they would be paying some massive fines to the government.

[memvola]

Trust those sources if you want and trust the bankers and the u.s. chamber of commerce while you're at it.
And trust google too.

It's not so much about trust, it's pretty plausible to believe that they make enough money through targeted advertisements to more than cover their expenditures. Targeted ads are powerful. That also justifies their accumulation of information. Nevertheless it's a good idea not to be spied on.

Another unrelated point: He's saying "pure" p2p currencies are illegal in most cases. It pretty much shows he has some experience on the subject.

[Wandering Albatross]

Tinfoil much? An SEC filing is a legal document, if it is substantially incorrect then Google would have some 'splainin to do, Lucy! and they would be paying some massive fines to the government.

Name calling, too funny. You probably believe in unicorns too. Yes the SEC would never lie nor would google. Believe what you'd like.
I'd bet you don't know too much about the current world financial events. If you did you'd find it hard to believe anything about the
stock market or wall street. What do you think is the motivation behind BTC? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical. Believe in any fantasy that you'd like
and like I said make sure and put all your data on google's servers like a good citizen.

State sponsored capitalism = facism

[rjk]

Tinfoil much? An SEC filing is a legal document, if it is substantially incorrect then Google would have some 'splainin to do, Lucy! and they would be paying some massive fines to the government.

Name calling, too funny. You probably believe in unicorns too. Yes the SEC would never lie nor would google. Believe what you'd like.
I'd bet you don't know too much about the current world financial events. If you did you'd find it hard to believe anything about the
stock market or wall street. What do you think is the motivation behind BTC? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical. Believe in any fantasy that you'd like
and like I said make sure and put all your data on google's servers like a good citizen.

State sponsored capitalism = facism

Well whatever you say, is there some other reason you don't agree that advertising couldn't possibly be 97% of their revenue? That is the root of this debate, after all. I mean seriously - you search for something, you don't pay them for that service, where does the money come from? Even the hardware they sell (phones) are at breakeven because they are used as targeted advertising platforms, and fulfill that role excellently.

[Raoul Duke]

I think Bitcoin is Google Bucks.  And Larry and/or Sergey is Satoshi.

[apetersson]

my comment from http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/qblwb/video_of_eric_schmidt_talking_briefly_about/

its interesting that Eric Schmidt came up with Bitcoin in this conversation.
Somehow I think Google, Amazon are sympathetic to it and are just waiting for Bitcoin become a little more mainstream before they endorse it.

The guy asking the question wanted to pitch faircash, a collection of ideas sketched out in his? 230 Page Dissertation.
I have scratched the surface of it. So far i can see that is a hardware-based crypto system with central PKI, but there is no prototype of it yet.
Furthermore i suspect double-spending is not solved, even theoretically, because transactions can occur in isolated (non-internet-connected) environments.

[cbeast]

Free advice for Eric Schmidt:

1.  Buy a bunch of bitcoins.
2.  Integrate bitcoin into Google Wallet.
3.  Go to sleep.
4.  Wake up.
5.  Eat breakfast.
6.  Check the price of bitcoin on MtGox.
7.  Profit.
8.  See step 7.
9.  See step 8.
10.  See step 9.

the first major existing company to adopt Bitcoins will definitely make immense profits.

Actually, I think the reason more people are not speculating on Bitcoin is because the rich are already too rich and the poor are too poor. The rich only need Blue Chip investments to stay rich. Bitcoin is a revolution, not an IPO.

[finway]

Maybe Google is sato, who is shi & Naka & moto ?

[str4wm4n]

What if Google starts mining with 50%+ hashing power?

[memvola]

What if Google starts mining with 50%+ hashing power?

I question Google's ability to do that. I suppose they could do it if they spend enough, but it would cost them millions. We could delay transactions until we have sufficient power to push back. Worst case scenario, we could fork the chain and move to a Google-unfriendly algorithm. But with the current atmosphere, I feel that it's more likely for such companies to quietly come to the rescue of Bitcoin rather than try and destroy it.

[BkkCoins]

What if Google starts mining with 50%+ hashing power?

I question Google's ability to do that. I suppose they could do it if they spend enough, but it would cost them millions. We could delay transactions until we have sufficient power to push back. Worst case scenario, we could fork the chain and move to a Google-unfriendly algorithm. But with the current atmosphere, I feel that it's more likely for such companies to quietly come to the rescue of Bitcoin rather than try and destroy it.

While I doubt Google would ever even entertain doing this they are theoretically well positioned for it. They have hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of low-end systems in open cage racks that could quite possibly handle one gpu each without much re-building. The cpu and traffic overhead on top of handling queries would be low. I suspect they also have heaps of systems being cycled out for newer ones and could easily assign the old Celerons to this purpose (assuming they even have PCIx slots). They also likely have lots of hw techs on staff already and I have no idea how busy they are. My guess is they spend a lot of them replacing hard disks.

[apetersson]

i doubt that they would retrofit existing systems to do mining. there are too many issues, plus google has enough cash to just build another data center dedicated to mining.

some issues (pulled out of thin air):

• existing power grid and batteries for UPS would maybe be too weak.
• heat management is already non-trivial and they planned their data centers for their target load. adding GPUs would also mean adding new cooling system.
• cpu and network load is already a non-trivial issue for their map/reduce algos. spilling p2p traffic on top of that would not really help.
• if they invested in hardware it would not be GPU but FPGA or even ASIC.