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“Sometimes you win. Sometimes you tie. You almost, almost, almost never lose.” –Will Ferrel,”Bat Fight” 2009

Oh, Will Ferrel, truer words have probably been spoken many, many times before. However, Will isn’t completely wrong, either. As it stands, this quotation is not only accurate as it applies to bat fights; it’s also pretty accurate as it applies to Google. Think about it: lots of victories, a couple of washes and the occasional failure. In this edition of the Tues News, we’ll take a look at a recent Google win, a recent loss and an upcoming venture that could go either way. Let’s get going!

• Google scoring another victory isn’t particularly newsworthy, however, in the area of patent law, every win is potentially huge. This week, Google was finally awarded a patent for location-based advertising. I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, isn’t that patent incredibly broad?” Answer: yup! I’m not sure whether this will make Google’s purchase of AdMob the smartest move since they bought Urchin but it certainly seems like a possibility. Could Google use this patent to go after Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN adCenter? Could they wield this as a weapon against Apple in the mobile game? We’ll certainly find out but, either way, this is an epic win for an already phenomenally successful company. [MarketingPilgrim]
• When I was a kid and my Little League team lost, my dad would remind me, “You can’t win ‘em all.” Then I would go play Tecmo Super Bowl on Nintendo, beat every team without trying and wonder where the disconnect was between my father’s axiom and the reality of my complete dominance over the competition via video game Bo Jackson and the LA Raiders. That mystery may never be solved completely, however, what is true is that, for the most part, even dominant companies like Google can’t win ‘em all. Recently, AT&T decided to go with Yahoo as the default search engine on their latest phone, snubbing Google completely. Perhaps, this is retaliation to Google releasing the Nexus One, a direct competitor to the iPhone which is, of course, AT&T’s flagship phone. I can’t be sure about that but what I do know is that AT&T chose to use Yahoo as their search engine and that Yahoo’s CEO declared them “not a search company” last year. To choose Yahoo over Google, the obviously number one search engine in the land, is a major coup in what has become an outstanding spitting match between the phone carriers, the search engines and the computer companies. [Gizmodo]
• I saw this headline and I immediately shuddered: Google Extends “Click To Call” Ads To All Advertisers. This was famously an area where Google hadn’t found much success in the past. After speaking with our reps and reading this article, though, it seems that Google is going to give Click To Call the old college try… again! With mobile ads figuring to be the future of revenue expansion for Google, maybe a different approach will yield better results for the search giant. It’s one thing for Google to fail at something once–that happens to everyone–but for them to fail twice? That seems nearly unthinkable! We’ll have to keep an eye on this as more information is made available. [SearchEngineLand]

As you can see, there is an ebb and flow for every successful business, even one as successful as Google. Of course, Google has much more ebb than flow. Or is that more flow than ebb? I don’t know, whichever one is good is probably the one that Google sees more of. As always, don’t bet against Google, but at the same time, remember that everybody other than Tecmo Bo has trouble winning ‘em all.

Thanks for stopping by. Read up on and keep up with the online world; keep reading Tues News! Catch ya later!

Edit: I can’t believe I left this out. Thanks to Jeff C. for reminding me. If you didn’t hear, the town of Topeka, KS recently renamed itself Google for a temporary period of time in a bid to get free Google fiber-optic Internet connectivity. Now, that’s what I call a win for Google marketing execs! I wonder if they’ll have to update the Wikipedia entry for the state now that its capital is a corporation from Mountain View, CA. [LA Times]

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