booktalesy Chapter 241 Response
Chapter 241 Response
Chapter 241 Response
Project Shield is the core project that Google Mail has been secretly working on recently.
Despite its fancy name, it's really just a security software.
If a programmer were reborn into this era twenty years from now, they wouldn't have to worry about making their first fortune, because the door to the vault wouldn't be locked for them.
Every year, there are more than 100 cases in the United States where companies lose money due to hacking, with losses exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars.
These hackers' methods can be complex, but they can also be quite simple and direct.
They would silently send web crawlers to corporate email accounts, like installing an invisible eavesdropping device. Once they captured the bank card number information sent by the customer, they would immediately tamper with it, changing the receiving account to their own without the company realizing it. By the time the company realized what was happening, the money had already been pocketed by the hackers.
Therefore, email is a double-edged sword. It does facilitate communication between businesses and customers and employees. Whether it's contract transmission, order confirmation, or synchronization of financial information, it's indispensable.
However, at the same time, it is also a huge risk black hole, and a slight misstep could cause a company to suffer a major setback.
This is not just something I made up; it's the conclusion reached by The New York Times after extensive investigation.
The core goal of Gmail's Project Shield is to create an impenetrable shield for its email system. More figuratively, it's about building a robust tortoise shell, enabling the system to automatically identify web crawlers and suspected risky operations. Once anomalies are detected, it promptly alerts enterprise customers, reminding them to be vigilant.
In order to seize the enterprise user market?
That's right, but seizing market share is only part of its strategic plan. The real highlight is that this thing can make money.
Free email is inherently a product with a greater public service orientation than a profit-making one. It cannot generate revenue because it focuses on providing free services and cannot directly extract money from users' pockets.
Therefore, platforms like Google that operate free email services mainly have two ways to make money.
One method is Google Ads (GG) advertising, which involves placing GG banners in prominent positions on the email interface or sending promotional emails to users. As long as users click and view the content, the platform can earn revenue from the GG advertisers.
Secondly, there are paid value-added services, which are the main source of revenue, especially for enterprise users.
Service providers typically offer a range of value-added features, such as increased email storage space, unlocked advanced email management features, and dedicated customer support. Enterprise users who want to use these services have to pay for them.
However, with the security system of Project Aegis, the situation is completely different. Gmail's revenue generation capabilities will experience a qualitative leap, and it can even be said that it has opened up a completely new profit track for the email industry.
Firstly, regarding data analysis and marketing, with a security system in place, users' email data can be analyzed and utilized in a more secure environment.
Gmail can seamlessly integrate with Google Assistant, allowing for in-depth analysis of user email content, contact networks, and email access behavior to uncover valuable user insights.
These insights are invaluable; they can be used for targeted Google Ads campaigns, allowing Google to precisely reach potential customers and improve Google conversion rates.
It can also be used for precise marketing campaign planning, and even packaged and sold to companies in need after anonymization, thus achieving diversified profitability.
In fact, Gmail is already doing targeted advertising to Google, but this operation is currently still in a closed loop.
Only Google can control how its data is used; Google owners can only passively accept the advertising strategies recommended by Google and have little room for independent choice.
But once Project A.H.I.E.L.D. matures, the situation will reverse.
If Google Ads can obtain this analyzed user data, they can independently develop advertising strategies based on their business model and target customer groups.
After all, no matter how powerful Google is, it can't possibly know its customers better than other companies in the industry.
Sometimes, users that Google considers a high match may not be part of the target audience at all in the eyes of Google's owners.
Users that Google deems not highly relevant may be the ones that Google executives want to focus on winning over.
Once this process is streamlined, Gmail can legitimately increase its GG fees, and revenue will naturally follow suit.
Stop talking about user privacy. Does the internet even have privacy?
It can be stated very clearly that 99% of the world's internet companies have had privacy breaches to varying degrees.
Google Mail is relatively ethical in the industry; at least it doesn't blatantly package and sell user data directly to third parties.
Some companies treat user data as a cash cow, selling it directly to market research companies, Google, and other similar firms. These firms then use the data to analyze market trends, create user profiles, or as the basis for Google's targeted advertising.
The second profit growth point brought by Project Aegis is the in-depth cultivation of corporate cooperation.
With security as its trump card, Google can provide customized email services for businesses and deeply integrate email with other online tools and platforms.
For customized email services, security is definitely the biggest selling point.
Multinational corporations, in particular, have an urgent need for email security.
Multinational companies have teams located in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres with completely different working hours. Daily fund transfers and account reconciliations are already very complicated. If there are security issues with their email accounts, the consequences could be disastrous.
If Google could design and customize email accounts for these companies, enabling internal data sharing and even direct fund transfers within the email account while ensuring absolute security, it would undoubtedly save these companies a significant amount of time, manpower, and security costs.
Coincidentally, Ernst's company possesses mature technologies and solutions in the areas of data sharing and online money transfers, which laid the groundwork for a deeper collaboration between Google and the company.
When Ernst said that Google could afford to lose money, he didn't mean that Google could lose money indefinitely; rather, he was confident in its financial situation.
If Google can hold out until the Aegis system is officially launched, it will see a glimmer of hope.
Once the Aegis system goes live, Gmail will once again widen the gap with its competitors in terms of security performance. At that time, the number of users and enterprise cooperation orders will increase significantly, and revenue will naturally skyrocket. The previous investment can be recovered quickly, and even excess profits can be achieved.
Of course, Gmail cannot sit idly by until Project Aegis is officially completed.
"What are your thoughts?" Ernst turned to Hamilton.
Before Ernst arrived, Hamilton and Ernst had already come up with a preliminary plan.
When asked, Hamilton crossed his hands on his knees and said, "Upgrading to a larger capacity email account is a given; we must provide users with sufficient psychological value."
Ernst immediately agreed after hearing this.
He understands this consumer psychology all too well: I may not use it, but you can't live without it.
Just like later smartphones and cars, many functions may never be used by users in their lifetime, and they may not even know how to operate them. But as long as the phone or car has this function, users will feel proud to talk about it.
Consumers mainly consider two things when shopping: firstly, necessities, which are things they can't live without and must buy.
Secondly, it's a status symbol; buying it makes one feel important and sophisticated, and earns the recognition and envy of others.
Upgrading email storage capacity clearly capitalizes on users' desire to save face.
"How much capacity are you planning to upgrade to?" Ernst asked curiously.
"20M," Hamilton replied with a smile, his tone tinged with mystery.
"20M?" Ernst's brows furrowed instantly, his face full of doubt.
Hotmail's storage capacity has reached 30MB, Yahoo Mail's is even higher at 50MB, while Gmail has only been upgraded to 20MB. What is the point of doing this?
Hamilton had anticipated Ernst's reaction, and he calmly explained, "20M is just the initial capacity; our real slogan is unlimited mailbox storage."
"Unlimited storage?" Ernst's eyes lit up immediately, finding it intriguing, and he quickly asked, "How is it unlimited?"
Hamilton explained the strategy in detail: "We've developed a rule for scaling up on demand. Users can manually apply for an upgrade, and their mailbox capacity will immediately double once they apply."
"On the other hand, when a user's actual usage reaches 50% of the current mailbox capacity, the system will automatically double the capacity, and the upgraded capacity will not be reduced back. Most importantly, there is no limit to the number of times this expansion upgrade can be performed."
"However, there is a small condition: you cannot apply for expansion again within three months after the expansion."
After hearing Hamilton's explanation, Ernst instantly understood the trick and couldn't help but praise, "That's a brilliant move."
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For a typical individual user, if they only send text emails regularly with occasional small attachments, 10MB is sufficient.
The email storage capacity is actually more than enough; it should last for a year or two without any problems.
Hamilton's move was essentially a numbers game, but it hit the mark with users' psychology, making them feel like they had an inexhaustible amount of mailbox capacity.
This strategy will yield two very different but equally favorable outcomes for Google.
The first scenario is that users are attracted by the promise of unlimited storage and become firmly locked onto the Gmail platform.
In reality, their user experience is not much different from that of a 10MB email account, because the existing capacity is more than enough for them, and the so-called unlimited expansion is just a psychological comfort.
The second method indirectly increases the frequency of users' email usage. When users feel that they have more storage space than they need, they may send emails and store files more frequently. Once they develop a habit of high-frequency use, they can easily fill up the storage space within the 3-month cooling-off period for expansion. At that time, in order not to affect usage, they may choose to pay for expansion, and Google's goal will be achieved.
Americans have a strange mentality; they don't think about deleting emails to increase storage space because many files, such as those between men and women, are considered meaningful to them.
Furthermore, this strategy can drive Google's revenue growth. As users use their email more frequently, the chances of seeing Google and promotional emails in their email interface will naturally increase, leading to higher click-through rates and conversion rates for Google, and making Google advertisers more willing to advertise on Google.
However, Hamilton didn't stop there. He continued, "In addition to upgrading the capacity, we are also preparing to make the ancillary service available for free."
Attachment service, as a value-added service of Gmail, is currently the mainstay of revenue, especially in the enterprise user market, where it contributes a large amount of revenue.
"Are you trying to expand the market for ancillary services and tap into the potential of individual users?"
Hamilton nodded, his eyes firm, and said, "That's right! Currently, ancillary services are mostly concentrated in the enterprise market, but I believe the potential of the personal user market will be enormous in the future."
"We can start by making the service free to individual users, allowing them to get used to and rely on it. Then, we can set limits on the size of files that can be transferred. For example, free users can only transfer files smaller than 5MB, and those who want to transfer larger files will need to pay for a membership."
"In this way, we can attract a large number of individual users and lay the foundation for subsequent paid conversions."
It must be said that this approach is indeed brilliant.
As individual users' needs for file transfer continue to increase, such as designers transferring design drafts and students transferring graduation theses, the demand for large file transfers will become increasingly strong.
Google's decision to offer attachments for free at this time undoubtedly gave it a head start in the market. Once users have developed a habit of using it, it can then generate revenue through paid features.
He broke the conventional wisdom that attachment services only serve businesses, personalizing a function that was originally exclusive to corporate email. This was both a bold attempt and in line with the trend of making internet services more accessible to everyone.
"I agree, let's do it that way."
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