Tim O’Reilly: Google’s got problems
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
When developing I cringe any time a "social" feature gets involved. Rarely are people's lives enriched from it.
It is a huge strategic mistake for Google to look at Facebook think that Facebook makes money due to how long people spend on their site.
Facebook makes their money in volume of page views. Google makes its money in quality of page views. Trying to be social and dragging people out of Facebook is going to be impossible. Conversely, Facebook trying to do search and dragging people out of Google is futile given their core business.
The Google guys are smart. I can't imagine how they are afraid of Facebook. Social data requires context, which is hard to get. Facebook screws it up all the time. Data-data (not social drivel) requires discovery, which is much easier to execute on and Google has done that really well.
My advice to Google: stop sweating Facebook. Like your momma always told you, "Just be yourself and everyone will like you."
That if is a really big one. In the meantime, Google has lost its way. I'm using it less and less as it tries to be more and more.
The other big problem is I've lost faith in them to be good with all my data they hold. Once upon a time, "Don't be evil" seemed to be interpreted as "Be good"; now, they may not be outright evil, but I think they have moved away from "Be good". Because my email and search history contains more sensitive information than the stuff I allow on FB, that is concerning.
So, while social may be important for Google, the bigger issue I see is that they've lost their identity. I no longer really understand who Google is and what it is trying to accomplish. Maybe that is inevitable at a company their size (Apple, an obvious counter to that, is anomalous in many ways).
In the end, I miss the simple search interface.
> I no longer really understand who Google is and what it is trying to accomplish.
The same as it ever was - organize the world's information.
> The same as it ever was - organize the world's information.
But too often lately, they seem to be forsaking the world's information for their own.
You eventually reach a point where you are spending more time on integration parts of the company than innovating to keep ahead of competitors. At this point you are dead in the water while your competitors start to catch up.
Yahoo hit exactly this point. If Google is not careful they will also hit this point.
Time on site is an important metric, no matter what Tim or Tom says.