Google Chapter and Face Book Metaphor
November 24, 2010
I read “For Google, Social Networking Is Just One Chapter of the Book.” I was confused. The article summarizes alleged comments by Google’s top bean counter, Patrick Pichette. I understand the soft shoe around “don’t be evil.” Google has managed to trigger legal push back on every continent. I understand the cheerleading about Android, which is not a Google grassroots development. A solid acquisition for sure. But Android has to deal with the fragmentation issue, various telecommunications companies with Bell head DNA, and the problem of the “app”. In my opinion, Android doesn’t yet have a killer app and Verizon has bumped Google Search for the somewhat disappointing Bing.com search service.
The baffler was “chapter.” I found this passage difficult to decode:
“The digital world is exploding and it has so many chapters — it has cloud computing, it has mobile, it does have social, it has searches, it has so many elements. (…) Yes, absolutely it will be part of our strategy, yes it will be embedded in many of our products. But at the same time remember it’s one chapter of an entire book,” said Google’s chief financial officer Patrick Pichette to Australian public television on Sunday.
Google is a search system with ads. Like a young novelists first book, Google harvested deep consideration of search. By chance, Hewlett Packard fumbled AltaVista.com and Google got a jump start from some former DEC engineers. Then the Google “don’t be evil” crowd sought artistic inspiration from GoTo.com/Overture.com which were part of Yahoo. The legal matter was made to go away, and Google became the “go to” company for search.
The company’s efforts outside of search have been met with mixed results. The big new thing is the social craziness, and Google has managed to flub its opportunities. First, there was Orkut, then Wave, and then Buzz. I heard that Google is not building a Facebook killer. I understand that. Facebook is different from Google, and Google is trotting out “chapter” metaphors.
Wrong. Facebook is a new book. Different author, different audience, and different utility—there is no chapter at Google’s wordsmithing operation for Facebook. The name “Facebook” is apt. Google does search and wrote that book. It was a best seller. New “book” and a new bestseller is here. Wrong metaphor. Google can do knock offs, but it did not write the Facebook. Hey, Google is the math club, not a poetry club like so many fawning mid tier consulting firms.
Google is not in the Face Book. Maybe Google is a chapter in the Digital Domesday Book?
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2010
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