Seven Years: Has Google Been Wandering or Progressing?
July 6, 2011
I promised myself that I would do my best to push Google+ into the SSNBlog.com which we will be restarting in a month or so. But I read “Google’s Path to Google+ Took 7 Years” and was flabbergasted. I know that the real media is a land of sharp minds, keen analysts, and meticulous research. Sure, there are missteps like the story in a New York newspaper that earned to publication a libel suit from a hotel employee. But overall, real journalists are the Mt Everests of information.
The write up left me with the impression that Google was a bit like a college student. Four years of undergraduate and three more years to knock of an advanced degree. Google, of course, does not have to worry about student loans, but the idea is that one begins a journey and then arrives, presumably at a job and maybe intellectual enlightenment. Now that does not work out. A Yale graduate told me that most of this year’s grads were chasing jobs, not landing them. Who knows?
In the write up, I marked this passage as notable:
But look back in time and it’s clear that Google has been playing in the social world for years, but never quite put all the pieces together in one place. Here’s a chronological look at the long path Google has taken to form what could be the next big social network, if the company can pull off the mega-coup of convincing most of the half a billion Facebook users it has a better service.
Source: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/maze/mazecam.html
The walk down memory lane was Google’s management approach which relies on an interesting method called “controlled chaos” has produced some services that sure can look like social ramble. My view is that most of these services were islands, erupting from the “controlled chaos” of the Googleplex. Google’s most notable successes got their DNA outside of Google. Examples range from maps to Adsense itself. Now the company is hooking together services and asserting the mash up is a new Google. I see a 1998 style portal. So I don’t buy the hype. It is the same old Google, anchored in brute force search and selling online advertising.
The Google+ service seems to lack integration with Google search and Gmail, but I may have overlooked this obvious blend due to my nonchalant attitude toward social networking. Google+ is getting a jump start. Someone told me that those lucky bloggers with content on Blogger.com are going to be part of Google+.
My thought is that Google faces an interesting challenge. Facebook has defined its “space”, demonstrated an ability to move from one niche to others, and has information its users willingly provide. Despite privacy hassles and technical glitches, Facebook users appear to be loyal–for now. Can Google close the gap or will another company flow from one space into the areas dominated by Facebook and Google?
Microsoft’s rise and now its money-flush stagnation took a quarter century. Will the trajectory of Google or Facebook take less time to arrive at Microsoft’s location in the growth curve? My view is that time may be short for Google in the social space, and it may be even more compressed for Facebook. Happily I am approaching 67, and most of the people in the old age home eschew digital gizmos for a TV. Youngsters are going to make the decision for Google and for Facebook, not cheerleaders. I see wandering. With one revenue stream, I don’t see much progressing. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2011
This post is sponsored by Pandia.com, publisher of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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