Google: The Math Club Struggles to Go Steady
May 23, 2016
I read “Google’s Go to Market Gap.” The write up points out that the Alphabet Google thing has a flaw. The disconnect between the vision and the reality was the theme of my monograph “Google: The Digital Gutenberg.” Alas, the report is out of print because the savvy publisher woke up one morning and realized that he was not savvy. Too bad.
The point I noted is:
…social networks and messaging services are not only closed but nearly impossible to compete with.
Google now finds itself on the outside looking in many promising markets. Amazon nuked Google’s on again, off again shopping service from the Google catalogs to today’s Google Shopping. Google is in the game of trying to shift from its PC based search and ad model by playing simultaneous games of:
- Me too. Example: Google’s “answer” to the Echo
- Buy, buy, buy. Examples: Google’s acquisitions which seem to fade or freeze like Blogger.com
- Innovate, innovate, innovate. Example: The new 20 percent time effort to build intrapreneurship
- Dilution. Example: Ads which have minimal relevance to a user’s query.
The write up states:
The problem is that as much as Google may be ahead, the company is also on the clock: every interaction with Siri, every signal sent to Facebook, every command answered by Alexa, is one that is not only not captured by Google but also one that is captured by its competitors. Yes, it is likely Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are all behind Google when it comes to machine learning and artificial intelligence — hugely so, in many cases — but it is not a fair fight. Google’s competitors, by virtue of owning the customer, need only be good enough, and they will get better. Google has a far higher bar to clear — it is asking users and in some cases their networks to not only change their behavior but willingly introduce more friction into their lives — and its technology will have to be special indeed to replicate the company’s original success as a business.
When I was in high school, most of the lads and lasses in George Carlin’s algorithmic love fest did not go to the prom. The Alphabet Google thing, as I have stated many times, is like my high school math club on steroids. Prom is coming? Take an algorithm to the party? Sure, but why not ask IBM Watson? No date yet I hear.
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2016
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