Clunky Flow

 

Much as I love this cartoon, I think it distracts from the more interesting (and ultimately) more important story arc that applies to Google: Are we disdainful yet?

Right now. The answer would seem to be yes. 

Eric Schmidt recently

• dismissed the refusal of social networks such as Facebook to let Google scan their content as a “transient” phase.

This remarks demonstrate

• a peculiar disdain for peoples’ natural desire to maintain some privacy with respect to their social interaction
• an apparent blind spot to the fact that a natural desire for privacy means that monetizing personal interaction is a fundamentally different business to monetizing search

and

• suggests that Google maintains a curious belief that it will soon be able to publish all the data it wants over and above what the producers of that content want. And be justified in doing so.

To put these remarks in context, we have to remember that Google is a company who’s business relies on internet search. Internet search has been the killer app. of the web and Google have been the most successful company at delivering and monetizing that service. However, search has recently been superceded by social interaction as the new killer app. of the web.  Internet users now spend much more time and energy engaged in social interactions mediated across the web than they do in searching for content.  And this social interaction is occuring within walled gardens that exclude Google from accessing its contents in order to protect the privacy of it’s attendees.  

Given the context, it would seem that Google

• is getting tetchy at being excluded from a party it considers itself ’entitled’ to attend.

• is deluding itself that this exclusion is only a temporary hiccup (presumably assuming that the party needs them in some way)
• and is trying to convince its investors (and the ROTW) that concerns over privacy are no concerns at all. 

Hmmmm….

Seems Google is getting disdainful.

This could be far more serious for Google than becoming evil.

Although evil behaviour is universally considered to be morally wrong, I can’t help thinking that a little touch of evil is not so universally despised.  In fact, sometimes a touch of evil can be considered attractive.  Especially when it signals a bit of danger, boldness and chutzpah. Even at is worst evil elicits a sense of appalled fascination and begrudging admiration.  And in the attention economy, appalled fascination and begrudging admiration are good things.     

Meanwhile other “not-so-evil” behaviours are universally considered distasteful, unnattractive and offputting. No one likes when someone becomes too big for their boots.  No one likes others to treat their personal concerns with disdain. No one likes a two face.  Those who have achieved popularity and want to maintain it, may find they have many subtle temptations to resist.  Not alone must they resist the not so subtle temptation to ‘be evil’, they have also to resist the flip side of all those qualities that brought them success in the first place.  Perhaps the same positive qualities and attitudes that make it possible to reinvent an industry could be interpreted in a different light when used to justify new ways of thinking about issues such as

• Personal privacy eg. Your privacy is not your concern, (nor ours either) especially if it gets in the way of us making money. 

This ‘fresh thinking’ about privacy asserted with such blind confidence as it is by Google might be intepreted by some as disdainful, presumptious or pompous.

Anyone that consistently displays these kinds of anti-social behaviours is likely to make themselves unpopular eventually.  People won’t consider them evil, just distasteful. This might be far worse. Once upon a time you could be as ‘unpopular’ as Microsoft and still make money by the bucket load.  But those days are vanishing fast, and in the new world order (ushered in along with Google search) where people have access to choice, where no one is tied into your product or service, popular appeal is everything.  Google built their brand on this understanding. Google built their business around that brand with innovative ways to monetize search. 

The big question are: 

• Do Google fully appreciate that search is no longer the centre of the internet experience for the average user?  
• Can Google see their way to coming up with ways to access and monetize an internet experience centred on social interaction that recognizes peoples’ natural desire to maintain some privacy with respect to their social interaction?

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