First I thought this crisis was due to an arrogant intern or middle manager mistake. But it was so Google unlike it amazed me it could happen, or how long the violation has (still!) been unsolved.
But this article unveils this wasn't an operational mistake or a tactical one. It's 2008 Google's strategy, and it signals things to come. I'd love to know what internal structure changes made this possible.
The overall gist of the video is that Google wants to take its existing set of applications and integrate them around Google Reader. Google Reader will become, not just a way to track news items, but also where you can see what your friends are up to.
Now granted, you can already do that to some extent, but you need to set things up by hand. What Google would like to do is automate and streamline the process — as well as add more data to the mix.
This according to a leaked internal Google video. Details at wisebread.
If I had to guess I'd say Brin&Page finally realized they are very good at many things, but not at social software. Look at Google's product history if you want to check. This wasn't a big problem, as they could always buy Youtube or make a strategic deal with MySpace. But then Facebook came around, Microsoft and not Google got the deal, and desperate measures were needed. Finally B&P decided to take a step back and let someone else's criteria lead the war against Facebook. Badly. With the arrogance and results you have seen these two weeks.
Google is known for their cautious deployments, extended beta periods, invitation only products, "go back to our old interface" buttons, etc. Surprisingly this time they just let the bull free. Even more astonishing has been their response, instead of taking the bull away they are just giving us instructions to handle it. "The bull has been freed, we are not taking it away, best get used to it. You should have seen the bull coming, any damages caused are your fault".
What do you think?
Maybe we just have to wait for an anonymous Google employee to tell us the whole picture.
News continue rolling at Techmeme.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The new Google strategy behind their Reader debacle
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1 comments:
Reader just has too many ways to share items:
1. Email - click email and type in a name and press send. Best for users you know don't use RSS.
3. "Share" button. Easy. Press share and everyone you gave your private URL to can see.
2. Tag - press tag then type in a name or previously thought of "grouping". Share that out the same way you would have sent a link to the "shared" items.
Clearly #2 is the easiest. Apparently the reader team really meant for use to accomplish granular sharing by #3.
Google. The solution is EASY. People want to share "shared" items by clicking the shared button - and remain private. Here's how you do it. Make the Share button pop open and give a taglike choice: All, group of people, maybe contacts, etc. No one understands what you mean by tags or bother learning what you mean by them in this context. Its hard enough explaining del.icio.us to people. There's your GPC.
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