The incredible power of being able to think and act big

Possibly the most important characteristic of web giant Google is their ability to think and act big. Thinking big is really hard to do but has made them the most successful web company in history. Google, the name, refers to the word Googol meaning 10¹⁰⁰ which is a huge number. The name itself suggests that Google has the ambition to index the entire web. It certainly has made them the defacto Internet search standard.

This ability to think big isn’t that rare. Most web entrepreneurs that start a new venture think that they have fond the single idea to conquer all of the Internet, to become the next Google. Most fail too. It isn’t good enough to think big. You also need to be able to see the bigger picture, to understand it’s complex nature, to see what is needed. It is also important to understand the ecology of such matters, to understand that to have a big impact you need others to do that. And once you understand all of this you then need to execute big. And that is where the power of Google lies. It has become their second nature to think that way. And doing that they can amaze us all.

If you understand this about Google then it isn’t so hard to understand what they are up to now. Google is trying to become the social glue of the entire web. They are the first to acknowledge the power of socializing every application. Most web 2.0 companies have chosen a business model that forces them to become the number 1 destination site in order to be successful. Mark Zuckerberg runs one of the largest walled gardens in the world (if you exclude the mobile operators, they hold even larger walled gardens AND, unlike Facebook, make a whole lot of revenues on them). Almost every web 2.0 business model is based upon traffic and advertisement. That business model trap puts the entrepreneur in the destination mood. He’s got to build a large destination site to become successful.

Google has taken a different approach. Thinking bigger than the rest they leave the fight for social destinations to others (except for the search engine google.com, but they have won that battle long ago) and look at the bigger picture. Instead of having one destination to be a playground, they see the entire web as their playground. And if socialization is the trend, then Google will be the one that connects everything to everyone using their OpenSocial and FriendConnect projects.

And they are extending even beyond the web as we know it. The next addition to this playground will be the mobile device. Again, instead of building one super mobile application, Google simply builds a mobile operating system called Android. They create a whole new ecology, bypassing closed, walled garden. platform developments by the mobile hardware manufacturers. Who cares about Symbian, Windows mobile, or any of the other non-interacting mobile platforms. Google will try to open up these hopelessly closed ecologies and scattered mobile developments by setting a new open standard with Google’s Android. They are in the mobile game now, shaking up the industry as no one has been able to do (with the exception of Apple of course).

Just look at a few of the strengths Google has:

1. They run the largest Internet infrastructure in the world, which includes not only huge data centers but also dark fiber connections. I doubt there are many bits traveling the web that aren’t passing Google infrastructure at some point
2. They are the king of search, both on the web and mobile space. And accompanied by that they are the king of advertisement, taking some 75% of the entire revenue stream worldwide.
3. They have Orkut, Google Earth, Google Maps, Picasa, GMail, GCalendar, Google Docs, Google Gears. And on top of that they have OpenSocial and Friendconnect, API’s to potentially unlock any popular destination site on the web. Resistance is futile, but even the mighty Facebook can’t resist this force much longer. Their feeble attempt to block Google’s FirendConnect will backfire on them.
4. They are the king of RSS, with Google Reader and Feedburner, letting a lot of content flow through their network
5. They have bought one of the best mobile teams in the world. People are always wondering about Google’s move to by Jaiku and then let the service slowly bleed to death. Let’s not forget that the early adopter crowd loved Jaiku at it’s peak, even though Twitter was way more popular. Jaiku simply had better technology and an incredible development team. And these people are now working within Google on who knows what. Best buy they have aver made probably. Who cares about Jaiku, Google has the team!
6. They have created the Android mobile operating system. It isn’t there yet, but it will attempt to dominate mobile development due to its open nature. If all developers jump on Android and the iPhone, the rest of the mobile OS’es will be buried very soon.

Does that mean the competition might as well go home? Does it suggest that Google will take it all. No, of course it doesn’t. I even doubt there was a master strategy that has lead Google to all of this. But one thing is clear to me. All of this is due to their ability to think and act big. And it is really hard to compete with that. Google is getting ready to become the next “Operating system” on the web, including mobile. They have the infrastructure, technology, the capacity, the data, and people to do it. While this is good news for the web user, it is also scary to think that one company can have such a huge impact on our on-line life.

Will Microsoft and Yahoo create the biggest social network ever?

There is a lot of talk about the Microsoft takeover attempt of Yahoo this weekend. TechMeme is flooded with blog posts about the subject. I’m not so interested in the “breaking news” factor, but I am more interested in the effects this might have on the web and its users. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have great assets, which combined might even make Google become a bit nervous.

I doubt it will be in advertisement. Google is the absolute number one in that game and it will be nearly impossible to beat them at their own game. Microsoft has large aspirations in the advertisement world, and Yahoo has performed rather poorly there given all the traffic they receive.

If Microsoft wants to create more value by acquiring Yahoo I would suggest that they start combining and innovating over one of the biggest assets they jointly would have, e-mail.  There are more e-mail users worldwide than any other web service. E-mail is, although outdated, still the most frequently used communication tool. It is more popular and has more users than all social networks like MySPace and Facebook together. Consider the possibilities if e-mail was to be updated and improved to become the ultimate social network. No need to acquire new users, simply offer the hundreds of million users worldwide the possibility to interact in a network.

I said this before in a post entitled: “Dear Yahoo, Microsoft, Google e-mail: Forget Facebook, start innovating!”. E-mail could very well be the heart of a new type of social network. Tim O’Reilly makes a similar observation in his excellent post here. It would need a major redesign though to make it fit for what users really want. In my earlier post I mentioned 9 possible improvements to make e-mail the ultimate social networking environment. If Microsoft/Yahoo would join efforts in making e-mail a social networking tool then Google would have something to worry about. And that isn’t bad at all.

Google really needs competition to keep them sharp. Should they be really worried? Well, yes, a bit. But Google also has assets that could easily be combined into great social networking tools. Let’s not forget they have GMail and chat, Orkut, Google Maps, Android, OpenSocial, RSS and Jaiku. When these assets are combined the right way Google could easily facilitate the ultimate social network, with Gmail at its heart.

It will be interesting to see what will happen the next months. Will Microsoft and Yahoo create the biggest social network ever? Will Google pick up the challenge and roll out their version of a social network? Facebook and Myspace, you better watch out!

Freedom to the people

We are nearing the end of 2007 so human nature forces me to look back and forth, thinking about things that happened and things to come. I am by no means a good trend or technology predictor, but here’s my take on it.

Looking back the most talked and blogged about subject is probably Facebook and it’s plans with monetization of their build up social graph. The story remains a top item on TechMeme, and it is a controversy as most either love or hate their Beacon attempt. Now that we are slowly recuperating from the privacy backlash they received, the next thing already being discussed is the possible inflation of visitor numbers or even the stealing of people from other companies. Facebook is now getting payback for the hype that was created around it. This almost seems Dutch behavior. In Holland we tend to talk anyone down sticking his head above the play field. Facebook is in that league now and I predict for 2008 that they will get into more trouble than they are already in right now. Not because they might be doing things wrong, but more likely because they are becoming too popular and the blogging community seems to be smelling blood. And that isn’t good. Fear isn’t what Facebook needs now. It needs leadership and making the right choices together with its users.

Looking forward towards 2008 I feel that the time is there to make some major changes in the current web. We need technological barriers to be taken down by developments such as Android, openSocial, OAuth, and OpenID.  It will take time, but in the end the user wins. I’m not going to worry too much about the technology needed, it always finds a way. More interesting is to think about human nature and the needs that we might need fulfilling in 2008.

More than 2006, when Time Magazine unfortunately called YOU the most important person of the year, I think and hope 2008 will be the year where the user gets his long-wanted freedom back. 2008 will be a year in which  we will see the first brand/portal/network/social graph/device- agnostic  services pop up. What does all of that mean? It means that the portal or network concept we are so used to is slowly replaced by initiatives where the user isn’t locked in, but viewed as a traveler reaching a place where service is required.

If you think about  the user becoming a traveler instead of a profile in a network or social graph then you quickly realise that current service isn’t all that fit to service the traveler. We have walled gardens, locked data, privacy issues, spam, free but ad-based web business models, crappy mobile to Internet solutions, locked mobile phones and networks, a total lack of standards, competition on the network and profile layer instead of on the application service layer, customer “lock-in”, advertisers “lock-in”, iPhone wannahaves, Beacon, DRM, etc. Essentially things that are meant to keep you locked into a specific place, instead of letting you move around wherever you want to go.

But a traveler really doesn’t need all that. What would you take with you when you go on a trip? Basic needs probably include:

A passport that identifies you at all destinations, a traveling bag where you can keep your personal belongings, money, food, drink, a good map for the area you travel to, a language guide, and easy ways for you to: obtain relevant information/keep track of/meet/interact with friends and strangers.

It is a very basic and simple list of needs. Translate these needs onto the (mobile) web and we can easily come up with services that address these needs. Entrepreneurs need to think more in terms of running a gas station on a freeway waiting for a car to arrive and servicing the traveler, instead of becoming an amusement park owner, letting children drive a Donald duck car, but only if you visit Disneyland. This sounds easy enough, but with it comes a radical change in business models. Not based upon page views or clicks, as these are easily inflated, but based upon user value.

As Rolf Skyberg puts it, the network should become the commodity. The question is, who’s going to do the plumbing?

My hopes for now lie with new initiatives like OpenSocial, and Android,  because they do the open “talk”. Let’s see if they can do the “walk” too. Let it be noted that I could care less about the Social Graph, web 3.0, or whatever you want to call it. It is time to free the people, who will take the first step in 2008?

Every generation needs a new revolution

Facebook and Google are getting a lot of attention these days. Everyone, including myself, seems to have a take on it and the urge to write about it. It is time to step back, observe and try to understand what is causing this.

The CEO’s of rivalling companies are falling over each other, often like little children. Personally I like Steve Ballmer best (seriously), he is such an incredible promoter. Just look at his great response to John Battelle’s question on search here, or his quote on Android being a paper tiger for now. Business week summarises a few here (including one of my comments ). Or how about Mark Zuckerberg, the man that seems to have gained a pop star status with his incredible success in growing Facebook to 50Mln users. On top of his success he seems to have stated that the user really has no choice when it comes to SocialAds.

If the Internet has brought us one thing it is the ability to start a hailstorm as a counter-force  to the scooping blogging community reporting on the successful initiatives or people.  The first hacks on OpenSocial have already been reported, as well as a recipe to block SocialAds. 100 Year old laws have been dusted off to explain that Facebook SocialAds are illegal. And some even started a countdown for the downfall of Facebook .

Web 2.0 brought us an explosion of innovations in social networking services. The biggest contest ever for the attention of the user. Web 2.0 companies create phenomenal free services and show unprecedented user base growth. It is all about eyeballs, who has the most users, the largest network. The waves of success were driven by free services. The question how create revenues being the last to answer. But with the success of all these services, monetization becomes an issue. Pressure is now on all the successful CEO’s, how to make revenues that live up to the incredible valuations being drawn up? The way out is provided by the advertisement business, nearly $ 42 Bln is predicted to be available in 2011 in the US only. It is this pile of money available that provides everyone a way out. It is the golden pot at the end of the rainbow that can be used to pay for the costs of free services and to justify incredible $15 Bln valuations of successful web 2.0 companies.

So why the emotional responses, why the polarising blog posts on these matters? Is it jealousy, because some are more successful than others? Maybe, but I am inclined to think it is something else.

I think it is because we are finally starting to realise that everything comes at a price. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Your “free” Facebook account is payed by SocialAds. Your perceived secure privacy on social networks isn’t as secure as you might have thought. The service you thought was build for your needs is now turning into an ad machine. One that takes your personal information and relationships and uses these to provide you with ads that, luckily won’t feel like ads according to Mark Zuckerberg (phew, a relieve here).

These services need your attention, draw you in because it is free, but won’t let you out once joined.  Try taking your personal belongings, your messages, your friends, your emotions with you from one service to the next. It can’t be done. It is the Catch 22 for web 2.0.

I think it is precisely this trap we have fallen into that is now delivering all these emotional responses on the web. We are finally beginning to realise that web 2.0 didn’t give us freedom at all. It provided a well disguised containment, a trap that lured us in. Beautiful sirens singing to us, backed up by bloggers, newspapers and magazines telling us it is all about you. And now with our  saviour Mark Zuckerberg telling us that there is  no way out. But Mark is getting a bit nervous with rivals like Google who, in perception at least, do offer a way out with OpenSocial and  Android.

It is becoming clear to me now that the current web 2.0 generation needs a revolution. If we want to get out if this trap then there is, as always, only one way to do this. We have got to take control of our lives on-line. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Your data is yours! It isn’t Google’s, Facebook’s, or Microsoft’s. We need to start making so much noise about this that these guys will be forced to open it all up. And you have the power to do so. You can use the strength of the network that you have created yourself to protest and oppose this confinement. I can’t wait for the first protest groups on SocialAds to appear on Facebook. Let’s see how many supporters will join that. And don’t get me wrong. I am not against ads, but I do oppose to the idea that we currently have no freedom because of ads!

And in revolution, there are always new thinkers and leaders that can  show us the way. My vote is with people like Doc Searl, David Recordon, Tim O’Reilly, Dick Hardt, Dave Winer and Rolf Skyberg. People that not just complain about this trap, but thoroughly understand it and provide possibilities to get out of it. There are $16 Bln reasons to get out if this web 2.0 advertisement trap and move into a new era of user centric thinking, of true interaction!

It is like President Jefferson already said so long ago: “Every generation needs a new revolution”.

Mark Zuckerberg: When in doubt, follow the money

It is the day after the OpenSocial announcements Google has made. I like it already. The scooping part of such events isn’t nearly as interesting as the period afterwards when everyone starts analysing and speculating. It is from these brainwaves that new insights and ideas erupt. It makes you (Re-) discover things on the web. Forget about the scoops, they are just the dying out echos of eager beaver blogging sites bringing the “exclusive breaking news”.

Yesterday I wrote in a first analysis that the user is finally back into the equation. My main point was that now things might be broken open, we shouldn’t forget about the user and his needs. Reading through a lot of the posts today I feel that a lot of articles focus (again) on the wrong side of this equation. For example, TechCrunch suggests Facebook should join the OpenSocial movement because it might just let them become the advertisement network of choice in the social network Walhalla. Robert Scoble wonders whether or not Facebook is scared and advises them to join the party.

If I were Mark Zuckerberg, or any other Social Networking guru I wouldn’t worry a day about OpenSocial. Stop messing about and join the party and break down current walled gardens. It is what users want, and you can’t ignore that. Bad for (advertisement) business? Sorry guys, can we please stop this advertisement business model thinking and come up with something better?

In a previous post I discussed why there is an advertisement trap and possibilities to get out of it. Reading Mathew Ingram not being impressed by Orkut triggered me to think back about some things I wrote earlier. He said:

By contrast, Google doesn’t really have a horse in this particular race — unless you include Orkut, which I don’t — in the same sense that Microsoft didn’t make hardware.

I don’t agree with you Mathew. Orkut might not be the biggest social network in the US, it is very strong in Asia. Asia is the fastest growing mobile market in the world!

Toni Ahonen publishes good examples of successful mobile (Internet) cases on a regular basis, some of them mentioned here. The mobile device will be the most dominant Internet terminal in the world. Already there are more mobile phones than computers available, and the mobile user is definitely finding his way into the Internet. The iPhone has just been called the ‘Invention of the year’ by Time Magazine.

But there are 2 aspects to a mobile phone that are of huge importance when thinking about next generation web services:

1. The mobile phone platform has billing capabilities
2. The mobile phone user pays to interact with others

Think of the US on-line advertisement spent 2006 ($16 Bln) as a small hill,

think of the worldwide spent on SMS as the Mount Everest (btoh images taken from Wikipedia). It is estimated that the SMS market alone will be $ 67Bln in 2012 (or 3.7 trillion messages a year!) .That is excluding Mobile Internet services. In Japan alone more than $ 1 Bln revenues are generated from mobile data services. So stop thinking ads and start thinking payed services.

Let us not forget about China and India where the mobile phone is building a user base very fast. So Google has Orkut, only the biggest social network in Asia and a major traffic driver for them. And, didn’t Google just buy Jaiku, thus adding mobile presence and mobile feeds into the social networking scene? And they are working on the GPhone trying to become a dominant mobile platform as well.

In order to get out of the free (ad-based) web 2.0 thinking that leads to walled gardens and network value instead of user value we need new business models. Business models that create revenues because they are based upon user value. In my opinion there is a whole lot to be learned fro the mobile market. People pay to interact, and they interact like crazy.

All we need now is entrepreneurs and investors that are willing to support developments that connect mobile to Internet and vice versa. Business in which the user doesn’t get it all for free (no such thing as a free lunch). Instead he will be willing to pay for interaction, because that is what brings him the most value. And he will pay more than ANY social networking advertisement model will ever generate in revenues. Google understands that. That is why they are opening up social networks. Unlike Facebook, they don’t need to create advertisement revenues in such small walled gardens. They will make these revenues elsewhere. Their garden is the entire Internet.

So Mark, when in doubt what to do next? My humble advise to you, just follow the money!

Good news: the user is back, and he won’t be ignored this time!

After the dust clears from the Google answer to Facebook’s popularity, and the first applications of the new APIs are already showing up, it is now the time to start analysing what should happen next.

Let’s get one thing straight. Google might get a formidable position in social networking land with their “one ring that binds them all” called OpenSocial. But Google still needs excellent application developers to start using the infrastructure they will provide through their OpenSocial APIs. The most important challenge will be if we can develop user centric services instead of network centric services. I have written a number of posts on this earlier, for example “The flaws in web 2.0 and how to correct” and a followup to that “Design of an Open Social Interaction Network: Human Needs” describing some of the human needs that are to be addressed.

In this context I came across a few posts this morning that drew my attention.

Chris Messina wrote a really excellent piece called “OpenSocial and Address book 2.0: Putting People into the protocol”. In this piece he talks about a topic that I have written about a lot. The observation that services are build the benefit of the service creator, not for its user.

The future is in portable, independent identities valid, like Visa, everywhere that you want to be. It’s not just about social network fatigue and getting fed up with filling out profiles at every social network you join and re-adding all your friends. Yeah, those things are annoying but more importantly, the fact that you have to do it every time just to get basic value from each system means that each has been designed to benefit itself, rather than the individuals coming and going. The whole damn thing needs to be inverted, and like recently rejoined ant segments dumped from many an ant farm, the fractured, divided, shattered into a billion fragments-people of the web must rejoin themselves and become whole in the eyes of the services that, what else?, serve them!

He goes on and envisions a future in which this relationship is inverted completely:

Imagine this: imagine designing a web service where you don’t store the permanent records of facets of people, but instead you simply build services that serve people. In fact, it’s no longer even in your best interest to store data about people long term because, in fact, the data ages so rapidly that it’s next to useless to try to keep up with it. Instead, it’s about looking across the data that someone makes transactionally available to you (for a split second) and offering up the best service given what you’ve observed when similar fingerprint-profiles have come to your system in the past.

And while you are at it read his original post “People in the protocol” as well. Chris used to work at Flock. No wonder he is able to come up with such a list. Only few seem to really understand the power of the web browser in service development. It is by definition user centric, not platform or destination centric. It is a tool that will help solve the issue that the Internet does not evolve around you now.
Another interesting post was written by Doc Searl called “Free Customers make free markets”. He writes in response to a post by Dave Winer who proposes that the next change will be to free the user:

When we have free users, we won’t ask companies to “let me control” my data. Instead, we’ll ask “What data of mine will I let this or that company use.”

Think about what it means to be a “user”, and what a “user” is.

Because companies are users too.

The idea behind this challenge isn’t to put the shoe on the other foot, but to put proper shoes on both feet.

We need real relationships here. Not the kind where one party has the exclusive power to “let” the other party have rights, data or anything else. Not the kind where one party has to beg the other party for their freedom. Not the kind where “Customer Relationship Management” consists of “capturing”, “managing” and “owning” customers as if they were cattle.

Then I came across a small article that talks about Yahoo’s plans with social networking. Nice one. I challenged Yahoo, Google and Microsoft earlier to start innovating on the concept of e-mail as a social networking tool instead of copying Facebook, and it looks like Yahoo is on it (I doubt I put them on it though )

So what does all of this mean? To me these are important signals. Acknowledgement of influencial bloggers that we desperately need to rethink business models currently used in many web 2.0 companies.

OpenSocial will fuel a fire that cannot be stopped once some serious developments evolve using these APIs. Developments in which the user is standing in the center as the most important person to be served. Not the network, not the service creator, not even the almighty Google.

The user is back, and he won’t be ignored this time!

Short update: Google is announcing right now that MySpace joins the OpenSocial camp. According to TechCrunch they have been working on it in secret. Well, it is good news for the user, now we wait and see if Facebook will open up under this pressure.

Google hits back hard with its OpenSocial plans but will the user benefit?

Well, there it is. TechCrunch reported it first (but everyone else has the same scoop!). Google is now revealing its social networking plans. Under the projectname OpenSocial, Google will launch a new set of APIs that application developers can use across social networks. This is definitely good news for the application developers. Instead of having to invest in yet another markup language or platform API they can do it all with one API. Very smart Google. It also matches a lot of the speculations I had on their strategy. As Mathew Ingram points out very nicely, Google has created the one ring that binds them all.

But let us not forget what that “one ring” was about. The real power of it lies in the hands of the creator, not in the hands of the one that wears the ring! Of course Facebook and MySpace have figured out that one for themselves, so they won’t be inclined any soon to join this Google blow to their kneecaps. I’m watching John Battelles take on this, as I always like his analysis.

It does take away a lot of the hype around the attempt of Facebook to launch SocialAds (here and a good analysis here). If Google can claim this central position (and they certainly have the capabilities for it) then Facebook’s attempts to leverage their closed network of approx. 50Mln profiles will be completely wiped away by the “We have access to approximately ALL Internet users worldwide” Google effort.

But what about the user. Will he benefit in the end? I have written a lot about flaws in web 2.0 and some of my wishes to correct them. It remains to be seen if he actually benefits. For example, I haven’t seen anything on privacy in the leaked Google plans. That will be an interesting one, especially if Google gets access to not only web pages and user profiles, but might also be able to leverage my interactions. A scary thought indeed, unless I get to control my own privacy. But the greatest threat to the user in my opinion is whether these Google plans will increase ad pressure on the web user. I am not a big fan of the advertisement model that currently is used as the mainstream web 2.0 business model. It inherently creates walled gardens, limits my options as a user and provides me with often unwanted confrontations with advertisers.

Having said all this I still think the world is better off with Google introducing these OpenSocial plans. It will scare the hell out of current successful but walled garden platforms like Facebook and MySpace. it will fuel an explosion of new and more open innovations. That is definitely beneficial to the user. But a warning is in place for Google. It only took a 3 ft small hobit and a lot of will power to end the domination of the ring that tried to rule them all!