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Google

Google’s Aardvark Acquisition Sheds Light On Larger Plans

by on February 11, 2010 · Comments

in Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Google, Internet, Search, Social Networking, Social Software, Tools, Web 2.0, technology

Image via CrunchBase

I kept trying to connect all the the dots around Google Buzz over the last few days and ran across this quote from Chris Messina.

“In fact, I’d argue that Buzz is as much about Google creating a new channel for conversation in a familiar place as it is about how we’re going about building its public developer surfaces. Although today’s Buzz API only offers a real-time read-only activity stream, the goal is to move quickly towards implementing a host of other technologies — most of which should be familiar to readers of this blog.”

That obviously speaks well to the "open web" movement and how Google is positioning its APIs. Whether or not dropping social elements in GMail is your idea of better collaboration, it’s hard to deny that familiarity with something as utilitarian as email breeds adoption.

But to think email is the only anchor the Buzz ship will hitch itself too is naive. Even if Buzz can make a permanent home in your inbox, that might be enough for it to make inroads against Microsoft and IBM in the messaging wars. In fact, just last week Gartner made some predictions about the forthcoming collision of email and social networks.

“By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.”

“Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.
“The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode.”

With Aardvark in the Google arsenal, it immediately gets deeper into social search, mobile and more importantly sets the stage for biting off bigger pieces of the enterprise. Think about how Aardvark could easily be repurposed as a self-service support tool incorporated into the fabric of Google Apps — with Buzz as the interface to support systems or social CRM services. All of sudden, it’s not just email that’s housing all that collaboration, it’s just another interface.

{ Comments }

Twitter Is An Information Company.

by on January 28, 2010 · Comments

in Google, Internet, Microblogging, Microsoft, Real-time, Search, Social Networking, Twitter

I took the passage below from one of The Economist’s latest stories on social networking. I tend to agree with the assessment of Twitter as an “information company,” the more I see its evolution.

“..Mr Stone says he sees Twitter as more akin to an outfit like Google than to Facebook. He describes the business as “an information company” whose users are keen to find out answers to what is happening in the world. The billions of tweets that Twitter is gathering up could certainly be the basis for a vast, searchable archive. The challenge facing Mr Stone and his colleagues is to find smart ways of transforming those raw data into profits."

I know there’s a lot of folks who’ll go to their online grave exclaiming that Twitter is simply a community. I don’t disagree, I’ve worked inside my own Twitter community for almost three years.

But if you look at how the platform is being used and monetized, it’s exactly as Stone describes in the passage above. Both Google and Microsoft have compensated Twitter for its “information” and that interest doesn’t appear to be waning soon.

Both Bing and Google realized early on that real-time would have a big impact on the way people search for information. While they’ve got their own share of eyeballs, the reality is that you and I continue to communicate on an always-on and instantaneous channel as we share on Twitter’s platform.

None of the others — Google. Microsoft, or Yahoo — have anything to rival that. Of course Facebook is the closest. as The Economist points out, but still lacks the openness that Twitter provides. Until Facebook or another entrant opens to the web completely – a la Twitter – its information will remain at a premium.

[Illustration above by Ian Whadcock]