Comments on: Four Lessons from Googled

By: 10 predictions advertising in 2010 | Creativity_Unbound

10 predictions advertising in 2010 | Creativity_Unbound — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:37:00 +0000

[...] Whoever hires the best developers will win (the most important lesson from Googled and why the NY Times, Mel Karmazin, and traditional ad agencies have lost out to CNN, [...]

By: emil

emil — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:08:46 +0000

Great comments/summary, Edward.

Haven’t read the book yet, but perhaps there are some points not mentioned in the book that were asked by the interviewer? Aired on 12/23/09 on Charlie Rose.

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/125

Thanks,
e

By: Finch

Finch — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:46:27 +0000

Yep, I agree. From a business/anthropological standpoint, it’s very, very cool.

By: edward boches

edward boches — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:42:48 +0000

Finch:
That all goes without saying. The control, privacy, data collection are, or should be, major concerns. And to Auletta they are. Though that seemed to be a review for someone else to write. My intended approach (see above response to Ben Kunz) was simply to suggest that there is a lot in this book about the rest of us who didn’t create the next best thing in our own industry and why. Interestingly you could read this book and come away angry, scared, concerned, appreciative or inspired. That’s quite a spectrum of possibility, wouldn’t you say?

By: edward boches

edward boches — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:38:43 +0000

Ben:
Good points and much of Auletta’s premise is on where Google has failed to mature or remains naive. Then, of course, there is the privacy thing. But there have been enough reviews on that approach, I presume, so I wanted to take a different tact and offer up examples that were about the rest of us (that I thought were inherent in the book). Google’s success says as much about old media failures as it does about their own growth. It’s a reminder that even in media, advertising, content, and video arenas that engineers have become as important as the traditional media content creators. And finally, it’s evidence, somewhat, that the vision (long term) and culture imposed by two determined founders at the expense of many traditional business objectives (short term short term short term) can propel a company forward. These are all worth noting. Plus the fact that they fucked with the magic and got away with it.

By: Finch

Finch — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:45:53 +0000

Edward: Your comments are dead-on, as usual.

I’m a huge fan of Aulletta and “Googled” didn’t let me down.
The first few chapters are like a slo-mo replay of the past decade and the crumbling of the old. Fundamentally, maybe without even knowing it, they championed the essence of crowdsourcing.

That said, the notion of Google, at it’s core, is incredibly dangerous. It’s very easy to wear tee shirts and espouse bike-sharing and massages. It’s very easy to park your mountain bike in front of a sign that reads, “Don’t be evil.” It’s quite another to actually, in real life, remain true to those words.

Google’s acquisition of information is terrifying and counter-intuitive to the founder’s basic beliefs.

Somewhere, Orwell, Huxley, and Sinclair are raising a pint to Brin and Page and laughing until they wet themselves.

By: Ben Kunz

Ben Kunz — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:08:04 +0000

I’ll now have to read this.

I often wonder, though, if Google doesn’t get too much credit for creating its own success. If you follow the logic of power laws, there is always a concentration of power in any resource. Someone had to become the leader in helping people navigate the Internet. Yes, Google’s closure of CPM ads sold by sales guys in favor of a mathematical auction was a stroke of genius. I heard somewhere that Google’s original simple layout — designed with white space because the founders could barely structure HTML — was also part of its appeal. Who knows? Someone else would have won if Google had not.

I don’t mean to denigrate the moves Google made to become a crowdsourced algorithm for navigating the web. It’s do-no-evil, let others point the way methods are a nice change in the business world, and hopefully some of that will stick.

But it’s always hard to look at the random events that make any one business or person succeed. Someone has to lead. Finding yourself in that position is often more luck than talent.

I’ll read the book and see, thanks.
.-= Ben Kunz´s last blog ..The allure of recency =-.

By: Ben Malbon

Ben Malbon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:02:16 +0000

Can't wait to read this. A Christmas gift waiting to be started. You've whetted my appetite. Thanks Edward. B .-= Ben Malbon´s last blog ..Crowdsourcing a Holiday Playlist: Taped Together =-.

By: Roger von Oech

Roger von Oech — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:25:53 +0000

I just finished GOOGLED as well. Ken Auletta is a gifted journalist. I think you’ve captured the main points quite well.

I like Larry Lessig’s assessment that Googler’s “have drunk the Kool-Aid.”

No company is impregnable. It will be interesting to see where Google is in 2020.
.-= Roger von Oech´s last blog ..Personal Highlights of the ’00s =-.