Facebook's Intention: To Own Your Identity Information

Yesterday I took a shot at figuring out what Microsoft, Apple, and Google's intentions were.  Now let's try Facebook.

This week Facebook announced that it wanted to extend its "Like" feature to all web sites on the internet.  The way I understand this, Facebook will track what web sites you go to and whether you click the Like button associated with that site.  

Sounds pretty cool when Facebook defends the idea as being something we would all want.  When you arrive at a web site, wouldn't you like to know which of your friends had been there?  Wouldn't it be even cooler if you could see whether they liked it there?  In the context of the New York Times it could be harmless, unless you are one of those people that obsesses about the obits.  In the context of Amazon or Netflix -- well OK.  In the context of the bank, travel, healthcare, government, political, legal... now that is scary.

How would it work?  I gather that if you have Facebook open on your machine it knows where you go on the web and loads that information into a database at Facebook.

Therefore Facebook's intention is to be the keeper of your identity as reconstructed through the profile information you fill out at Facebook, your association with friends and groups, and now your activity on the web.

There is really no reason to discuss why Facebook would want to do this -- identity information is the single most valuable thing on the Internet.

Brand Promise vs. Intention

The actions a company takes make more sense when considered in the context of its intentions.  A few weeks back I posted some thoughts on the brand promise.  This week is an interesting week to think about intention.  

Many years ago Steve Ballmer said he wanted to get a small(ish) payment from every computer user every year instead of selling packaged software.  This it seems has largely been forgotten by the press -- and frankly I cannot even remember what year it was when he said it.  I am quite sure it was long before the popularization of the cloud.  Maybe 10 years ago?  

Either way, I think this is still Microsoft's intention.  Microsoft wants to have a pretty good solution for just about any computing need and would be perfectly happy if everyone purchased subscriptions to gain access to everything Microsoft makes.  I think of Microsoft as the tool superstore of computing, and their desired business model is to have everyone pay for access to the superstore and then be able to use anything.

Google's intention is to get in between us and the information we want.  They realized early on that in order to do this they would need to know a great deal about us.  Smart guys that they are, they anticipated that we would be very nervous about anyone that knew too much about us, so they developed the motto "Don't be evil" to encourage themselves to behave well and to put us at ease.  I think of Google as the toll booth on the highway.  Right now the tolls are being paid by advertisers, and there are other highways, but Google's desire is to have a toll booth on every highway.

Apple's intention is to be the maker of shiny objects.  Steve Jobs knows that the desire for the latest and greatest shiny object is nearly insatiable and he has set out to be the guy that defines and delivers them.  When people say that his creations don't do everything, he says -- the things that my devices don't do, don't need to be done.  I think of Apple as Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.  The stuff is just so amazing we don't even care what it costs or what it does not do.

So Facebook.  It does appear that Facebook has a highly targeted desire to be the single point of identity management on the web.  The question is -- what is their intention?

Facebook's Social Grab

It has been described as Ambition by Robert Scoble, an "impressive feat of innovating at scale" by Albert Wenger, and Dave Winer described it as Zuckerberg's megalomania.  The word scary seems to have increased in usage worldwide just because of Facebook!  The outcry against Facebook wanting to own our identities has been quite the chorus this week.

So on the one hand we think -- everyone is outraged so this will never work.  But on the other hand we are back doing what we do and not changing our behavior.  Just like Wall Street -- we don't trust those guys but we keep giving them our money.  It is a similar psychology.  We know the stock market is set up to benefit the insiders, but everyone thinks they are going to be the one person that defies the odds.  We know that Facebook is making an intentional and targeted and well executed attempt at owning our identities, but all we can think about is getting some of that traffic.

Many people are pulling the fire alarms and no one is leaving the building!  If you think I am overstating this, consider for a minute the idea of unwinding/shutting down your Facebook account.  We are all thinking we will each be the one person that can get out before the crash.  400 million users -- let's just get a little of that traffic before we get out.

So before we just go back to what we were doing and stand by while Facebook gains even more momentum -- let's remember this is not an Open Social Graph -- it is Facebook's Social Grab.

100 Blog Posts

When I decided to become a blogger this year I had only a general idea of why I was doing it, a hope that what I had to say would be interesting to others, and no idea at all on how it would impact me.

Last week I made my 100th post so this a good time to take a look back and consider the impact.

A few weeks in I concluded that if I was going to do this I should post something every day.  I have gravitated towards this discipline, and it does not seem like a chore.  I like to write and trying not to spend too much time is a much larger focus for me than trying to get motivated to write.

Along the way I did my best to articulate why I write and posted it on the About Me page.  Those reasons are still valid, but I find I write mostly for myself with the hope that others will find my thoughts interesting.  I do not think I am very interesting when I try to write for the audience.

As you can see in the chart, my readership is growing and it looks like I will have somewhere over 600 unique visitors in April.  I did not have any specific expectations on traffic, so I really don't know if these are good numbers or not.  Only a handful of people have posted comments on the site, which is certainly below what I expected.  The chart does not show subscribers, but I am now up to 10 people that subscribe to the RSS feed -- this number also strikes me as low.

After reviewing my work I have to say that there are only a couple of items that really push forward interesting ideas.  

Do We Want China to Fail?  I think we are locked in a very interesting battle with China and I have written often about how we need to remember that China is a competitor that we need to be worried about.  Even so, I do think we will be worse off if China fails in its effort to raise the living standards of its enormous population.  So we need to watch out for ourselves lest China eat our lunch, but at the same time we should not wish for China to fail.

Sales vs. Engineering:  In this post I take a look at a few companies and try to evaluate their thinking between the relative value of R&D spending and Sales and Marketing spending.  If you could hire one more person, would it be an engineer or a salesperson?

How Much to Pay the Guy Driving:  This turns out to be one of my favorite posts because it takes an idea I have been thinking about for a long time and puts it into a context that is relevant in today's debate.  I try to tell myself every day that "there must be a better way" and searching for those improvements is the best part of my job.  

 The Timid Need Not Apply:  I probably had more fun writing this post than any other.  We were getting our minds prepped for a family trip to New York City and watched Man on Wire, the documentary about Philippe Petit's amazing high wire performance between the twin towers in 1974.  The confluence of daring, creativity, and passion seemed so relevant to our business.

I hope my next 100 posts will be more like these few nuggets.  

Social Media: a How or a What?

Yesterday I referenced Ric Merrifield's new book Re-Think where he helps companies see the difference between how things are done and what is being done.  Here is one of his early blog posts that will give you an idea for the concept.

Ric uses an example of someone sending a fax.  "What are you doing?" ... "Sending a Fax." (almost sounds like the "Making Copies" SNL bit.  He goes on to explain that people have a natural tendency to think that sending a fax (the how) is the actual value adding work -- when in fact it is just how the work is being done.

The fax is clearly old school now and that makes it a perfect illustration.  In fact, the fax is often used as an example of the value of the network effect -- the first owner of a fax machine could legitimately ask "Now what does this thing do?".

Social media is clearly a network, and it is clearly used for creating, organizing and tracking relationships and communicating broadly or directly with the people in those relationships.  Do these activities qualify as what we are trying to accomplish, or just how we are accomplishing something else?

We’re Out of China, Too

Me and Google.  That’s right – I am pulling out of China.  Ok, we have no operations there and we have no customers there and… well we really had no plans of ever being there.   So, why am I pulling out?  As John Dvorak says:  “This is all PR”.  I am just hoping that someone will find this post and rescue my readership numbers and rocket me into the stratosphere.  After all, I did not get picked by Leo Laporte or Stephen Colbert in the Twitter lottery – so this is my newest strategy. 

You see, GoDaddy did it.  They pulled out of China with Google.  They don’t have any more business there than I do. But I am just lovin’ Danica Patrick and I will do anything she does. She doesn’t have anything to do with the internet, other than being fast, (actually I don’t really know that). But Bob Parsons is a great marketer and so I am with Danica and Bob and I am pulling out of China.

Danica will tell you that in car racing drafting behind the leader will save you fuel and get you in a good position to win later.  This is a strategy employed in marketing too.  Draft behind the big stories and boost your numbers.  When I saw GoDaddy drafting behind Google my first thought was – hey, that’s pretty tricky – do you think anyone will go for that?  Here is a great time to use that word “clever” when it is really not a compliment. 

Really though, this brings up what I call the “Pay or Be Paid” issue.  Would it be better to get paid to speak to people who want to hear you, or pay to speak to people who have never heard of you?  … or sneak in the back door and jump on stage and say “Hey, I want to speak too!”

March Madness is the Perfect Story

If you asked 100 people to describe me not a single description would include "sports fan".  I do like the big events though and yesterday, while explaining how amazing the NCAA tournament is to my daughter, I found myself describing the perfect story.  By this I mean a story we are naturally drawn to.  March Madness has all of the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.  With a good conflict, clear winners and losers, dates certain, interesting characters, and rules we all know and understand - what is not to like about this story?  I imagine this is also why political races are so fun to follow. Add a dose of celebrity and you have the Oscars or American Idol.

So if we want people to pay attention to things that we care about we need to figure out how to tell better stories about them.  What is more interesting to you: the Final Four or Education Reform?  I care a lot about education in our country and even I would rather follow the Final Four.  How do we make these other stories, that are so critical for us in the long term, just as interesting? 

Crowd Vindicated

A couple of days ago I posted that the most emailed article on the NY times was about dishwasher detergent -- and how that disqualified the crowd from picking the most valuable stories. Well today the pendulum swung back towards the crowd as David Brook's column hit the top of the list.

It is quite a good column by the way.  I know I am not alone thinking that our country is in a bad way, and I would argue that one of our biggest problems is that we are still a considerable distance from rock bottom.  

We are smart and creative problem solvers.  We just don't think the problem is big enough yet.

Resisting Overproduction

Everyone with a DVR knows that there are only 40 minutes of content in every hour of TV.   When you hear the host say "Stay with us" or "We will be right back" or "We are taking a break" what comes to mind? These and other conventions from radio and TV, fade in and fade out music for example, are often viewed as signs of professionalism.  I propose they are overproduction and reduce the value of the experience.  Begging the viewer/listener to endure a commercial is a dead giveaway to old media does not seem fit our new media reality.

Here are three podcasts that I listen to that range from new media to old media.  How much content do you think there is in each one of these podcasts?  

The Advertising Show

Cranky Geeks

Rebooting the News

I admit, this is not really fair because Rebooting the News does not have any advertising at all -- so it is 100% content (and an amazing podcast).  Cranky Geeks would be next -- 3 short breaks for ads at one minute each -- but they are not that intrusive and I don't even hit the 2X button on my iPod.  27 minutes of content out of 30.  I am a big fan of John Dvorak.  I was following him before there even was a world wide web and I am still not tired of him.  I suspect that all of us are more than happy to sit through the adds -- just for John.  The advertising on Cranky Geeks works -- I use both Go Daddy, and SquareSpace because I want to do my part to keep Cranky Geeks going.  On The Advertising Show -- well you make your own determination, but I leave my iPod on 2x for as long as I can last -- and even then I rarely make it through the whole thing.  It has to be at least half filler and advertisements.

So if you are going to put ads in your podcast -- pick advertisers that will resonate with your audience -- and resist the pull of overproduction.

PS:  Ira Glass says "Stay with us" on This American Life -- and I just don't get that.  His content and production quality are legendary and he holds my attention the whole way through -- not sure why he says it.

The Privacy Stack

Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis are two of the most public people on the internet.  For those of you not familiar with their disclosures, Leo tweets his weight and Jeff gives regular updates on his experience with prostate cancer and that is just the start of it. This week on TWIT, as they were extolling the virtues of living in public, Jeff asked Leo where he would draw the line on privacy.  The question went unanswered at the time, it was a great show recorded at SXSW with a lot going on and I think Leo may have just missed it.  Either way it is an interesting question that we all should consider.  What is your comfort level with privacy?  I searched for privacy and found several articles about how to keep your data private, the dust up over Buzz and Facebook, but did not see a privacy hierarchy list, or what I have called here the Privacy Stack.  So here is my shot at building a it.  I have started with the stuff that most people would agree to open to the public -- so I guess the stack is up side down -- but you get the idea:

1. Job Details (things on your business card)
2. Job or Educational History (things on your BIO or Resume)
3. Past Performance (Grades, job reviews, details of professional separations)
4. Identification (Name, address, phone number, email, social security number, birth date)
5. Transaction (What did you buy, how much did you pay)
6. Location (Where are you now, where have you been, where are you going to be)
7. Relationship (Friends, family members, business associates, group affiliations -- past and current)
8. Interaction (Who did you talk to and what did you say)
9. Intellectual Property (Writings, images, thoughts, plans)
10. Contractual (Anything professional or personal covered by a legal document including legal instruments for contracts, divorces, payment plans, agreements of exclusivity)
11. Financial (Income level, net worth, credit rating, assets, liabilities)
12. Health (Records of doctor visits and lab tests)

Clearly this idea needs expanding -- including turning it into a matrix because there are degrees to each item.

My though with this privacy stack is that people would be more willing to share the things at the top and less willing to do so with the things at the bottom.  My question to guys like Leo and Jeff is -- where do you draw the line?  

All of this gets much more complicated when you start to think about what information could be made public as a result of your interacting with a person or system that has not drawn the line across the privacy stack in the same place you did.  This is fundamental to the current Facebook / Buzz debate.  If a person thought their email inbox was private, and then found out that it was not, it presents a big problem.  

Item number eight: Interaction, is where this was already an issue in the pre-social media world.  One person (a third grader even) tells another person something with the idea that it would be kept between them and the other person has a different idea about privacy and... well you know the rest.

Google got in trouble because they beta tested Buzz inside the company.  Privacy in a work email environment is much different than otherwise.  If you have an email with a business contract attached that is going back and forth between people at the office, it is much different than the email going back and forth between a client and an attorney with a divorce settlement attached.  Everybody is on the same "friend list" inside a company -- it is called the company directory.  So any issues associated with sharing lists of work friends does not translate to the real world because at work everyone has access to everyone else's work friend list (the same company directory for everyone).

So how much of the stack would you share?  I have to say I start to get out of my comfort zone when I hit number 4-Identification, can't see doing 5-Transaction or 6-Location, and am dabbling in 7-Relationship with Linked In and Facebook, but I am clearly not all in like Leo and Jeff.

Why We Need Editors

The first time I saw it I thought it was one of those funny flukey things that just happens every so often.  Then I came back the next day and it was still there!  The number 1 most emailed article on the New York Times web site was about how much detergent to put in your dishwasher.  It is a good thing we are not in charge of picking the stories that go above the fold.  Digg does a better job but not by much.  Their top 3 today are:

Let's hope that as we recreate the news business we figure avoid crowd sourcing the selection of the most meaningful content.

Respecting Followers

True leaders respect their followers. I have always been struck by celebrities that disdain their audience members.  "Followers" has an updated meaning now that we call the people that follow us on Twitter followers.  

Maybe David Letterman started it, but the number of celebrities that are plainly complaining about their fans really makes me scratch my head.  If fans or followers make the celebrity, wouldn't the celebrities customer be the fan?  Without customers...

Politicians are really the neediest of celebrities when it comes to followers because they need their followers to vote. Another thing that struck me about Game Change (see my review yesterday) was the way some of the candidates do not respect their constituents at all.  At times they plainly showed how little respect they had for them.  John Edwards really took the cake in the book when we went from saying "They love me!" to his staff after a good speech to "They looooove me!" with an eye roll.  

The idea with a brand is to build a relationship with a customer that is larger than a single transaction.  Brands have followers just like celebrities and politicians and just as strangely, some customers continue to buy from brands even when they are showed no respect at all.

Yesterday I was listening the Advertising Show podcast where Rose Cameron, Euro RSCG Strategy Chief, was asked about the difference between the US and British advertising markets.  Her answer?  In Great Britain advertisers have a "real respect for the intellect of their audience".  In America we continue to buy from companies that have little or no respect for us or our intelligence.  

When it comes to politicians, celebrities or brands there are plenty of strange things to marvel at, but for me the strangest is how people continue to follow those that clearly have no respect for them.

I Will Be at NXNW

This is not news because I live in the Pacific Northwest -- which is pretty much North by Northwest from anybody in the continental US.  I have never been to South by Southwest (SXSW) -- which if you lost track starts tomorrow in Austin.  What started over 20 years ago as a small music festival is now attended by over 10,000 people and has become somewhat of a pilgrimage for geeks.  Speaking of pilgrimages and geeks, I have never been to Burning Man either.  And there are plenty of other famous events like the Superbowl, or Sundance, or the Masters, or the Grand Canyon, or Davos, or TED that maybe one of these days I will get around to attending.  

The interesting thing to me about each of these is they are all growing.  Here we are at a time where we are increasingly able to sit at home and get minute by minute updates on big events.  In some cases we can watch live streaming video, others we get the full video later but a sufficient update stream to keep pace remotely, and certainly within a week of the event we have more reporting and analysis than any human could consume.  So despite the evidence that we are all better equipped to attend these events virtually than ever before more of us are attending in person than ever before.

I can think of two possible explanations for this:

1. Our increasingly virtual social existence is causing us to crave authentic social interaction and for some reason we choose large events as a way to satisfy the craving.
2. The expanded coverage has increased the overall awareness of these events to the extent that the growing number of new people interested in attending out paces the number of people that choose to stay home and attending virtually.

 Each of these is working on me and so I suspect I will have to make time to get out more.

Until then, I will be following SXSW through the miracle of the streaming media.  In addition to the Twitter updates and blog posts from the people I follow, I will be tracking the live work of Robert Scoble and Twit.tv.  They are each great synthesizers of the tech geek world and if anyone can make you feel like you are there -- I think it would be these guys.

Avoiding the Al Gore Syndrome

I am sure Al Gore is a good guy.  But I did not vote for him because I just could not imagine 4 or more years of him wagging his finger at us.  The same holds true for his writing.  I have tried several times now to get through his opinion piece from the Sunday NY Times and I just cannot do it. Frankly I did not make it all of the way through his movie either.  I think he probably is right -- but it is just not fun to read.  The same is true for Michael Moore movies – in the first half I get the message and the second half is unbearable. It does not matter if I agree with the argument or not, once it is clear that the model is: argument, supporting point, repeat, how many cycles do I need to endure?

This tracks back to my post yesterday about who is writing.  An expert with too much ax to grind makes for some pretty dull reading.  I want to figure out how I can write about subjects I know well, and am biased about, without turning off my reader.  I suspect this is why biographies are generally more popular than autobiographies.

In an effort to somehow address this issue, I have posted my biases on my About Me page. My thinking here is to expose and acknowledge any agenda I might have and hopefully move beyond ringing that same bell over and over and maybe even to expose some interesting insights. 

I want my writing to be interesting and valuable to my readers.  I want it to be the kind of content I would like to read.  Hey, I even want it to capture my current thinking so I can read it again in the future.  

If you have thoughts about how I can improve my writing -- don't hesitate to post them here.

Who is Writing

Anyone who reads should be interested in what is happening in the media industry right now.  Anyone interested in that should follow “Rebooting the News” where Dave Winer and Jay Rosen talk weekly about the business of writing things.  I have been following their podcast for the last couple of months and have benefited tremendously.  Check it out.

This week Dave Winer brought up the topic of the places he would like to get his news and started me down a path of thinking about who writes what and why I write.  Here are some ways to categorize the authors you read and thoughts about the roles one can take while writing.

Expert:  I will go with Malcolm Gladwell’s description of an expert from Outliers – 10,000 hours or 10 years. The problem with experts however is it is very difficult to obtain the expertise without also taking on a bias.  I write often about things I consider myself an expert in.   Using Gladwell's measure I consider myself an expert in Technology Marketing (13 years), Organization Leadership (13 years), Education Philanthropy (20 years), The Computer Industry (25 years), and Boating (40 years).  I also have more than 10,000 hours in commercial real estate, public speaking, and sailboat racing, but don’t do enough currently to consider myself an expert.  Unfortunately, every post is bloated with my bias.  Some posts may even have an agenda.  Right now I am not sure if this is a bad thing.  

Interestingly the 1997 book “The Elements of Journalism” list as the forth element: “its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover”.  So I do like to read things written by experts, but there is always a bias to contend with.  Just think of Al Gore’s piece on the Opinion Page of the NY Times this Sunday.  Clearly he has the 10,000 hours, but we are getting a healthy helping of bias with that expertise.  And back to the is this a bad thing idea - Al Gore drives me crazy with his agenda.  Right or not the way he delivers his expertise chafes.

Reporter:  Dave Winer also has a post where he referenced The Giant Pool of Money created by This American Life.  He clearly outlines the benefits of consuming content reported by professionals.  Only a fool would attempt to name the top reporters.  Just think Woodard and Bernstein and before you know it the list is 100s long.  New media has introduced us to amateur reporters.  Amateur as in not paid - although we are all too aware of amateur in the other sense.  Although “The Elements of Journalism” does not use the word trust in its list – a reporter cannot add value without the trust of the reader and a professional works a lifetime to build that trust.  This is why we referred to Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in America.

A good reporter does not need to be an expert in anything but building trust and reporting.  We benefit from the craft because it is an absolute pleasure to read and for the lack of bias.  A professional reporter with access to multiple experts of varying biases is a recipe for a meaningful contribution.

First Hand Accounts:  In the case of a developing or breaking story nothing can beat being there.  New media tools give us access to people “on the ground” in proximity to natural disasters, wars, political unrest, special events, and many other stories as they unfold.  These people do not need to be experts, or professionals, as long as they are there and can relate what is happening.  Any person on the street in Iran, Haiti, or Chile with a mobile enabled Twitter account qualifies – and even better with a camera.

The triple play of access to experts, professional reporting skills, and first hand proximity is what wins the big prizes and delivers the unforgettable pieces. 

Opinion:  By definition opinion is heavy on bias.   Done well it may include an argument supporting a position.  Like the stories major publications put above the fold, the choice of opinion topics says a great deal about a publication’s views because the number of opinion pieces in a paper are often limited by resources or the space on the page.  Conversely, a great deal of blogged content is opinion, and there are not space constraints on the web.  The choice of topics does say something about the author – as long as there isn’t so much of it that the meaning fails to shine through.

Gonzo / Satire / Skewering:  Jon Stewart is the new Cronkite?  Here the NY Times takes a look at the popularity of the Daily Show, where they don’t claim to be journalists, experts, on site, or anything but funny.  There are many points well made through satire from Vonnegut to South Park.  Unfortunately it is only a short leap from well crafted satire to the culture that is all too common of late where flaming the people on the other side is spewed out as if it was contributing to the discourse.  I think Jon Stewart is a rare talent.  I would put him in the comedian bucket.  Not sure what bucket to put Glenn Beck in – but not journalism.

Going forward, I am going to pay closer attention to these categories as I read and I suspect it will cause me to seek the rest of the story more often.

New York Times Death Watch

I love the New York Times.  It has been my newspaper of choice for many years.  I used to pay $50 per month for 7 days a week home delivery, but in the past few years my travel schedule caused me to cut my subscription to Sundays only which is $30 per month.   For a while I also read it on my Kindle for $13 a month (in addition).  But when I broke my Kindle I had to cancel that.  I was crazy enough to buy one of those, but not two.  I also love the NY Times Reader – which is free to all subscribers.

All of this is to say that when the NY Times puts up its paywall in 2011 – I will clearly pay whatever it costs.   However, the increased revenue from me and others NY Times fans like me will not save the paper and the decline will start.  The only question is how long it will take for them to reverse the policy – I for one cannot imagine them riding the thing all of the way into the ground.

The big question for me is will they ride it down far enough to lose the columnists.  Here is the sequence of events that I see:

1)      Paywall up (now to include the NY Times Bloggers too):  Sometime in 2011.

2)      Readership down, revenues up:  Hard to dispute this, there is no way a paywall will increase readership and it will generate some revenue.

3)      Print readership down, online readership down:  There is no way the paywall will cause me to go back to daily delivery of the print edition – and if they are not getting it from me, they are not getting it from anyone.  At the same time everyone who now links to stories will stop doing that because they don’t want to send their readers to a subscription page.  I never link to WSJ stories for this reason.

4)      Advertising revenue down:  As soon as the advertisers realize they are reaching fewer people, they will stop advertising, or stop paying as much to advertise.

5)      Columnists defect:  To me the NY Times is Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and sometimes Frank Rich – who knows why he gets twice the column inches of the others – but that is a story for another day.  Columnists want to be in the conversation.  Once behind the paywall they will be removed from the debate.  The times will have even less money so even if the columnists would stay for more money, the NY Times will not be able to pay it.

6)      Columnists go, I go.

The timing of this will be very interesting.  Who knows what contractual obligations the columnists have, but if I were the publisher of the Post, or the LA Times, or any other paper, I would be talking to these incredible assets right now – and they probably are.

Google's as Your Banker

Google has some elements of greatness. It is an organization that thinks long term, makes rational decisions backed by data, is bold enough to go against the tide at times, and is actively trying to avoid doing evil. Google has its limits however and the recognition of those limits by the users (us) and Google (them) will be very important in the years to come.

Even though many of Google's services are offered free of charge, they are still services and they are in fact governed by terms of service which are actual written agreements.

In the negotiation of written agreements the issue of trust is central. Often the language in a written agreement is overly advantageous to one side. Anyone who has read a loan agreement knows what I am talking about. When making sure that a loan agreement accurately reflects the terms of the deal, the borrower must question both the language and its intent.  When doing just that we are often met with the response -- "We (the bank) would never exercise those rights, don't you trust us?". The best answer is: "I trust YOU, but I need to protect myself in the event this agreement comes under the control of someone other than YOU".

When we apply this thinking to our relationship with Google or Facebook or any other service provider, things get a little frightening. I do agree that Google is a great company, and that its goal to do no evil is sincere. What happens however when there is a leadership change at the company? What happens when the current leaders retire, or the company falters and they get pushed aside? The agreement Google has with its users would quickly be in the hands of different people and those people may have either a different definition of evil, or a general predilection to pursue it.

What if a new banker showed up at your house one day and said -- under the terms of our agreement I am taking all of your stuff?

Glad I Don't Use Gmail

Well I do have a gmail account but I have not gotten in the habit of using it.  I experiment with as many Google products as I can because I am a big fan of innovation and I am always thrilled when I find evidence of it.

Fred Wilson had a great post today on the virtues of Explicit vs Implicit communicating and specifically what happens when you combine email with a social network -- like Google did this week with Buzz.

Real people all have multiple social circles that overlap and interact in extremely complex ways. So far no one has figured out an elegant way to model the complexity of real relationships -- and I suspect it will be a long time before such a thing comes about. A social media system fails when the makers think it actually replicates real life. So the bigger and more self assured makers of systems get, Google would be the biggest and most self assured, the less likely they will be to create a system of value.

Now all the buzz is about how Buzz is sharing too much information with too many people with too little approval or awareness by the person sharing.  I have to say I am pretty glad I am not one of the unwitting sharers. 

The DVR Killed the Superbowl (for me anyway)

I admit that I am not a big pro football fan.  Either way, I have always enjoyed big sporting events and the drama leading up to them.  The Masters, the US Open (Tennis or Golf), and the Rose Bowl were always on my TV watching calendar.  

A few years back I started using a DVR and did so for the sporting events too.  At least half the time I knew the outcome before watching the game -- how can one avoid knowing who won the superbowl withing 5 minutes of the end of the game?

Part of my interest was certainly the big personalities involved, and the way the story unfolded.  Another part comes from the fear of missing the best game ever.  Believe it or not, there was a time not long ago when if you missed the game that went into overtime -- you really did miss it.  You got to read about it in the paper but the chance to experience it yourself was lost.

We are clearly not in that time anymore.  Knowing that I can go back and see the best game ever -- any time I want -- has left me with just about no interest in watching the game.  I am not exactly sure how that happened.

I find myself reading much more now that the DVR killed the Superbowl.