Friday, November 05, 2010

Google's Gmail Envy

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase
TechCrunch: Google To Facebook: You Can’t Import Our User Data Without Reciprocity
The use of the word data by Google here is key. That further confirms the point I have been making at this blog over months. Social is not in Google's DNA. Google does data, Google does information, Google does not do social. When it goes into local and location, it is hung up on data.

What Google sees in people's Gmail accounts is data, it does not see social. Facebook looks at the exact same thing and it sees social. It sees the social graph.

My point has been that instead of Google trying to "get" social Google should be data driven
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...Image via CrunchBaseto give us much better tweet searches, much better blog searches. Google should reinvent Gmail. Facebook does not have Gmail.

Frankly, this feels like Google deviating from Don't Be Evil. Google looks much better when it is instead talking in terms of wind farms, electric cars and monorails.

Google obviously does not know what to do with the social "data" that resides in Gmail. Buzz was not it, Wave did not wave. Just like Twitter does not know how to do tweet search well, or if at all.

Sometimes you give ground to not be evil.
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