Is Google losing its way?
June 15, 2010
The last 6 months have been awesome for lovers of technology, especially fans of Google. There were so many exciting announcements, launches and scandals that one scarcely had the time to digest them all.
Google led the way in terms of the waves it created, followed closely by Apple and Facebook. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Google had a perfect 6 months, or that it made no mistakes. On the contrary, the reason for this article is my opinion that Google has quite a bit of work to do. Oh, and ignore the title, it was just bait 
One of Google’s main strengths has always been, and always will be innovation. Google thrives on challenging the best and delivering.
Take their search engine. From being virtually unknown to becoming a verb for searching the web; or Google Chrome, which everybody (hyperbole) is suddenly using; to Android, the awakening giant. Google has managed to hit home run after home run where technological excellence and innovation are concerned.
But, oh, do they need to learn about people! They have utterly, embarrassingly failed at anything to do with people. Take the Nexus One – arguably the best damn Android phone out there (keep your pantyhose on, I said arguably), but its sales absolutely flopped! Why? Because it was a bad phone? Hell, no!
They smugly assumed, on the basis of their previous efforts, that people would just line up to buy the Nexus One! Without the backing of any major American mobile network firm, without any marketing at all – yeah, not happening.
Or take their decision to have Google Buzz auto-follow people. Or to have their Google’s home page have a background image by default for everybody (for fuck’s sake, don’t mess with my Google Search!). Google seems to have forgotten that data is not people. No matter how many internal tests, surveys, focus groups they run, you cannot possibly anticipate human sentiment or irrationality.
The people at Google are smart enough to eventually figure this out. Eventually, they are going to get people on board their management who get people. I just hope for their sakes and ours that it happens sooner than later!
