Google Launches New Official Blog Focused on Social Web - We Are Suspicious
Remember the Google-led OpenSocial project? Google FriendConnect? For some period of time last year, Google was talked about as a leading innovator in the new "social web." Facebook, and to some degree OpenID, stole Google's thunder as 2008 came to an end. Now in order to get back into the conversation, Google has launched its 80th official blog - the Google Social Web Blog.
"We will write about social initiatives within Google, such as Google Friend Connect, as well as community efforts like OpenSocial," Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager for Google Friend Connect, writes in the new blog's first post. "We plan to share some success stories, present tips and tricks, provide updates when there are new developments, and much more." I'd bet it's not just me to whom that reads like "we're going to talk about the social web - by talking more about us, Google."
Google has all kinds of positive things to offer, from the wonders of Google Reader to the awesome Google Social Graph API. We've got high hopes for Android to beat the phones we've got in our own pockets. But each new entrance into "the social" that Google makes is also worthy of a heavy dose of skepticism.
Google is Big Brother just waiting to happen. The company indexes the bottom of the ocean, the web, the view of the front of your house and an increasing number of peoples' genetic makeup. That's not something to take lightly.
Its specific products are often a big disappointment, too. OpenSocial failed to solve the data portability problem that was the only reason most people cared about it, then it failed to deliver the app portability it promised to developers. Google FriendConnect is ugly and seems pointless until you tie it to the as yet untested system called Latitude, where Google knows your every waking move around town.
We've subscribed to the new Google Social Web Blog and we hope to see some good come of it, but we expect a lot of big PR talk to be broadcast from it. That's fine for other Google blogs, where we just want to get the products and be left alone. But when it comes to the social web as a concept, we're a lot more cynical about Google.
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I am curious whether this is a first step to launch yet another product? Too optimistic?
"where Google knows your every waking move around town" seems to be giving them the benefit of the doubt. do you really think they stop watching when we sleep?
Yo, Brad: they stop when you're asleep only if you turn off your phone long before you get to yer place of sleep and make sure you don't have a computer there or never did.
(In other words, don't be "searchable".)
In my feed reader, this post was accompanied by an ad for Google Chrome. That seemed strange, since (1) I am using Chrome, and (2) the post urges me to be "cynical about Google" when it comes to the social web. No prizes for guessing which feed Reader I use...
Google has shown more respect for peoples privacy than Facebook has. We should all be rooting for Google to dethrone Facebook and turn the social graph into something non-proprietary. Facebook is the one to fear.
Google moving towards social ,why it didn't purchased twitter till now
@ Anon (#6)
Facebook has also joined the consortium to promote OpenID, so they seem to share a similar view to Google than your credentials should be portable.
Ultimately, though, OpenID and OAuth don't go as far as using a non-profit third party to hold all credentials and social graph information which you then "lease" to networking sites you use. I think that is the ideal, but someway off, although I was encouraged to see W3C putting together a team to investigate things like this.
Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/b2bg84
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Up to this point, Google has shown a lot of restraint in the use of its enormous power. Then again, why wouldn't they when things are going so well. The question is, what about the future? What about when the people who are now running the show move on, to be replaced with unknown agendas? what if Google is taken over by the government? Of course, it's unfair to pick on Google since we also have Facebook, Microsoft, the credit card companies, and numerous other entities with extensive databases about us. And let's not forget Uncle Sam. He's not sitting idle either. If you really are worried about Big Brother(s) then I think you better get motivated because it's already a fact of life. Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and participate in collective action.
"Google is Big Brother just waiting to happen."
Yeah? I agree. And Facebook, in terms of business practices, privacy issues, and complete closed-offness to any other service, is much much worse. Facebook had a decent idea, but it was me and my friends that stuck all our contact relations in there, and I want to get it out. If Google or anybody else provides a more open service (with good privacy controls) with some momentum, I'm there in a heartbeat.
Facebook no longer competes on innovation. They are competing on creating their little fortress and despite the seeming openness of APIs, they just block out everyone else.
"Google is Big Brother just waiting to happen. The company indexes the bottom of the ocean, the web, the view of the front of your house and an increasing number of peoples' genetic makeup. That's not something to take lightly."
Where do they index the genetic makeup of individuals?
Google is just an aggregator - all of the information they provide is available or in the public domain elsewhere.
Google's goal is to organize the worlds information - this includes datum about the seafloor and also who links to your website. The fact that they provide a snapshot of the front of your house on the internet just takes information that is in the public domain (your name and address) and makes it accessible via software. Anyone who wanted to could find this information via public records or other sources, and just drive past your house to find what it looks like.
IMO it is far better to have a corporation who wants to leverage anonymous information for advertising be in this position than some government. And if the world collapses to the point where the US government is taking over Goog's servers, I would bet their sysadmins will be wiping hard drives before the Fed's burst through the door.
Marshall, these are all excellent points. While most remain fanboys and girls, you remain a skeptic, which is the only reasonable stance to take. I would think even folks within Google should ask themselves these questions.
And as for Google being better on privacy than Facebook, big deal. In the end they tend to follow the money, like in China, no?
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