Digital Perspective Blog

Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, posted to the company’s corporate blog today announcing that Google has stopped pursuing an advertising agreement with Yahoo. In the post he writes about government regulators and some advertising expressing concerns with the proposal, and also talks about how he believes it would have been good by delivering more relevant ads to users.

I’m all for more relevant ads provided that my information is being protected and that personally identifiable information remains confidential. I also don’t want my personal information being used to deliver ads to others, even people I know.

Far more interesting than this particular partnership is Google’s next move. For all of their success in search they are still looking for that breakout next act. Microsoft had hardware and then software. Apple had the mac desktops and then the iPhone. Google certainly has many successes under their belt, but it is critical that they come up with their next act to maintain their leadership position over the long term. This is not a unique challenge to Google, but given their success and power they have a very bright spotlight shining upon them.

I read on CNN yesterday about Yahoo and Google planning to offer social networking applications through their email page functions. Both companies have already made significant strides in allowing users to customize their home pages and aggregate content and functionality from various sites into a personal portal page.  However, I think that email is at odds with social networking given that email is inherently a personal communication.  Sure, I can block content from being seen by the world on social networking sites, but content is largely available to people I’ve marked as friends. Email is often more transactional then social, and that is a significant difference. I get the point about my email contacts being the genesis of my social graph, but no offense, there are some folks in my contacts database that I prefer to communicate with only on an as necessary and transactional basis.  Now, having widgets that tie my social networking information into my Google home page would be something I’d really go for. I’m all for the idea of a centralized home page that is aggregated, and eventually curated, just for and by me.  But leave my email account alone.