Quickthink

Are they connecting? Fro m Ffffound

After ten years, Google’s business model is rather clear even to Mr. Martini here in Tartu. Google profits by adding value to digital connections between people and ideas, and therefore strives to reduce the costs of connectivity so that more and more can arise. So far, linking is the tool of choice. The more we connect, the more Google can earn. In contrast to Microsoft’s product based approach — selling the right to use tools that they own.

If you want a more technical view of this, TechCrunch offers a FaberNovel set of charts to walk you through the terminology. For a fee, FaborNovelwould be pleased to “Googlize” you.

The promise “for the rest of us” is huge — more empowerment (products were supposed to empower us too). But there is a catch. Connecting is not the same as learning. Even at Illegaard, there are both inspiring and insipid connections.

I am looking for the next step in the digital world that will smarten up the Google model and enable us all to learn through connecting.  BTW If there were more learning going on, wouldn’t building social network platforms be easier?

But what about social networking platforms? They use a club or restaurant business model. You come to Facebook to be with a fun group and chit chat. We get groups (friends), but so far, I do not see any joint ventures evolving out of Facebook relationships, nor any pattern of enhanced personal capacity to work in groups. So it’s nice, but not that exciting. No story lines, no adventure. You have to go to multi-player video games for that.

So how to build a more robust platform type? Great question. Stay tuned.

FOLLOW - As usual, Guy Kawasaki has a few ideas —- about using Twitter as a work tool.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 am and is filed under Business models, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.