Written March 2010
by Cliff Feldwick
I’ve long been an admirer of Google – any company with a corporate motto of “Don’t be Evil” has a refreshing viewpoint, to say the least. They also try a lot of things. Some work out, some don’t, but it’s always interesting.
So let’s look at a couple of their new ventures – one good, one maybe not so much
First there’s the Google app for the iPhone. Anyone who starts with an iPhone soon realizes what a sorry excuse for a browser is the Safari that comes pre-loaded. Slow, slow, slow – makes you wonder if it’s the app itself or AT&T. Certainly not the level of technology that you’d expect of an Apple product. So Googling something using Safari is frustrating. Hence when I saw that there was a direct Google app, well it called to me. And indeed, it is tremendously faster.
But that’s not the neatest part. It has voice recognition – just put the phone up to your ear and speak what you want it to Google – and bam, there it is. Its accuracy in interpreting speech is uncanny. Say “wine shops Ellicott City” and it immediately lists shops with maps, etc. Try speaking the name of a local business and a directory listing with phone number pops up – and very quickly. Say “cranky geeks” and it immediately lists the on-line tech show that is fun listening (well, maybe that’s because I’m an occasionally cranky geek). I’ve been trying to make it mess up and so far it has correctly done every one.
That’s not as simple as it seems. For literally decades different companies – primarily Dragon Naturally Speaking – have been promoting the idea of your computer converting speech into documents. Usually it requires “training” involving speaking laundry lists of words so it comes to recognize your accent and speech patterns, and even then its accuracy is probably no better than 90%. I remember watching a demo at a DC computer show probably 15 years ago where the carefully chosen company demo guy made it jump through hoops. Then several clients tried it with spectacularly un-similar results. The time spent correcting its wrong guesses overwhelmed the time saved in writing – as bad a typist as I am, I’m better than 90%, so it soon wears you down.
I wasn’t sure if there was a similar app for the Blackberry, so I spoke “Google on the Blackberry” into the phone and – boop – a list of Google sites with G-mail, maps and all such things for the Blackberry popped up. Pretty neat, and certainly recommended.
Is that Buzz as in buzz-saw?
On the not-so-sure side is Google Buzz, their entry into the social networking field. It arrived somewhat unexpectedly – if you were using G-mail, as many are since it’s free – all of a sudden you had Buzz. And in a move that almost immediately opened it to lawsuits, it had a feature called “auto-follow” that created your circle of friends using addresses you used a lot. Unfortunately (hence the lawyers) your friends of friends could see everyone – no screening or privacy settings. This meant that wives could check to see if any other women were on their husband’s “friends” list, etc. And if we’ve learned anything from Tiger Woods adventures, it’s that this could be a dangerous thing.
Soon after it came out, Google scrambled to limit this “feature” as well as require you to “opt-in” or ask for Buzz, rather than just adding it summarily. They no doubt will do a lot of quick fine-tuning as things like this take the buzz off Buzz.
One of the funnier aspects of Buzz was apparently the news conference they held for its announcement. During the entire thing, no one from Google uttered the word “Facebook”. Sort of like going to a Pepsi confab and them acting like Coke didn’t exist. Nope, no other colas out there. Facebook, Facebook? – never heard of it.
I’m willing to bet that Buzz will not take off and certainly will not rival Facebook. It may become this year’s version of Google Wave, the instant mass collaborative software (even better than IM, fer sure, maybe) that seems to have died – the best review I saw of this was “Wave crashes on beach of overhype”.
As I said in opening – some of it works, some of it doesn’t.
Cleanliness is good
The best explanation I’ve heard as to why Facebook has overwhelmed MySpace (remember MySpace?) came from Ilana Bittner, a local media guru who has done several talks on social media as business tool, etc. On MySpace, you were able to customize absolutely everything. Backgrounds, songs playing, strange fonts, exploding volcanoes – you name it. People with absolutely no visual skills overdid everything to the point of un-readability. But if you look at any Facebook page, it will allow you to find things quickly and easily. Picture and name on the left, along with Friends, etc. Posts in the middle, tabs at the top for photos – you soon know where everything is. There’s a lesson here – simplicity and cleanliness equals ease of use, and thus acceptance.