With Jeff Nolan weighing in on Sidewiki yesterday, and my post the day before, I feel like I’m belaboring the point today to revisit the topic, but Steven Hodson and I had a great discussion the other night that covered just about every aspect of the product launch and the implications to Google’s overarching strategy in social media.
Towards the end of the show we pushed past the ground that’s well-trodden by now regarding the API being the answer to allegations of walled or hedged gardens, and we both tried to discern the ultimate path Google’s trying to bushwhack into a coherent 2010 Web social media strategy.
We generally agreed on the notion that Google has the right goals, it’s just that they take the wrong path to get there time and time again.
- Orkut being a me-too network.
- Buying and shelving Jaiku and Dodgeball.
- Search Wiki becoming one of the least used / widely deployed social search function ever.
- Google Friend Connect proffering absolutely no redeeming social whuffie value for content producers.
- Google Knol. Need I say more?
They’ve had several runaway hits, and Google Wave sounds like it’s going to end up being in a class of it’s own, and no one can deny the usefulness Google Reader.
The place we came to was arrived at was that we’re both incredibly frustrated at the squandered opportunity at Google when it comes to the social web.
Download the whole podcast MP3 or play through the embedded player above.
