Leren van de uitspraken van Google’s Eric Schmidt

05 augustus 2010

Je moet altijd even opletten, als Google’s Eric Schmidt spreekt in het openbaar. Hij verklapt natuurlijk alleen wat hij wil verklappen maar dat maakt de uitspraken er niet minder interessant door.

Over het staken van Google Wave:

When BBC reporter Maggie Shiels asked about the reasons behind the product’s demise, Schmidt noted that Google liked the UI and a lot of the technology behind the product, but it simply to take off. “We try things,” he said. “Remember, we celebrate our failures. This is a company where it’s absolutely okay to try something that’s very hard, have it not be successful, and take the learning from that,” he continued.

Over de informatie-explosie:

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says. Let me repeat that: we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.
“The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.
Naturally, all of this information helps Google. But he cautioned that just because companies like his can do all sorts of things with this information, the more pressing question now is if they should. Schmidt noted that while technology is neutral, he doesn’t believe people are ready for what’s coming.
“I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon,” Schmidt said.

Volgens mij overdrijft Schmidt hier een beetje, maar daar gaat het nu even niet om. Het gaat mij om die laatste zin. Die is intrigerend toch?

Over sociale netwerken en gaming (de tijdsbesteding van miljoenen):

Schmidt went on to say that Google has always believed that their products would be better with more social signals. That said, he thinks the media is obsessed with “Facebook versus Google.” Schmidt elaborated: “We’re not trying to do what Facebook does.”  ”The world does not need another Facebook,” he continued. This echoes his comments from last week.

en:

Schmidt sees Google getting more involved in “sort of casual things.” He cited their Pac-Man logo as one example of a type of game like that. But he followed that up with: “I would doubt that we’ll get into significant gaming — but you never know.“

Dat spreekt de berichten in de media tegen. Maar het is misschien wel zoals Schmidt zelf al zegt: ‘je  weet het maar nooit’.

Tot slot, over zoektechnologie en privacy:

Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos! People will find it’s very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot…But society isn’t ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content.

en

The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.

Voorwaar, genoeg stof tot nadenken.

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Gelezen: Wat Zou Google Doen?
Google als Darth Vader in the Cloud

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