5 ms·

I'm rooting for Google-- would love to see them kicking ass on more fronts. The SVP of Social seems like a strange choice... Should be someone like Ev William

I'm rooting for Google-- would love to see them kicking ass on more fronts. The SVP of Social seems like a strange choice... Should be someone like Ev Williams. Instead, it's a guy who was an open source evangelist who also helped lead Windows Vista when he was at Microsoft. I'm sure he's a really effective guy, but does he GET social?

wallflower 16y ago
He did have a famous tweet :) #feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle". 7:45 PM Feb 8th via web http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664 http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664
kenjackson 16y ago
Honestly, is social that hard to GET? I think what Vic has shown at MS and Google (and I think its important that he showed this at both places) is that he can execute. If Vic's mission is to make Google social big, period then he'll do well. If his mission is to make social big, and figure out how to monetize it too, then there will be problems. But I think Vic is bright enough to know that monetization is a second-tier priority right now.
- webwright 16y ago
  If it's not hard to get, why hasn't Google gotten it yet? Certainly not for lack of trying or technical execution. It's a whole different beast. The first order problems (IMO) are around empathy, design, positioning, marketing, and community (things that Google is historically not good at).
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    If it's not hard to get, why hasn't Google gotten it yet? The problem isn't that they don't get it at an individual level. It's that they struggle to see how to make money from it and have tried to get it complement search. That's my take on it. To put it in perspective, Facebook did $2B in revenue last year. Google did $29B. In otherwords, if Google owned Facebook outright, Facebook would be about 6.5% of Google's revenue. But that's why I said as long as Vic focuses purely on social, they'll do OK. But if they get sidetracked by a 3-year plan to get to $1B in revenue... which will be like a mere 3%, that's when things will begin to fall apart. And that's why these sorts of things are easier outside of Google/MS. For a startup company $500M in revenue is pop the champagne. For Google and MS that's when you start thinking that there might be a business here, but make sure it doesn't canabilize the business that brings in $20B a year.

wallflower 16y ago

He did have a famous tweet :) #feb11 "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle". 7:45 PM Feb 8th via web http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664 http://twitter.com/vicgundotra/status/35182523650801664

kenjackson 16y ago

Honestly, is social that hard to GET? I think what Vic has shown at MS and Google (and I think its important that he showed this at both places) is that he can execute. If Vic's mission is to make Google social big, period then he'll do well. If his mission is to make social big, and figure out how to monetize it too, then there will be problems. But I think Vic is bright enough to know that monetization is a second-tier priority right now.

webwright 16y ago
If it's not hard to get, why hasn't Google gotten it yet? Certainly not for lack of trying or technical execution. It's a whole different beast. The first order problems (IMO) are around empathy, design, positioning, marketing, and community (things that Google is historically not good at).
- kenjackson 16y ago
  If it's not hard to get, why hasn't Google gotten it yet? The problem isn't that they don't get it at an individual level. It's that they struggle to see how to make money from it and have tried to get it complement search. That's my take on it. To put it in perspective, Facebook did $2B in revenue last year. Google did $29B. In otherwords, if Google owned Facebook outright, Facebook would be about 6.5% of Google's revenue. But that's why I said as long as Vic focuses purely on social, they'll do OK. But if they get sidetracked by a 3-year plan to get to $1B in revenue... which will be like a mere 3%, that's when things will begin to fall apart. And that's why these sorts of things are easier outside of Google/MS. For a startup company $500M in revenue is pop the champagne. For Google and MS that's when you start thinking that there might be a business here, but make sure it doesn't canabilize the business that brings in $20B a year.