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Can Microsoft Beat Google? Wrong Question
Randy Holloway (who works at Microsoft): why Microsoft can best Google. That was in response to a Tim O'Reilly post.
Personally, that's the wrong question.
What's the right question? "How do you thrill audiences?"
Link: Why Microsoft can best Google
Here's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Google (and MSN and Yahoo) are in the audience aggregation business. Huh? That means that they need to do things to draw in large audiences (so they can sell advertising to those audiences).
This job is very similar to a music group. Say, like, U2. Now, U2, if they are good, will see their audiences continue to get better. Here's a hint. U2 is good and sells out huge stadiums. But, what if they do something that pisses off the audience? Well, then, the audience will get smaller as those customers try to find somewhere else to spend their money. U2's job is to thrill their audiences (and they spend a LOT of time and money doing that with everything from lights, to sound, to special effects).
But, does U2 really care about what the Black Eyed Peas are doing? Maybe a little, cause there's some sort of competition for ultimate audience there, but if the Black Eyed Peas just went around trying to copy U2's music and style and everything, what would eventually happen? The Black Eyed Peas would end up playing high school auditoriums in May instead of large-scale venues.
So, I don't believe stopping Google is the right goal.
The new goal is to thrill the audience.
Oh, and what's the opposite of "thrill?" Evil.
Think about it. When Sergey and Larry say "don't do evil" what do they mean? Don't piss off the audience.
Can we thrill audiences? We have several teams here that have done it before. Many of us still remember the lines around the block for Windows 95 (or last year's lines for Halo 2). Watch what the PDC attendees say next week. That'll be a good indication of whether we can thrill or not.
Oh, and think MSN can't thrill? Well, Dare is providing hints on his blog that they are learning quickly what it takes to thrill in the Web 2.0 world.
MSN: thrill us!
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About the Author:
Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net's Vice President of Media Development.
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Robert Scoble
