MetaMuse

Fear Factor

Jenny asked me last week if I'd heard of MySpace, because of a "horror" story she heard from someone she knew. Horror could hardly be worse described -- the story involved a 13 year old girl with a space that indicated her as 17 years old. Since then I've noted the media frenzy on the "horrors" of MySpace -- which I generally view as sensationalism feeding the minds of the ignorant. Yes, there are bad things happening on MySpace; however, it's not indicative of the online world, but rather simply of people and the unfortunate things that happen in society (offline or online).

The fear is being spread by overbearing, control freak parents jumping to ignorant conclusions about their teenage sons/daughters, when their time would be far better spent actually TALKING with their children and developing a relationship of trust. Rather than spout off completely, I will point out a longer article from Wired that sums up the situation nicely, in addition to a short Q&A on what parents need to know.

Others Online Market Influences

It's interesting the different Internet market spaces that converge to form the Others Online market space, and how we are just a little bit of each of them. For instance, there's the Social Network market, consisting of sites like MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn and Facebook -- it's basically just surfing "people pages". You look at their description, pictures, text and friends -- then it's off to the next personal page until you leave the site (and hopefully come back someday). Others Online is different because instead of going to a Web site to see people, the people are there with you wherever you go on the Web.

Then there's the Dating space, and it's obvious what that's all about. But again it's surfing "people pages" actively, while Others Online introduces people as a passive concept for the first time. Others Online will definitely have a dating tab, but what's unique about Others Online is how we're taking the "matching" concept (introduced in online dating) to the general populous -- matching people for any and every other reason than dating.

The conextual/behavioral advertising space has clearly influenced the Others Online product. Not only is it our revenue model, but we're using contextual/behavioral analysis to match people to people, instead of ads to people.

Then there's the Search space, and it's not yet apparent how much of "search" is in the Others Online concept. But the thinking goes something like this ... there is much much more content on the Web than there are people, but it's people who create and consume the content. So why not connect people by keywords instead of connecting content to people by keywords? If you're searching for something specific, like "18th century Russian history", sometimes you'd rather be connected to people who've associated themselves to those specific keywords, rather than 1M+ pages.

Google Pushing Privacy Boundaries

Google has just released the new verion of its Desktop product, which is apparently falling under criticism by the "privacy police" because it stores copies of your personal documents on Google servers so that you can search from different computers (for 30 days anyway).  I suspect GotoMyPC may be a little scared, but overall I'm not sure they need to be. Anyway, I just love the fact that Google is pushing the privacy issues -- they're in a much better PR position to, and Others Online can just follow in their wake.

Toolbars vs. Browsers

If browsers are to the Internet space, as the operating system is to the desktop space, then wouldn't that make Web sites merely content, and toolbars (or other browser plug-ins) the true horizontal applications of the Internet space and thus higher in the hierarchy?

They're certainly harder to distribute, because the value proposition has to be much more than a Web site. But if you nail the value prop, the premium you command in the market can be quite stunning.

Google Flaw?

A thought just occurred to me, that perhaps Google is its worst competition. Google's PageRank algorithm (used for ranking relevance of search results) is based primarily on the number of links to the page being ranked. This has resulted in tremendous popularity with users. However, to the extent users begin to use Google to find content on the Web, rather than others' Web sites, then won't that result in few links and thus a weaker PageRank algorithm. At that point, doesn't Google's results list become more important (yet increasing false) determinant of relevance?

Online Privacy Matters :-P

Matters to whom? I think it only matters to (a) the really twisted or criminally-intended people in this world (searching for "animal porn", "nail bomb", "meth lab", etc.), and/or (b) the zealots in this world (it's always men) who aren't criminals but love the whole conspiracy theory of it all. They speak ignorantly of how cookies are "spyware" and that the government spies on us all.

The media doesn't help sometimes. While the article FAQ: When Google is Not Your Friend is technically very accurate and well-written, I'm not sure if all these types of articles really put things into perspective. I find myself thinking "who cares?" if Google and all the other search engines store my non-personally-identifiable search history. What do I have to hide? Plus the Internet is about the most private place on earth. Offline people can overhear your conversations, see what you buy at the store, look in your windows, go through your mail and figure out who you talk to on your phone. It's not right, but it happens.

The Internet should continue to be a landscape where the users control how much information they relinquish. They should clearly understand general privacy policies and give consent where necessary.

The Future of Google

Interesting article in CNN Money called Imagining the Google Future. The article first points out that "U.S. companies still devote more ad dollars to the Yellow Pages than to the Internet (which accounts for less than 5 percent of overall ad spending). Yet Americans now spend more than 30 percent of their media-consuming time surfing the Web. When the ad dollars catch up to the trend, a mountain of cash awaits ..." But then the article goes on with 4 very different perspectives on what Google looks like in the future, by people who supposedly should know about these things. They all seem a bit far fetched to me, like "Google is the media" -- no way, Google is a technology company and has shown no success at being entertaining. Nor is "Google the Internet". This just demonstrates the current sensationalism of Google within the media. Google is a search company, and yes they will continue to be very good at indexing information, profiling Internet users and showing relevant adverts. They will continue to utilize these core competencies, but just because Google leads the search industry doesn't mean they'll lead any other unrelated industry (which has entrenched market leaders). Google will have to buy a bunch of different companies in order to (a) expand their user reach beyond search, (b) diversify their user value proposition and ad inventory, and (c) mitigate the risk of being a 'one trick pony'.