Remember Google’s motto “don’t be evil”?
Former CEO Eric Schmidt statements may push Big G’s trend towards sanctity a bit further.
Remember Buzz, what about Orkut? (besides being popular in South America…)
Google leadership and commitment in search market may be one key. to understand such major social-network failures.
It’s almost unimaginable that Big G behemoth has been unable to turn ‘social’, it’s an interesting lesson to hear the very word of a former top CEO (and still in charge at G) about failure, regret and … competitors!
So, I guess it’s a good lesson for everybody to listen to Dr. Schmidt lesson on the rise and fail (and rise again) of high-end web management.
Speaking at the D9 tech conference outside of Los Angeles Tuesday evening, Schmidt said that for five years, he’s been aware of the competitive threat posed by upstart social networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Schmidt even wrote internal memos about the threat, he said, but was so focused on running Google’s day-to-day operations that he didn’t give the issue the necessary attention.
In an interview with AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Schmidt described Google’s social stumble as his biggest regret.
“I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it,” Schmidt said. “CEOs need to take responsibility. I screwed up.”
Pressed by Swisher and her cohost, Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg, about why he didn’t focus more on social networking, Schmidt had a simple answer:
“I was busy,” he said.
So what of Google’s feisty young competitor?
“Facebook’s done a number of things which I admire,” said Schmidt.
Turning to the exploding market for internet services, Schmidt said that traditional desktop and PC-based computer systems are becoming obsolete, as Web-based, so-called “cloud services” proliferate. In cloud computing, data is storied in remote servers and accessed via the web.
Schmidt called cloud services “the death of IT as we know it.”
Wrapping up his D9 interview, Google’s Eric Schmidt had one last piece of advice for anyone worried about online security:
- Use Google’s Chrome Browser
- Use two factor authentication in Gmail
- Get a Mac
Macs aren’t susceptible to all the Windows PC viruses out there, Schmidt said. Schmidt said he was speaking as a proud former member of Apple’s board.
[Via Wired and The Register]
