I watched Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, on Charlie Rose last week and can’t get the interview out of my head. Since Google by almost any measure is the most important technology company on the planet right now.
Watch the interview: On Hulu if you don’t mind enduring two commercials; via PBS.
The highlights for me-
Much of this you’ve likely heard. But hearing it from Schmidt, if you ever had any doubt these things are here now, it’s gone.
Apps on a mobile phone will soon be the predominant computing platform. It already is for much of the world. Think smartphone tied to 1,000s of computers in the sky and you have Google Voice Search and Google Places. Astonishing apps if you happen to have an Android phone. And 200,000 more people each month do.
The software-application-on-your-desktop-computer model is fast eroding. Software as a service, SAS or cloud computing or whatever you want to call it, is where we’re headed (to a large degree, where we are).
The social graph, YOUR social network, will more and more inform and curate the information you access via the net. This social filter will permeate all aspects of your online experience.
Google values speed. They think in zettabytes of data and billions of people. Enter Google Instant Search. If you haven’t see it, it’s cool. It starts returning results instantly, as you’re typing. They claim is will save 2-5 seconds per search. Times billions of people and billions of searches and you get the idea.
Convergence. Content — search, websites, TV, movies, books, magazines, newspapers — is converging. Apple TV started shipping today. Google TV will ship in a matter of weeks.
What it means to you-
If you don’t use a smartphone (iPhone or Android) start. Put your email, calendar and contacts on it. You need to experience your content (emails and website) how a growing percentage of people are consuming your content.
Remember that “old” cliche’ consultants used to smugly throw at you: What business are you in? Well, it’s baaaack. Why: convergence and speed of change. Are you a newspaper company (dying) or news company (the Huffington Posts of the world). Are you a video store company (bye bye Blockbuster) or a video company (Netflix through the mail and new streaming)? Oil company or energy company? Magazine or voice for your particular niche?
Be careful how you define yourself because so much of how you deliver what you sell is changing/converging. And damned fast.
Your online presence must extend, actively, outside your website. The number of connections and amount of interaction with those connections are more important than ever. Where and how you make those connections depends on who you need to connect with.
How far along this path are you? What do you think — am I simply a Google fanboy (yes) or is this stuff changing the way we communicate and persuade?
