Google's Fails and Successes

Even big companies fail.  Earlier this year Google came out with Buzz, a product that introduced Google to social media.  It failed epically; it didn’t have the success Google expected.  One of the obvious reasons why Buzz failed is because at the time of its roll-out, Google didn’t take sufficient account of privacy concerns and was widely criticized for this. Google took advantage of their user base on Gmail and made Buzz available from the Gmail inbox. The problem is that by default, Google Buzz publicly disclosed a list of the names of Gmail contacts the user most frequently emailed or chatted with. The flaw has since been fixed, but Buzz has lost a lot of users and gained a bad reputation.  Google’s capabilities and huge user base defined its disabilities.  They are able to reach a huge amount of people when a product is rolled out, but If there is something wrong with the product, the consequences can be detrimental.
Another reason why Buzz failed is that it offered something that most users didn’t need or didn’t want.  A similar service already existed through Twitter, a microblogging service that allows users to send and receive messages.  Although a fail, we can learn from Buzz and Google’s way to manage their company.  To develop Buzz, Google created a small group, a somewhat independent organization, which could focus on the product. An advantage of having a small group is that the group can get excited about the possibilities of what they are developing and that they don’t see themselves as a small part of the corporation, where their effort is diminished or given lower priority by other products. Another advantage of this is that the whole company didn’t have to focus on Buzz, in case they had to pull the plug, it would be relatively easily.  We can see this when Google Wave, a web-based platform and communication protocol, didn’t meet Google’s expectations and was terminated before the product made it out of beta.
Leaving Buzz and Wave behind, a reason why Google is so powerful and successful is that their products are simple, and offer what their users need.  Google is not controlled by the owners, but by the investors, the users and the developers.  One example of this is Gmail’s introduction of nested folders (or hierarchical labels).  For years other email services provided a way to organize your emails through hierarchical folders just like you would organize your files on Windows or any other operating system.  Gmail introduced the feature of labels, a more convenient way to organizing your email.  Many users, coming from other services, demanded the ability to have nested labels so Google worked on it and it now offers such feature.  A company directed by its users and developers is a successful company. Google will keep being successful as they listen to their users and don’t lose or abuse their trust.

The technology and media in our lives

Just this week I was talking to a friend about the secretary at his work place.  She has an online relationship with a guy that lives miles away from her.  Although she calls him her boyfriend, their relationship is far from being a “regular” relationship.  Online interactions with other people could seem to fulfil our own needs, but it is likely that they are just deceiving us.  These relationships lack the fidelity of relationships developed in real life, with personal interaction.  We must be careful that the time we spend online, or on video games, and the things we do there don’t inhibit us from receiving the blessings from spending our time on something more productive.  While these activities are not inherently bad, it is when we put them as our first priority and stop doing the things that matter most that we are in trouble.  As Elder David A. Bednar suggested, we have to make sure that the use of the various technologies and media invite rather than impede the companionship of the Holy Ghost and that the time we spend with them don’t restrict our capacity to live, love and serve in meaningful ways.

Children and the Internet

There are many parents who don’t take their children to school because there are bad kids there.  Over-protectiveness is not a good reason to keep your children home all the time.  Children need to go to school and they need to be taught how to deal with those kids who are bullies. They will find themselves in uncomfortable situations, but there will be opportunities to teach and to learn.  In the same way, you need to teach children how to deal with technology, especially the Internet.  Sadly, you can’t always be with your children to guide and protect them, but you can teach them correct principles. The prophet Joseph Smith taught, “teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves”.  Not letting them surf the Internet at home doesn’t prevent or guard your children against the experiences that they will have surfing the Internet at school or at a friend’s house.  It is better to give them the opportunity to learn at home, where you can supervise them (looking at the browsing history, setting up filters, etc) than expecting them to do the right thing without having first talked about it or set down guidelines. There are a lot of things that you as a parent can do at home to teach and control your children’s use of the Internet.  A great guide to do this is the Internet Safety Project where you can find podcasts (audio/video broadcasts) on the subject, a wiki that includes tutorials on how to keep your kids safe from the dangers of the Internet and other useful information.  It is better to prepare your children now than trying to correct and teach them what to do later.