scobleizer’s posterous

Open social networking = Big Problem.
Closed social networking = Small Problem.

Creative Procrastinator: and Google Wave looks like a clone of FriendFeed or Facebook, to me. And a geeky one at that. It'll be interesting to see if it will catch on the way they think it will.

Connect Wave, Profile, Blogger, Reader, PicasaWeb, Latitude, GTalk - and what do you get... People won't even notice they have once again signed up for another social network.

Horsepucky?!!

Wonderful analogy with the snowflake (still ROFL over horsepucky though).

Robert, you are really on a roll! Your recent blogposts are rockin' my world.

Interesting article and completely on the mark I think, when I look at what tech and software I am using today it all points to having come from small sometimes incremental needs being met.

Funny, we had a similar discussion coming from the other way: should start-ups focus on existing problems, or make a major leap.

Create Procrastinator: There's an important translation from "BigCo" speak to "real world" language that Robert left out of his analysis... when a BigCo says "We don't want to work on problems that only affect a small number of people", what they really mean is "We don't want to work on problems that only a small number of people will pay for". There is a point in time when which a company fundamentally changes, and chooses revenue over innovation- aka, stability over risk. Google has turned that corner.

So, basically, Google is just limiting itself to bridging gaps, not changing the way we compute.

In 2003, I was fine with my discman. I never knew I wanted a smaller, sleeker, more convenient portable music device until the iPod was created.

If Google is just looking to "solve a problem," they're severely limiting themselves to the finite number of people with the problem; that's not innovation, that's a band-aid. Even worse, that's grout filling in a hole.

"to create an avalanche you've gotta make it snow one snowflake at a time"

Reminds me of a quote by Napoleon Hill that I used in a recent presentation (see slide 30 here: http://slidesix.com/view/Develop-And-Grow-Your-Startup)

"A big success is made up of a great number of little circumstances, each of which is so small and seemingly insignificant that most people pass it by as not worthy of notice."

Yeah, sometimes it's hard as hell to press on 'in my garage' with a startup that doesn't get the avalance right away. But I love what I'm doing, and people seem to enjoy using my product. If I happen to be the next big thing, so be it. If not, then I've got a bunch of lessons and new skills that I've picked up along the way that will help me out somewhere down the road.

Brad: it's depressing, actually. I thought Google was going to be a better company than Microsoft. It's not any different except it has a better cafeteria. That makes me sad.

Just a thought: If only someone would convince PS3 or XBox 360 teams that they should stop trying to solve everyones problems and let the community run software on their hardware we would have a much better solution.

Juhani: tricking your users into joining a social network isn't a great strategy (exhibit a: http://profiles.live.com).

@Robert Scoble: I wasn't thinking Wave exactly, I was thinking more of Juhani said.

At some point we all may end up using Facebook for all types of social interactions on the web instead of just the friend to friend stuff, we'll start managing document sharing on there, etc...

I think that Google sees this and isn't gearing up for making another MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or FriendFeed, but instead a decentralized social network that covers everything.

Which from the look of it will be handled by OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial for Google.

Robert; you have hit the nail on the head. Great point. Big companies do not focus on disruptive technologies. Those generally have very low profit margins for their liking and are accepted by insignificant markets. They apparently go to solve the *bigger* problem. That is also the sole reason why Google was formed. But somehow I do think Google realizes that and are investing aggressively in so many start-ups.

Robert, I don't think that Eric's statement is really true. Perhaps they care *most* about problems and issues that affect a lot of people, but the fact is that they *do* deal with issues and problems that affect smaller numbers of people. Look no further than their Google In Your Language program. I recently did a translation of the Google search interface into Hawaiian. Shortly after completing the the GIYL team discovered an issue in the core search engine code that prevented them from launching our Hawaiian interface immediately. We were told it would take some time for the engineers to address it, and indeed it did take a few months, but they did get it fixed and we recently launched the Hawaiian interface. Number of Hawaiian speakers? Certainly no more than 10,000. The number that will actually use the interface? Far less than that, I'm pretty certain, though I'd like to be optimistic that more will. The project took considerable effort an accommodation on the part of Google's engineers, which we are grateful for.

snowflake? http://ox.io :)

Glad you rewrote this ;) Google as a company has to have that phlisophy but I'm not sure they are built to fail like Microsoft is, They still listen to us....

I love your thoughts on this matter, but I wouldn't put Google in the Microsoft category yet. What about their 20% time? What about letting the jewels (like Wave) be developed in small, efficient teams away from the herd? Look at how junked up (but valuable) the labs section of Gmail is. Android is on it's way to being a legitimate, open source player in a relatively short amount of time.

I think the lava lamp talk was him addressing their effort to strike a balance between being a certified behemoth and still having a culture that fosters the next big thing. Though they want to impact millions (why should they aim lower?), I think they still recognize that talent and ideas start small and come from individuals.

I'll leave it up to @stop to argue about their design decisions.

Google supports a better "Twitter": http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/

It's better (in concept) because it is not centralized. That's the Google way to do it - offering alternatives to walled gardens like Twitter or Facebook, they seem to protect their core business.

@rodrigo: let me know when orpah sings up for pubsubhubbub.

Big things come in small packages - Google could miss the next "big thing"! :)

Robert - Is this a consequence of the changing culture of Google from a company with engineers to a company with businesspeople?

Rodrigo: and why did Google do pubsubhubbub? Because they were being locked out of a new kind of search.

Great post Robert, it's kinda lame to see a great company like Google, becoming MSFT. I guess its a natural process as companies grow. Nice to see you're got on to poesterous

vermontdevil: I think it also is from a company that has execs that are too busy dealing with billion dollar businesses to remember what got them there in the first place. I remember the days when the search Gods talked like Schmidt did.

I'm not creating a small flake, I'm creating a snow ball. Does that interest you?
http://www.vimeo.com/5844043

Robert,

I just loved this article, very apropos. I've recently gotten involved with a hub of innovation (a coworking space called Hacker Dojo located in Mountain View). One of the great things I've noticed is the "snowflakes" that are developing there. Innovators coming up with ways to make our lives just a bit more livable.

Great post! And now to get myself a Posterous account!!

Donna 'SnowWrite' Snow
card.ly/snowwrite

Big companies should consider dividing up their resources into "snow flakes" to then create an avalanche.
As for my snow flake, I'm sure you know a lot restaurant review sites out there. However, not very many of those review sites allow merchant to customer engagement such as answering questions, resolving problems or sharing ideas.
Good sites that allows business to customer relation is Getsatisfaction and Uservoice, but they're still focused on corporate companies. Imagine if there was a site that combined the usability of GetSatisfaction with the local search of Yelp. That's how we came up with FeedbackJar.com, so if you went to a restaurant and ordered your favorite dish and it was horrible for some reason, you could either leave a bad review on yelp or report a problem for the business owner to resolve. We'll even print your feedback on a post card and mail your concern directly to the business owner.

Excellent article and great points - it's the snowflakes that become the avalanche. But you can't expect that avalanche to happen overnight. Twitter is the perfect example of that.

We recently released ZooLoo.com, which I think is a definite snowflake. We are working every day on the feedback and ideas from single users, along with the ideas from bigger groups of users. Both are just as important to us. And, while it can be frustrating to wait around for that avalanche to happen, it's also great to know that we're building a product that people actually want to use...because they've helped us develop it.

Great post Robert Scoble. (To keep in my archives) I hope people at Google will read it ... and changed their mind (is it possible?) :S

"to create an avalanche you've gotta make it snow one snowflake at a time"

Can I quote you on that?

great post, Robert. I think Orkut is a good example of how far is Google from a right perspective. The most powerful company on the web, and all they got is Orkut? Common, Facebook really is a powerfull platform, and Orkut is "so secure" that is hilarious (I decided to delete my Orkut profile because it was hacked, and changed all details in my account. that had never happened to me in any other Web 2.0 site).
After all, Google is a Web 1.0 company, their revenue model is advertising, and IMHO, I don't see a bit of creativity in that.

I think there's a fantastic compromise that happens in the creative process when you set your sights solely on "the billions." and it's a palpable and somewhat dangerous one - though it leaves room for the light and nimble.

here's to snowflakes.

"Oh, and Eric, have fun looking for the big problems. I bet that some kid in a garage in Israel or Colorado will get there first."

What's the point of being snarky? Eric is just as interested in innovative stuff as you are. Why make Google wrong, just because they became big and rich? Twitter may become just as big. And maybe that snowflake will need Google money or help to become to next Twitter. You're just dividing the world into the "right" kind of company and the "wrong" kind of company. AKA the exclusive mentality.

Talk about taking one statement and running with it. @scobleizer

PatDDixon @Scobleizer "let me know" you say, well, not a snowflake, more like a snowman<--->
interesting viewpoint Robert!

Why assume "problems that only affect a small number of people" to be interesting for ambitious people? Hunger, pollution, terrorism <or> interest everyone of us. You just translated his ambition to "billion dollar businesses" not Sergey Brin. Whose money-obsessed here Robert? This bold statement coming from a bright man like Brin...it makes me happy!!

How do you explain google labs? And Google's personal project time?

If anything the criticism should be that google spreads itself too thin.

The reason they didn't create Facebook or Twitter is lack of focus not a corporate devaluing of creativity.

I don't really think that microsoft and google are all that similar.

The point when you worry is when google starts crippling features for profit. So far that hasn't happened. With microsoft it's always been profit #1, user experience # 2. User experience is never the focus unless Microsoft is behind in the market because Apple, Nintendo, Sony or Google did it better.

For example, when I go my Tmobile Dash a couple years ago I couldn't figure out when Microsoft didn't added threaded text messaging. It seemed like such an obvious feature and Palm had already been doing it for years. Why was their smart phone so dumb? I eventually decided that microsoft didn't care about text messaging because microsoft didn't make any money from text messaging. They wanted you to use hotmail so they purposely ignored text messaging. I don't see that tenancy in google.

Ha. I still think Twitter is the lamest thing I have ever seen.

"innovations usually come about when it doesn't seem like anyone is interested"

Seems to me that you argument revolves around the belief that small companies / teams / individuals are better able to create needs through inventing (e.g. twitter) because they are either:
a) more playful!
b) more in touch with audiences (and their wants, desires, needs, behaviours)

Big-ness does make it harder to do this, true. Big-ness creates inertia and bureaucracy through processes of management. But from what I understand of Google they try really hard to do both a) and b) and succeed in being innovative (gmaps) and inventive (android, wave) in a way that most big companies don't. Knocking them because they could do better without giving a bit of balance by looking at how they already innovate and invent, seems very unfair. Name a BIG company that is presently inventing and innovating 'better' than Google.

@scobleizer, your post is SPOT ON. I think alot of it has to do with being a public company. Meet EPS expectations or invest?

am I noticing a trend, Scoble's second post in as many days using posterous? First Steve Rubel, and now @Scobleizer?

Interestingly, someone posted a similar piece over at Fast Company a few days ago: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/dev-patnaik/innovation/embrace-your-small-ideas-big-change

Great article Robert.

Great read Robert.

As for interesting work, here at Bido we're trying to solve the liquidation problem of many illiquid industries, starting from one relatively small industry (the domain name industry) with our eyes towards many others.

To learn more, http://www.Bido.com & http://www.bido.com/BidoGuarantee

Best,

Sahar

A clam injests a small grain of sand and eventually produces a pearl !

Great Post... In line with your request... I hope you'll take a look at http://www.Chagora.com as well as my associated blog at http://CulturalEngineer.blogspot.com (especially the PowerPoint "Fixing Big" and posts "Why Chagora" "Foundations of Authoritarianism", Live Debate Function, On building Communities (Part 1), etc.

Small Money, Large Numbers & Immediate Feedback...
This can start small and cheap... Lost funds with credit crunch

I'm loving your posts here on Posterous Robert. Good to see you cranking out analysis on the industry again. Isn't Google already revealing their competitor to Facebook, Twitter & Posterous that will do more than all of them and is unquestionably innovative and game changing? Google Wave.

Shhhh.... hear it? That's the Tsunami no one is ready for. :)

I couldn't help but read "Oh, and Eric, have fun looking for the big problems. I bet that some kid in a garage in Israel or Colorado will get there first." and not add "... until Google buys them out anyway."

Robert - could you correct the link in my comment above please? It has a trailing parenthesis that is breaking the link. A lot of your readers are being redirected when they follow the link because of the malformed link.

The correct link is:

http://slidesix.com/view/Develop-And-Grow-Your-Startup

And for the record, I develop, maintain and market SlideSix on my own from Medina, OH (where we know plenty about snowflakes). It rocks pretty hard and traffic is really picking up lately.

I call this the Henny Penny Effect. Why because like the story small guy is out fertilizing the field, (innovating) tending the weed (testing & betas) and harvesting the crop (growth & buzz)

When the bread is coming out of the oven all hot and steaming is when,

The big guys show up with their bibs on.

Unlike the story where Henny does not share with those who were repeatedly were asked to help with the possess, Henny monetizes the effort by selling them the bread .

Perhaps you could rename your Posterous blog to "the snowflake hunter" it would be kind of mysterious and yet profound. Great post!

well said, The avalanche? Thinking more of the Tsunami - There'll be some FaceTwit combo on Google Wave / I got my money on the Israeli kid.

Nice post! Motivating in a way for startup. One snowflake you should look at is Ti-Took (titook.net). A web browser tool to make your web browsing more secure and private.

Chris Hollander said, "There is a point in time when a company fundamentally changes, and chooses revenue over innovation - aka, stability over risk. Google has turned that corner."

Nicely said, very nice.

However I work for a company that I am glad to say turned that corner once and has come back to let innovation drive revenue (most of the time) rather than let revenue limit innovation.

Google might do the same ... it is possible but rare.

there's a lot of truth in what you just said, robert. i couldn't agree more. i wrote a post about this issue a while back: http://www.techsoomer.com/solving-problems-creating-solutions/

Our snow flake is Boost eLearning, training people how to use Google for business research. No one wants what they don't know is out there. Thanks for the quote

Hear ye Hear ye. Universal (and American) ingenuity desperately needs more champions. A must read to keep you inspired "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson. Bring on the snowflakes!

Google is still disruptive in my mind. With a 4G wireless network on the horizon, people will primarily use cloud services over local apps because they will want to access their tools from their iPhone, Netbook, or Home computer. Ultimately I believe Google is still the one of the strongest companies pushing application usage into the cloud. How often is Google Docs used? How much growth is there over MS Word? In reality, most innovation is about a 'problem' or rather desire.

@Brad Schwarzenbach, if a good innovator had spoken to you in 2003 they may have found out that you were sick of your disc skipping when running or cycling or something. They may also have found out that it would have been nice to carry more music around with you without having to lug the CD case. So in a way, iPod solved your problem. You simply weren't capable of articulating the problem you wanted solved. But with enough interaction they could envision a better solution. So while Ford might have had customers tell him a faster horse, as an innovator, he would have thought really they want to get from point A to point B in less time and with less daily maintenance. My take on Eric's words are... don't be so literal. Google doesn't go after the market like Microsoft. I wouldn't be too quick to lump them in the same bucket.

Ultimately with twitter, I don't see any other long term business model outside of marketing analytics. I don't see users being comfortable with targeted adverts considering the tweets they are receiving are so small. They could end up carving a bit off the top of tweets from folks like Group On where customers opt into advertising. So while they have the user base... tell me, how are they going to evolve their business model? I've been contemplating this for a year now.

Also, whoever said it, it wasn't facebook that did innovation in targeted advertising it was Google.

Did anyone mention Google Wave, which as an open source application can basically become a space for Twitter and Facebook and Docs and email and chat and about anything else you can think of to happen within?

Jeffrey: google wave is a great example of the trend that Robert is pointing out. gWave isn't terribly innovative, at least not in any disruptive sense- its an incremental improvement on existing ideas, coupled with community originated html 5 features that will be equally available to anyone.

Instead of actually building an innovative, disruptive application based on those technologies, they built a platform. The reason they built a platform is so that small companies will hitch their innovation to google's bandwagon, and potentially host their innovative apps in google's cloud (for a fee, of course). It's a great business model... just ask Apple (iphone) or Microsoft (windows, circa 3.1).

enjoyed going through the comments. @Rebecca is spot on. labs is all you need to understand this Robert. in fact Google has been accused throwing a lot of mud on the wall and hoping some of it sticks.

What about Google Wave? (sorry if this has been said before in this thread)

they just created fastflip

Ugh... stop.