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February 7, 2006

Programming

Eric Schmidt from Google was just here (last week) speaking at our Corporate All Hands. It was pretty nice, though I have to admit to being a tad disappointed we didn't get Sergey Brin or Larry Page. Mostly, the meeting was some deserved back patting on both sides for the recently completed deal. Clearly, I have LOTS of thoughts on the details, of the deal and the meeting both, but not much I'm really in a position to share :)

Anyhoo, an interesting question came up, which speaks a LOT to the philosophies dividing the old world from the new (remember "Content is King", anyone?). I don't remember, verbatim, the question, but the gist of it was, "At AOL, we tend to have [Content] Programmers that offer our members a very managed experience that comforts them, whereas at Google, its much more automation and technology oriented - can you comment on this philosophy difference?"

And Eric replied, "When you say Programmer and we say Programmer, we mean very different things... Does that answer the question?"

Yes.

Yes it does.

(And here I thought we didn't get one of the "good" ones - sorry, Eric :))

On which side of the divide do you think Google would place AOL?

One interesting comment he made: "We don't view you as competitors."

I have to say, it's pretty embarassing when you enter the battle arena thinking you're facing a worthy adversary - an equal - and he thinks you're there to clean his sword and groom his horse... ya-ouCH.

12 comments:

0 said...

What does that mean "they mean different things"? That is being vague and diplomatic, I bet he meant when we (Google) says programmer it means R&D and simplicity and usefulness in its UI.

Sree Kotay said...

I don't think he was being vague. I think he was pointing out, very succinctly, that the cultural values of our companies - reflected in the lanugage we use in our everyday worklives - results in very different (no particular judgement implied) value propisitions that we deliver to our partners and customers.

Dossy Shiobara said...

First: white-on-white is so 1999, man. Now it's style="display: none" -- get web standard with it!

Second: I think Google doesn't see AOL as a competitor because of the difference between their view and our view of "programmers" -- Google isn't going to appeal to an audience that's looking for that human touch and editorial voice that hand-programmed content brings. Likewise, there's the audience out there that just wants clean and simple presentation of content that's being published to the 'net and Google gives that to them.

0 said...

You don't have to be part of the target audience, simply find out what your customer needs. If you presume you are part of that audience then maybe you will limit yourself as a developer. AOLs "human touch" is also very subjective as for Googles automation - well they are sitting on the memes of our society and if harnessing that isn't customization towards a "human touch", what is?

Sree Kotay said...

"You don't have to be part of the target audience, simply find out what your customer needs. "

So fundamentally I don't disagree - but this is still (to me) the difference between "Good" and "Great", especially in creative endeavors.

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