800 LB Gorilla Misses the Mark with Apology

Unless you have been under a rock, at the Beijing Olympics, or on a remote island vacation, you have probably heard about the Gmail outage at Google yesterday.

Last night Google updated its blog regarding the outage, and apologized for the incident. While I commend Google for the apology, it left much to be answered, and lacked in nearly all areas of communication.

I am not a PR expert, I am a simple person who expects companies to step up, take ownership and explain things to me--- from my perspective. Google had a grand opportunity, and squandered it with their less than appealing explanation. Here is my $.02 debrief.

Google has always claimed to be open- Where is the transparency?

• What really happened and why?
• Why was the communication not until ‘everything will be back to normal by the time you read this’?
• Why did I have to learn about this through Twitter and follow updates there rather than direct through Google?

Google built its search engine on being simple and clear- Where is that clarity?

• OK, so you fixed ‘it’. What is ‘it’?
• You are ‘updating internal systems and procedures accordingly’. What are those ‘systems and procedures’?

Google raves about its infrastructure and stability- Where is the restoration of that confidence:

• Where any explaination of a root cause analysis?
• What are the steps being taken to ensure that this a) does not repeat itself, and/or b) minimizes the chance of it happening again?

Google does not exist without their customer- Why is this from the Google perspective and not the customer?

• The ‘temporary outage’ seemed to last at least 1 hour, that is an eternity to users
• Why would you get on a blog and apologize and communicate and then go on to say, don’t expect to see that here again?

As my 5th grade teacher used to tell me, ‘A’ for effort, ‘C’ for performance. Too bad we do not get measured on effort.

Ahhhhh, Isn’t Google the Nice Guy

As reported in major periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Google today announced that they are launching a new tool to measure Internet usage, intended to help advertisers find the best places to build their online ads. The rub for companies who sell that like comScore, Quantcast, and Nielsen, Google is giving it away for FREE. Isn’t that nice, Google wants to help the advertisers.

So while you read the surface of this and say, ahhhhh, the open development of Google strikes again for the benefit of mankind, think again. Google will have in their hands the power to craft where people visit, when they visit, and how much money to charge advertisers to go to the sites where they are directing you to visit.

Get real. Nice guys finish last. As we know, there is NO such a thing as a ‘free lunch'.

It's basic Economics 101: Supply and Demand Curves. The sweet spot in pricing and production is where those lines intersect.

Google is squarely aiming to control, yes control, both curves.

• Step 1: Build a brand so that you become the de facto place to look for information

Result: you now ‘own’ the supply, by controlling access to and use of

• Step 2: Build an analytics engine to report actual usage patters on the Web

Result: you now ‘own’ demand curve, by controlling access to and use of

• Step 3: Exert your control over both curves to move them further out, managing both supply and demand you your optimal gain (in this case to dominate the entire Internet monetization world)

Result: Nirvana- now they can buy any island with the jack (read $) they will make

Google will also be able to squeeze advertisers (mainly agencies who specialize in planning and buying media) out of the market in the extreme cases. Why do you need the creative black magic, if it can all be scientifically metricized (yes, I made up that word).

Complete control….. a side of Cyborg with your keyboard?