| Title: | Jimmy Wales: Google is secret, proprietary, closed. Search should be open. |
| URL: | http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2007/05/20/jimmy-wales-google/ |
| Printed: | July 4, 2009 |
| Source: | The Rimm-Kaufman Group Blog, info@rimmkaufman.com |
- May 20, 2007
- 1 comment
In Friday’s WallStrip, there’s an intersting interview with Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales. For me, the key bit comes about 80% of the way in (4:11), where Jimmy comments on Google. Emphasis mine:
Lindsay Campbell: What’s wrong with Google, and how will Wikia’s search be different?
Jimmy Wales: I think the main thing that is wrong with Google is that everything is secret, proprietary, closed… I’m a big believer in openness and transparency, ah, open source software, open protocols, and I think search should be open as well.
Campbell: How would that work? Functionally…?
Wales: Well, we haven’t invented it yet.
I’ve been thinking about Google’s opacity a good deal recently, and have a medium-sized post on this topic coming out Tuesday on Search Engine Land.
In Tuesday’s post, I suggest Google is remarkably opaque towards their advertisers. Google obfuscates click cost info (providing costs only in aggregate, rather than click-level reporting), obfuscates ad ranking (quality score), and obfuscates ad matching (broad match), etc. I also suggest that if Google embraced extreme transparency — if they could overcome the substantial associated business risk — Google would enjoy (even more) explosive growth and (even more) market dominance. While I’m bearish on Wikia, I think Wales is totally right on the money with his comments on Google’s secrecy.
Prediction: Google’s lack of transparency becomes a significant issue in late ‘07 / early ‘08.
If you like this post, consider subscribing to our RSS feed. You can also have new posts sent to you via email.
Related Posts
- Google, General Electric, US Dept Of Energy Announce Open Platform for Power Generation A broad alliance of leading technology and power generation companies today joined forces to announce the development of "Zappy", the first truly open and comprehensive...
- Wikia, Search, and Human Editors The future of search is algorithms and clickstreams, not editors....
- Why Small Businesses Should Support Open Source If you're benefiting from the Open Source Movement, give something back. ...
- Alberto Gonzales’ Secret: Viacom, Angelina Jolie, and YouTube The inside scoop on Alberto Gonzales, the Viacom / YouTube lawsuit, and Angelina Jolie....
“Google would enjoy (even more) explosive growth and (even more) market dominance.”
Please explain.
I think more openness would make it easier for people to game Google, and easier for competitors to clone them