Technology

You know someone is using their power not-for-good when people become afraid of them. I know lots of bloggers who won’t criticize Google because they are scared they’ll be denied access (which has been done before) and no one in the tech world will be really harsh about them because, well, you might want to work there!

They are certainly a cool company in lots and lots of ways. I know lots of people who work there. But don’t for a minute think they are perfect. I’m going to talk about just 3 issues that need to be heard (at least by my imaginary readers! 🙂 )

EXAMPLE 1

On Scoble’s blog, I read about a user struggling to get a response from Google for a GMail account that was taken over. Now, compare this with eBay (who every blogger is happy to fry at the drop of a hat). [Before I get into it, FULL DISCLOSURE — I used to work at eBay and had a great 5 years there. But I admit that there are lots of things eBay could do better. So, to any imaginary readers who want to flame me, this is not about what eBay can do better!]

My dad’s account got taken over on eBay because he used a really silly password. He lives in India and got the account because I used to work there. He never used it. First off, eBay emailed when the baddie changed the email on record (they email both the old email and the new one) he didn’t have to discover it himself. Second, in the email on what to do, they included a link to a web page. At the bottom of the page was a link to live chat. I got on live chat and after about 30 minutes (which apparently was longer than the average 17 minutes), I got a live CS person (who started off by apologizing for keeping me waiting). The account was immediately shut down after I provided identity details. The fake Chinese auctions were all ended and his Feedback was reset to zero. They called him (in India!) the next day to do more verification and give him access to the account again.

Now, you could say that eBay cares because an eBay account take over costs eBay money and it does. But it also costs the user and that’s what I care about. That they moved so fast. I didn’t have to once use my old work connections to get it to work this fast. It was the normal process!

Now compare it with person’s experience where he had to blog about it and email and call executives to get a basic response – FOUR days later! Comments on his blog say “hey, it is a free account”. Well, you know what, eBay is a free account too. And if you are a buyer, it stays free. So…? Free doesn’t equal crappy service.

You could say that taking over an email account is not too bad. Actually it is worse for the user from a security perspective — the baddie can figure out which bank accounts you have, can figure out which papers you subscribe to, where you shop, all by reading your mail. The baddie can go to all those places and change the password. How? By sending it to the same email account that was just taken over. It is potentially one of the most stressful things that can happen to you. FOUR days to respond to this? Shame!

EXAMPLE 2

I know of companies who recount meetings with mid-level Google employees who ask searching questions and then go off and build the same products at Google. But these CEOs won’t talk about it publicly because “what if Google wants to buy us?” These CEOs have just been ripped off like how Microsoft used to do! Trampled on with impunity. Come on people, speak up! [Updated: The MSFT comparison was getting too much attention and that wasn’t the point of the post, so as you read on, ignore it. I am trying to make a larger point.]

EXAMPLE 3

There are blogs that used to cover search – all of search. Now, they just cover Google. Yes, Google might be dominant in search, but then change your name to Googleblog. By giving minimal coverage to startups and other players and fawning over Google, they will lose readership.

—————–

Just like any other company, there are so many things that Google can be doing better (I have more ideas if you care 😉 ), but no one calls it out. Everyone just fawns over them. Because if you don’t fawn over them, then be ready for the repercussions. That’s silly. That’s like the Republicans telling you that if you don’t agree with them, you are a traitor.

A great company wants to hear how it can improve. Wants to hear about its flaws. Rewards people who tell it how to improve.

Here’s the thing. If no one speaks up, the people who run Google will not even know that these issues exist. In such a large company, do you think that the triumvirate even knows that their middle managers are misbehaving and violating the “don’t be evil rule”? No. And they’ll never know if no one says anything.

I think Google does a lot right. I am an avid user of GMail and have gotten my entire family onto it. I primarily use Google search. I used Blogger and even tried the beta. I use Google on my mobile. I admire what they’ve been able to accomplish and many of the decisions they’ve made. But I don’t think they are perfect. As a user I want them to be a great company that cares enough to improve the things that need improving.

People should *not* be afraid of a company’s who’s motto is “Don’t be evil”

Ok, you can flame me now. Go for it. Oh, I forgot, I only have imaginary readers! 😀

Post Script — I completely disagree with people who say “how dare you email a VP” (to the blogger, Rebellin). Whatever. At eBay, people emailed VPs all day long (yes, because there are lots of users who have issues) and a lot of VPs participate on community boards and share their real email with the community. And the VP either responded or sent it to someone who took care of it immediately. They even had an Office of the President where staff were assigned to handle escalated issues. That’s how grown up companies do it. No, I am not drinking the eBay kool-aid. And yes, I know Google is doing better blah, blah…

Scoble interviewed Manish Chandra on October 4th. I am on the advisory board of Kaboodle and I think Manish is doing a great job. Kaboodle is a cool service that lets you plan and coordinate with someone else — like furnishing your home or planning a trip with friends. It also allows you to research anything and save it and organize it on Kaboodle. Kaboodle enables these tasks that are otherwise very hard to do on the web. Kaboodle also has an interesting deal with eBay – eBay users of collectibles use Kaboodle to showcase their items. Collectors live to show off their items – to get feedback, to see items that someone else has, figure out how good the collection is and get input from other collectors. This functionality is huge for a collector – something that is impossible in the offline world. As Manish says, Kaboodle has the ability to tackle multiple dimensions of your life. That is powerful.

[Full disclosure: Manish did the deal with eBay as I was leaving/after I left eBay and I had absolutely nothing to do with the deal. In fact, I never even heard about the deal from the eBay side since I was in Corporate Strategy at the time. So, credit goes solely to Manish for making this deal happen.]

On the same day, he interviewed Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia, who was one of the people who convinced me to join eBay in 2001. Gil talks about how Wikia works, what kinds of people use it and what kind of content is on it. I liked the “safe, well-lit place to write” statement. eBay is one of the earliest businesses that was built by a community — the first community generated “content” site. Every item was listed by and bought by a user. Now, every Web 2.0 company is about leveraging community. The eBay experience will be hugely useful as Gil builds Wikia. I love the OSDN wiki idea- the Open Source Developers Network. So much potential here…

And today, he interviewed Eric Billingsley today. Eric runs eBay Research Labs. I worked with Eric Billingsley at eBay and you won’t find a nicer guy. He’s also super-smart and I’m excited to see his interview on PodTech. Eric talks about the search engine he built for eBay in 2002. It is a phenomenal application. It is the only search engine in the world that will index an item within seconds. He also provides demos of other cool things his team is working on. eBay Research Labs is very different from some of the other research labs out there. The team works on addressing the problems that the company is facing. It is a very important function for eBay and a very effective way to approach research. This type of research can dramatically change the economics of eBay (through better search results, greater conversion rates on items etc.), but it is unlikely to generate the next eBay itself.

All very interesting interviews. Makes me wish (just a little) that I was back in the fray in California.

It is interesting to see how Social Networking (SN) sites evolve.

Friendster took off like a rocketship when it launched. It was out of control – everyone was on it and everyone was talking about it. Then techonology problems (like an excruciatingly slow site) caused it to fall off a cliff. But, if you look at the graph below (from Alexa), they are reemerging…

Orkut, Google’s venture into SN, also took off with a ton of press about Orkut Biakutten. Everyone I knew logged on, added all their friends and then, maybe 6 months later, everyone got tired of it and stopped. Primarily because there was no point.

But Orkut is *huge* in certain places. The well known one is Brazil, but they are actually also huge in India. All the evidence is anecdotal. Go to most any Indian blog and you will see mentions of Orkut. I also get a fair amount of messages from Indians on Orkut. Actually, looking at the Alexa numbers, there’s been an incredible spike as of Q2 of 2006. Why?

And comparing Friendster versus Orkut, you can see that Orkut has clearly taken off.

Here’s an interesting blurb from ZDNet News (from July ’06):

In May, Orkut had 210,000 visitors in the United States, up 85 percent from the year earlier, according to ComScore.

Worldwide, Orkut enjoyed more popularity. It ranked fifth in May by ComScore’s measure, more than doubling its visitors for the year to 33.7 million. In contrast, MSN Spaces doubled its visitors to 101 million, and MySpace grew 250 percent to 74 million, according to ComScore.

Wow — US traffic is smaller than a speck of dust. Incredible how significant international growth is.

The only SN site that seems impervious to cycles is the juggernaut, MySpace.

This site enables you to create Pollockesque art by moving your mouse around. Click the mouse to change colors. Very relaxing and much less messy than trying it on canvas. I wished that it would let you stop painting and save your masterpiece! I’d definitely put it up here!

Charlie linked to a new site, finetune, that compiles a playlist of any chosen artist and streams the music. It also recommends similar music. My music discovery has gone down significantly since I stopped commuting to work (my only radio time). So, this will help fix that.

Update : Apparently I am horribly behind in my knowledge of music apps. Charlie pointed me to Pandora. Better than finetune. UI is better, and most importantly it allows you to tell it what you like. Hello Music 2.0, I have emerged from under the rock.

Fred Wilson has a good post about what it takes for Union Square Ventures to fund a company. It is always good when VCs are clear on what they are looking for – it makes the entrepreneur’s job so much easier.

While I agree with Fred that the cost of entry is going down, it is all relative. If you are a young entrepreneur with a job, mortgage and maybe a kid, do you quit and just take the risk or do you get a working beta (while at your current job)?

A friend was recently in this situation — he and his partner had a pretty good beta of a product I would use. It was in a crowded space, but the execution was very good and it had those key product touches that could make it the breakout product. My friend was ready to quit to do this full time. He was willing to take the risk and didn’t want to take someone else’s money till he was comfortable there was traction. The partner however wanted the security of some angel funding to quit his job.

With Web 2.0 apps and the whole “cost is going down” argument, even angels want to see traction before they fund a startup. What is the right way for an entrepreneur to proceed?

You can either dive headfirst into the technology revolution or make excuses as to why you can’t. The person who amazes me the most in this regard is my Grandmother.

She is one cool lady. There’s been a history of coolness – from a gold medal in Sanskrit in college to driving herself (and her kids) around in Bangkok, to speaking Thai and French in addition to English, Tamil and Kannada, she’s always exhibited a passion for life that’s contagious.

Not that my Grandfather is not cool in his own right – both my grandparents are iPod converts, pulling out the little device when they feel like listening to their favorite ragams. I have a “technology is compressing our world” moment every time I see my Grandfather, sitting in his veshti, white iPod earplugs sprouting from his ears, lost in his music.

But my Grandmother takes the cake. On my last trip home, I was sitting near my Grandmom, talking on the phone with a friend. The conversation was about Wikis. I was telling my friend how they work and I said “Of course the most famous and comprehensive wiki is…” “And my Grandmother piped in with “Wikipedia”! She then proceeded to explain how it worked. So cool.

I recounted the conversation to Om and he blogged about it. The post subsequently got a couple of trackbacks too.

Not just cool, but famous in the blogosphere!