Sunday, August 15, 2010

The web turns into a cocoon

Was reading the paper this morning on my fabulous new deck and having a cup of coffee.

There was a lengthy interview with Eric Schmidt - CEO of Google - and his views on various things.I thought this should be interesting - in fact, it was strange.

I've been hearing lots of chatter these past few weeks about privacy and the web - which seems a bit odd since nothing of note has really sparked it. Well kind of.

I forgot that Verizon and Google - aka don't be evil - decided to compromise on net neutrality, only for the wired world. So Google will side with bandwith limits on wireless - that is interesting.
But what is more interesting is the thought that E. Schmidt is under the impression that search will become obsolete. Now when your business model is predicated on search (well its really advertising from search) - that sends an interesting message.
Search is going away and guess what is coming - the web customized for you. All that cookie stuff that the WSJ has been foaming at the mouth over during the previous two weeks - well it would appear that the web will be able to anticipate our every need in the future. Using what we have done - it will tell us what we will want next. Plus no need to look for anything - the web will do all the work for you.

Now I don't think search is going to die - but there is a certain creepiness regarding the fact that currently you can basically be identified (with fairly good precision) by your search history and cookie crumbs.

Facebook pretty much already has a beta version of this - everything and everywhere you go in facebook creates the meta-data they need to give you what you want. Not by asking you - just by scanning what you are doing.

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