Hard to stay mad at Google

As many who know me, know that I have not been a big fan of Google. I love the desktop search (or I did until I got a Mac with Spotlight) but am not a big fan of their corporate culture. Just because they got search right (emphasis on the past tense, but that's a later post) doesn't give them the license to walk around the valley looking down their noses. (Prius anyone?) They are a notoriously difficult company to partner with and to sell to (probably the real genesis of my distaste.)

I especially dislike the "Do No Evil" motto. As if other companies have the motto "Do Evil." It's like an ad campaign that asserts "Trebelicious BubbleGum has no Spider Eggs in it." (Although we know that certain telco's bubblegum does have spider eggs.)

But lately, I'm beginning to like Google. They really do seem committed to an open web, and that is good for everyone. First was their support of Net Neutrality. Actively fighting the telcos in their effort to control what traffic they deliver is critical to the success of the Internet. To see what would happen if AT&T and Verizon got their way on Net Neutrality, one would just have to look at how horrible the mobile web browsing experience is (another area Google is trying to address with it's gPhone initiative.)

Now one could argue that Google supports Net Neutrality because they don't want to pay telcos for carrying terabits worth of YouTube videos. Except that Google has more than enough cash to pay the telcos and serve their cafeteria meals in disposable gold happy meal boxes. If Google didn't believe in an open web, it would do just that. The truth is while Google can afford to pay the telcos off, start-ups would not. They could effectively bar a good portion of their next generation of competitors from the market by allowing the telcos to set up a content tax that would be a market killer.

Google's latest salvo of course is their OpenSocial initiative. Again, Google has come down on the side of an open platform over using its muscle to promote a Google-only platform. The cynics of my readers (also known as my family minus my wife) would point out that's because Google is getting its seat handed to them on a platter in social networking by Facebook and this is their way of fighting back.

And the cynics would be right. They also would completely miss these two points:

1. It doesn't matter if Google's self interest helps everyone else. What matters is that we keep moving to an open web platform that fosters innovation and interconnectivity.
2. Google seems to be the only big company that realizes that an open internet is the best way to expand it's market presence. By making the web more open (and by extension better) they believe they will have more opportunity, not less.

Not surpisingly the old line telco's and software companies doen't understand this, which is why we have so many proprietary platforms (from Verizon's vCast to SAP's NetWeaver.) Suprisingly, some of the coolest and smartest new companies don't seem to realize it either. I love Facebook, SalesForce.com and Apple and I use their products every day, but all of them are closed proprietary systems. That makes it difficult for me to interconnect them and other apps in a way I find as useful.

So hats off to Google today. From Net Neutrality, to OpenSocial, to the gPhone - they are making the internet a more interesting place. I'm sure they will benefit from that openness mightily, but so will OpSource, and our customers and thousands of other companies who have yet to be formed.

And to thank them, I have now changed my default search engine from Yahoo to Google. Think that will get me a ride on Google Jet?