The beginning of the end of Google

We have grown tired of lazy Conference speech technique of laying out some radical, provocative vision with opinions on the end of this era, or beginning of a new revolution in something else. We feel over-informed, perhaps, about the tech universe mode.

But occasionally, the best of these tech prophets can express a trend with the developing countries a more imaginative perspective than tech news treadmill, and it is a venture investor and musician Roger Carrick did pretty well back in may on us Narm Conference ... the non-enticingly named National Association of recording Merchandisers.

Although spoken was a while ago, has a video and Mcnamees own transcript causes stir this week. It is not a point of view, we are accustomed to hearing, but Carrick Apple explains why "is a far better monopoly to handle than Google" because it has been better to build a business model around digital content.

Google's consistency undermined marks

He is very hard on Google indicates era of searching is due to the increase in the specialized Search appsthrough Google "to get a taste of what the music industry has dealt with in a decade" as tech world changes around it He makes astute observation ... that it was the lack of differentiation, what seemed to be the equivalence of information online, which undermined the credibility markers.

Photo creativedc of on Flickr. Some rights reserved

"What we all missed at the time is that Google knows to treat all information the same, enforced a standard that allows no differentiation," he told the audience at Narm.

"Every word of every Google page is in the same typeface. No marker images displayed other than Google 's. This action essentially neutered production values of every high end content creator. The long tail took off and the music industry got his ass kicked. "

The main beneficiaries, he says, must be those that were done by Google era of the web, as commoditised all content by "removing differentiation".

Microsoftthe end of the/Google monopoly era

It is an excellent, exciting, well-informed and all too rare perspective on the role of technology in facilitating content creation and distribution.

He is evangelical about the iPad and iPhone as units because of their massive adoption rate, but goes on to say that HTML5 , is the largest creative and business opportunities for content creators since the Google and Microsoft began to monopolize and monetize content by others in the past twelve years.

Where Microsoft had even 96% control of internet connected devices, it is now only 50% because the growth in mobile replaces the PC era. Google, have meanwhile captured 80% Index Search business, which it has dominated the expanding web advertising market.

"Google's success filled finally on the Internet with crap, so consumers began to use other products to your search: Wikipedia for facts, Facebook for questions of taste, time or money, Twitter for news, Yelp for restaurants, Realtor.com for places to live, LinkedIn for jobs. In the past three years, these alternatives have gone from 10% of the search volume for around half, "said Carrick.

End of search

"As if all this competition was not bad enough for Google, then along came the Apple with the iPhone and App Store ... Apple has stamped, reliable apps for everything If they want news, use Apple customers apps from the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. If they want to know which camera to buy, ask the friends on Facebook. If they want to go to dinner, use the Yelp app. these searches have economic value, and it is not going to Google, although Android.

"When Apple and app model win, Google's Search Business loses."

But if there is a triumphant results to Apple, Carrick activates it round again. HTML5 provides a better experience than an Apple app, but is cheaper and offers better value for users. His band Moonalice has been by using HTML5-based technology for livestream their shows for mobiles and iPads.

"Near term focus your platform strategy on Apple," he advises musicians. "The long term, focus on HTML5. The faster you commit to HTML5, the more likely you will produce something of economic value. Remember that HTML5 will produce companies as important as Amazon, iTunes and Netflix. It costs musicians practically nothing to create a good digital video and amazing audio, but they need distribution systems optimized to their content ".

There is an extract of Apple's dominance of Google below, and also the Full-length, segmented 57-minute presentation on Fora .TV. The transcript was posted by Carrick even on music analysis blog The Lefsetz Letter.

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Public data corporation: the end of our world or just beginning?

Public data corporation announced by Francis Maude. Photo: Martin Argles/guardian

Announced to Downing Street fanfare Wednesday, is the new public Data Corporation already worrying Community open data-key vote mainly because no one knows what it is.

In writing on his Countculture blog today, says Chris Taggart:

None of the open data activists and developers, which I have spoken to know what it is, or what the real motivation is, and remember these are people who did much to get us into a place where the British Government has stated that the public has a right to the ' Data ', and to the excellent ' open government license "should be standard license.

And Martin Moore Media standards trust tweets today

People the right to be skeptical abt public Data Corporation-says @ countculture http://ow.ly/3DQ9t > supporters of # opendata to get stuck in

Taggart adds that it is important that the announcement comes from BIS, considered to be a little slow on the open data front by human rights defenders:

My sources tell me the proposal in fact originate from BIS, and thus could be seen as an attempt to operators to exploit the sending open data agenda, as a way to close it down, stifle it, if you like

The official release makes it sounds vague, but soothing. Business Minister Edward Davey from BIS, that says:

It will provide stability and legal certainty for companies and entrepreneurs, attract investments these operations must retain their capabilities and drive growth in the economy. It will also provide better value for taxpayers by driving down costs and make the process more efficient

And Francis Maude, champion open data under the Liberal-Conservative coalition Government says that it is about "maximizing the benefits of" opening up public data:

Are faced with a conflict between maximizing revenue from the sale of data and make data freely available to be used for social and economic loss on the current number of government agencies. Create PDC will enable conflicts in at least to be managed consistently to the opening of access and, at best, be eliminated

Mysociety's Tom Steinberg-much a part of the Government's transparency agenda as a member of the public sector transparency Board-wrote, however, on a BULLETIN BOARD, it could go to MySociety either way:

This change could be good or bad … I do not believe the changes, which could be neutral. This is because the current situation is in my opinion so crappy that ' no change ' definitely would be a bad thing.

If you are a natural cynic, you just say the Government has already decided to discuss everything off to the highest bidder. If you take this position, and give up without a fight, will people in Whitehall and trading funds who wish to make it almost certainly win.

But if you believe me when I say things are finely balanced, to either side could win, and enough well-organized external pressure could really make a difference in the next year, so that you don't just bitch, you get the hang of.

I give up on some of my time almost every week in order to fight this battle, and so people like Michael Cross and Charles Arthur [co-founders of free our Data campaign]. But retrieves the PDC to be things hackers need to be will take more than that-it will take real grass-roots pressure, and the pain and happiness.

Computerworld's Glyn Moody is also sceptical or at least agnostic:

[Open data] is actually part of a wider move towards a more transparent, collaborative kind of democracy-and this means seeks input from all interested parties before major decisions. It is particularly important for an organization that calls itself the public Data Corporation: we need to know just how open, and just how public it will really be

Here at Datablog, we will try to get to the bottom of this in the next few weeks. Because it sounds like we need a lot of time. Taggart quit his piece with a call to arms:

We have been perhaps 6 months to make this story, turn out good for open data, and good for the wider society

What do you think?

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