The Great Seduction

Keen On: Why Google Is Now A Social Company

It was a first. Yesterday, we were fortunate to welcome Google’s two principle architects of Google+, Vic Gundotra (VP Social) and Bradley Horowitz (VP Product), to the TechcrunchTV studio in San Francisco for an extended interview about what they call their “project”.

So what is Google+? As Gundotra told me yesterday, it is an attempt to “understand people” and to make human relationships the heart of the Google experience. Both Horowitz and Gundotra acknowledge that this is a major project, something that may, in the future, redefine the company. This unGoogle-like goal to,as Horowitz said, put “people first”, may well, in the long run, transform Google from a algorithmic company to a social one.

Gundotra and Horowitz believe that today’s social web has only scratched the service of how to make the Internet into a truly human experience. Google+ is their attempt to transform Google into the leading player of the social age. It’s a massively important project, one that will define the company’s significance in the Web 3.0 age.

Thanks to our readers for sending in so many questions. Many questions came in asking when Google+ was going to add a certain feature. But, to each of these questions, the oracular Horowitz and Gundotra would only say “in the future.” That question and non-answer, therefore, was going to get old pretty quick and I thus mostly avoided this kind of (non)conversation. Many comments were also very specific questions about functionality which weren’t really appropriate for this kind of broad interview. That said, the Google team were happy to hear all the comments and are reviewing the feedback we generated.

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.tv

Keen On… A Super Sad True Love Story

America’s most talented writers are discovering the electronic network. In “Super Sad True Love Story,” Gary Shteyngart’s best selling trip into the digital future, Shteyngart invents a darkly disturbing world in which we all wear electronic pendants around our necks called “apparats” which reveal everything about us to everybody. In the future, he tells us, privacy will be dead and our blazingly public lives will be broadcast by transparent ranking networks (think Klout and Peer Index on steroids).

But, as Shteyngart told me when I caught up with him yesterday, the real challenge for today’s writer is that the future has already arrived. “You can’t make this stuff up”, he told me, while explaining that the present no long exists and that his most fantastic literary inventions such as entirely transparent onion-skin jeans (which reveal all our most intimate jewels) are more than simply figments of his sparkling imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.tv

Keen On… Don’t Steal This Book

“Steal this book,” wrote Abbie Hoffman in 1970. So, today, why should we pay for our books – especially in a digital age where intellectual theft is both ubiquitous and pretty much risk free?

According to Gary Shteyngart, the best-selling author of novels like “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Absurdistan,” paying for his books means that he doesn’t have to work at a gas station or a car dealership. When we pay for one of his books, Shteyngart explained when we spoke earlier this week, it “allows me to produce more work.” Buying a book, he insists, represents an investment in creativity.

And creativity – real creativity – may be at a premium today – at least according to Shteyngart. As he argues, the Internet may be killing our eccentricity and transforming all of us into 140-character conformists. Thus, in today’s networked age, he says, there is an acute need for writers who can grab our attention and drag us away from broadcasting our boring selves on Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

 

 

TechCrunch.tv