It’s easy to make fun of Google’s “Don’t be evil” philosophy. Just like it was easy to make fun of Al Gore.<\/p>\n
Remember how “fun with Al Gore” turned out? We got Dick Cheney.<\/p>\n
Maybe we should give Google a bit more credit, because the main rival to Google is the Dick Cheney of the online world – Facebook. Their motto isn’t so much “be evil” as “whatever it takes”.<\/p>\n
Facebook is bad. I no longer suggest friends join up. Fortunately most of my friends who did join are drifting away, tired of account hacks, app scams, and the hopeless task of working with a demonic vendor (shades of pre-reform health insurance). Facebook’s numbers keep rising, but there are fewer people I know participating. That’s a bit funny. Does anyone audit that stuff?<\/p>\n
It’s a bit of a shame though. There are a lot of non-App things that Facebook did that I like. I hoped Google would give us a real alternative, but instead we got Buzz. There’s more wrongness at Google than we know about.<\/p>\n
So if Google can’t do it, who has the brand and the money and the reach and the business savvy and just-enough evilness to deliver Facebook type services and a first-class user experience without Facebook-class evil?<\/p>\n
Cough.<\/p>\n
Ok, so I admit Apple has struggled with the online world for a while (emphases mine) …<\/p>\n
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