The BrandForward Blog

I got this thing all figured out.

The universe, you know.

Once upon a time there was nothing. And then after a “Big Bang” there was something.

And as things started expanding there was a lot more of this something. And then the universal momentum waned and gravity took over. Things contracted. Once again there was nothing.

You’ll have to forgive me. I saw Star Trek this weekend.

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Oh I can just hear it.

“Why Rothchild, look at those pathetic little boats in the distance. Why ever are they paddling away? Don’t they know this is the Titanic? The greatest most indestructible ship the world has ever built?”

“Wretched parasites I say! Let them play on their little Twitters and YouTubes. Let them float along on their blogs. We’re on the Titanic, daaahling. Their miniscule machinations are of no concern to us.”

Ah, don’t you just love big media.

Apparently Google does. A lot more than it loves providing untainted search results. Because Google has decided to dance with the devil. To officially usher big media through the velvet rope. Right past those pesky blogging parasites.

And to justify this sacrilege they’re calling it “trusted results.”

Gee thanks, Google. Trust “this.”

What puzzles me is this move by Google barely got a whimper of response from the blogosphere. Where were the chanting protestors? Where were the snarky T-shirts? I was ready to burn my hard drive. Just couldn’t find a ready bonfire.

This is a big freakin’ deal. Big media basically slept on the Titanic while steerage rowed to shore. Web 1.0 and 2.0 happened while big media put the blinders on and continued with business as usual. They didn’t pay much attention to the pesky bloggers, sneered haughtily at MySpace and Facebook, and for a brief minute discounted Twitter. But then something dawned on them. If everyone in the steerage section can have their own boats, who needs the Titanic?

Engines full stop!!!

So committees were formed and meetings were had. Big media was having none of this. They after all, had gotten the steerage to the other side of the ocean in the first place. What right do these parasites have to abandon ship now?

Enter Google. Who now wants to placate big media by throwing out one of those 100 mile-wide trawling nets to drag everyone back into the boat for a big happy kum ba yah.

Forget that it’s sinking. Forget that it’s a lumbering oaf that can no longer glide agilely through the water. Did I say it’s sinking?

Google can prop up “trusted brands” for only so long before the Twitterers and YouTubers break free of the net and eventually find their way to shore. Google can pacify big media with digital harpoons to stop internet users from easily accessing those parasitic bloggers but eventually, steerage will make it to shore. And unfortunately for Google it won’t be what it apparently considers the “right” shore. Oops!

Tropic of Twitter, anyone?

Now maybe the reason this whole “trusted brands” thing has gone down without so much as a squeak is because it’s an insidious kind of misstep. The kind that doesn’t look so bad at first but eventually oozes over and turns an unnatural shade of green and results in the untimely amputation of a limb. And Google will surely traipse along for awhile as if nothing happened. Merrily building its internal structure like the skeleton of the Death Star. But eventually the damage will surface. That magical thing that made Google as ubiquitous as toilet paper will disappear. Sucked down the big porcelain vortex.

Yes, I did just compare Google to toilet paper.

Okay forget the toilet paper. This is the paragraph to cut and paste. This is why Google’s bow to big media is so huge. If internet users wanted a “trusted brand” they would skip Google and go straight to the brand site to begin with. Those “trusted” sites have been there all along. So if big media and “trusted” brands were what users wanted, Google wouldn’t have gotten such a foothold in the first place. Big media would already be getting primo page rank. Nothing to have meetings about. Nothing to twist Google’s arm over. And duh! Big media had the same opportunities as everyone else for building links and engaging in social media and gaining basic trust to achieve page rank. They just didn’t feel the need to associate with steerage. Until they started rowing…. AWAY.

Ding!

So what we have here is this shiny new algorithm to artificially alter page rank. To expose users to what they were running from in the first place. They didn’t want the corporate party line. They wanted the raw stuff. The untrusted stuff. The whole reason Google gained such huge market share is because people want content that’s REAL. Not manufactured. Not politicized. Not meted out in pre-packaged seal-of-approval bite-size morsels. Users wanted access. And to be accessed. On their own terms.

Google saw the lighthouse through the fog and created a product that leveraged the human desire to KNOW. The desire to communicate, connect, listen, and be heard. Without interference. WITHOUT INTERFERENCE. This is what Google gave us. A central place to find what matters. And to create what matters. Wrapped up in a neat little equal opportunity package. All of the AdSense and Analytics, the AdWords and Gmail, the Reader, the iGoogle. That’s just icing. The cake has always been the search.

And what made Google blaze past Yahoo! and whatever those other search engines were that we’ve now since forgotten ever existed, (oh yeah my favorite, MS SiN) is that it provided a level playing field and gave internet users “innocent” results. Sure, there were algorithms to handle spam, and a recent middle-of-the-night tweak to boost “recent” results to compete with Twitter. But ultimately users could trust Google results. If a story or a blog or a site or a page ranked high it was because someone trusted it. A lot of someones. Or better yet, it was something original. There was really never a need to manufacture another level of trust. It was already established.

So guess where this leaves us? Right where we’ve been trying to get away from: Big media dominating the news and controlling the minds of the masses. Telling us who we want as President. Telling us which morals are acceptable and which are passe. Squeezing out the voice of anyone who could make a real difference. (Anyone remember how the networks put the pinch on Ron Paul?) Is this really the same media you want influencing (controlling) Google?

Oh hey! China would love this. And all those other countries that use the iron grip of censorship… banning and controlling what the populace is exposed to. Maybe China can have a meeting with Google so they can have their own version of “trusted results.” I’m visualizing a “trusted results” algorithm for people who live in Israel. And one for Iran. And one for… New Jersey.

All of the sudden ‘trusted results” have become “tainted results.”

So while big media was missing the boat, Google was missing the point. The beauty of Google and search engine ranking has always been that anyone can rise based on a combination of quality of content and strategic linking. And then Google has to go and pull the plug on its own juice. Compromising what made itself relevant to begin with.

Dropping itself several places in my mental page rank.

Google, are you paying attention? I know your little crawlers will be stopping by in the next 3-5 days.

Funny, I get the feeling I may eventually be looking for a missing Gmail account.

I’m a little confused here. Haven’t magazines learned anything from the music industry?

Some questionable protests were recently made by Time Inc.’s CEO Ann Moore that are the epitome of what I’ll call the “digeration gap.” Apparently she preached at some college students that “good information costs money.” By her own admission they started to throw shoes at her.

What should have been a newsflash for Moore turned out to be more of a bake sale challenge. Instead of walking away from that interaction with a renewed quest for finding a viable business model that works with emerging technologies and the evolving consumer climate, she gave lip service to the idea of a new model in one breath, while reinforcing her own perceptions in the next:

“I think it is time for Time Inc. to sit down and seriously think, what is the model? We are going to have to figure out a way to have paid content in the future.”

Our little peek into Moore’s business strategy speaks volumes. Time Inc. intends to look for answers by going back to the old business model: subscriptions. They’re taking a move from the RIAA play book and repackaging it. They’re not looking for a new way of doing things. They’re looking for a new way to do it the old way.

What’s happening at this critical juncture is that some really smart people are just not getting it. Yesterday’s business model will not work now. And it really won’t work tomorrow. But instead of being at the forefront of developing this new model, a lot of key executives are trying to bulldoze past it, hoping somehow it’ll turn into fertilizer for their own crop.

So this is the digeration gap. The difference between people and companies who embrace the internet and the future of information, and the ones who are still in love with the way things were, and desperately hang onto the “tired and true” way of doing things.

There’s one little piece of information that those on the wrong side of the digeration gap are failing to realize: Tomorrow’s business model is about the individual, not the corporation. Executives like Moore are trying to come up with a model that supports the corporation, that reinforces widespread control, that focuses on selling a lot of things to a lot of people from a central point of vantage. And they honestly believe they’re being strategic and logical about it. Sure. But it’s as if they’re trying to play major-league baseball on a croquet course. Things aren’t fitting but they’d rather fumble around instead of just looking down.

Another comment made by Moore that’s hurting my head like a blunt object:

“Who started this rumour that all information should be free and why didn’t we challenge this when it first came out?”

Wasn’t it some Chinese fellow that said “the answer is in the question?”

Moore wants to know why “we didn’t challenge it.” I think the real question should have been “why didn’t we challenge ourselves?” Companies that fall into the digeration gap are the ones that aren’t just asking the wrong questions, they’re also looking for the wrong answers.

Let’s take one more look at this doozy:

“Good information costs money.”

Now that’s the ultimate rub. Good information no longer costs money. As more people on the planet gain the ability to communicate to a mass audience, it’s clear that quality reporting can be done by someone without an editor breathing down their neck, without the necessity of a “Baghdad Bureau,” and without the corporate structure propping them up (and no doubt influencing them). Time Inc. is operating on the concept that information is expensive, and that to survive they need to keep it expensive.

Yeah, I realize they have this big huge multi-national corporation to run, but the consumer doesn’t care. Ann Moore can do the lecture circuit at every high school and university on the planet trying to convince the next generation they should pay for information. Hell, she can turn it into LollaPAYlooza and bring the RIAA and MPAA with her. I hope she has a lot of room in her closet. The shoes will be forthcoming.

Job number one for corporations like Time Inc. should be one thing: “How do we maintain ownership of the space we’ve built in our consumer’s mind over the last 50 years.” Because right now the one thing they stand to walk away from the ashes with is their brands. Brand as in mindshare. When the magazines shut down and the newspapers fold and the television networks are lost in a sea of original non-network INDIVIDUAL content, the brands will be all that’s left.

As aging corporations use their might and brawn to resist their forced approach to the ledge of the digeration gap, they have only two choices:

Corpse or phoenix.