I can't quit you, Google

I'm in a weird love/hate (stronger on the love side) relationship with Google right now. I have been thinking alot about how far we are progressing with computers and technology and how close we are to a Terminator like scenario where technology actually can outwit us -- I believe the NYT wrote an article about this just recently but I haven't been able to find it. With everything that Google knows about me right now, it has got me thinking 'what if Google wants to control the world' and what if their plan turned evil. With all the information I've provided to them about myself, they very likely know everything there is to know about me digitally. My social, my credit cards and bank statements, my employers past and present, my upbringing, what I'm interested in, where I shop, who I'm friends with, what my schedule tends to look like, etc. At this point, I've given Google all this information through a variety of forms - iGoogle, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Google Maps, as well as Google Checkout. And lets not forget Google Wave and Google Voice, both of which are just rolling out but show alot of traction and promise.

I love how easy Google and all of it's products is to use. And I haven't stopped using Google as a result of my fear. I keep telling myself they'd never use my information against me - that's ridiculous. I'm no conspiracy theorist. On the flip side, if they're not going to use my information against me, what's the harm in giving them all this information if they can help me organize and manage my world? With all this information and knowledge at my finger tips, I still haven't found a way to aggregate, organize and manage all my info in a way that really makes sense and makes it easy for me to find what I'm looking for -- if I give Google all my information, they seem the most likely to help organize it in a way that will work for me.

Yet I can't help but wonder why they keep creating all these great applications and then giving them away to consumers? Is it just to hook us so we turn to them for all our application needs or is it something more sinister? As I said, I'm still using Google -- this hasn't scared me away completely, but once they have my information it will be very difficult for me to get it back from them so the longer I use them the more embedded we are together.

The Secret to Their Success

There's been a lot of exciting new things happening lately, even in the midst of this recession. Things like iPhone, Twitter, Hulu, and more recently Bing, the PalmPre which everyone seems to be fawning over, and of course, Google Wave - which I blogged about below. These are just the ones that pop to mind, there are a ton of other technologies and ideas in development. And all of this has prompted me to think about open source. Many businesses that have been around for a long period of time are absolutely petrified of people being able to take their secrets and capitalize on them. Yet, these more recent technologies are not just OK with others having the ability to access their trade secrets, but they're inviting folks to take their idea and make it better. iPhone has allowed anyone to create an app that can be downloaded through iTunes; Twitter has done the same thing -- there are many other applications that have been developed to utilize the basic Twitter concept in new and exciting ways, Google Wave hasn't even been released yet, but Google has unveiled it to all the geeks who are interested in playing with it and making it better. Even Zappos is a fascinating case study in sharing - Tony Hsieh is notorious for his open source style of management and leadership.

This is crowdsourcing at it's finest and it's fascinating to watch. Whereas, a business like Coca Cola keeps their trade secret recipe locked up in a vault with only a select few that know what is actually in Coca Cola, newer businesses are willing to share their work with others in order to collectively make it better.

It's definitely made me wonder - who is right? Is it better to guard your business secrets with your life or to share them; which could potentially lessen your own personal earning potential.

Doing the Wave across the globe

Have you heard about Google Wave, yet? It's a personal communication and collaboration webbased app that's a huge developmental step forward for email from the same folks who brought us Google Maps. I'm not sure it's going to get widespread adoption because it's a completely new way of communicating and the masses may not think they need yet another way but it has the potential to push antiquated email toward extinction if enough folks really embrace it.

I have been wondering whether it could be used at the enterprise level to help manage and share information among functional teams and cross-functional teams. It's a combination instant messaging, email, Twitter, and potentially digital asset/knowledge management system. I haven't actually played with the application yet, but from what I've seen this just may be possible.

For now, it's the buzz at the intergeek level...

Reading a Wave - Who's Blogging What
Hands on With Wave: Weird and Quite Wonderful - CNET
Google's New Wave - Reuter's
Wave: Google's Take on the Future of Communication - VentureBeat
Google Wave First Impressions - Information Week
Google Wave: Our First Hands-on Impressions - Read Write Web
Google Wave - the New Facebook? - Gerson Lehrman Group
Google Waves Me Back to Blogging - Four Elements blog

Apparently I'm not the only one thinking about how Google Wave could be applied at the enterprise-wide business level...

Google Wave Surfing the Future of Collaboration The Forrester Blog
Google Wave Will Cause Some Big Ripples in the Corporate World - CapGemini Blog