Will Google Bite The Karmic Weenie?

For Mac fans, the annual CES (consumer electronics show) is an appetizer for the MacWorld Expo. Every year, attendees and those who score at home are treated to the freshest, biggest, most outlandishly expensive and coolest gizmos the non-Apple world has to offer. Apple fans who tune in can expect to see a steady stream of iPod killers that, inevitably, will be about as effective at killing the iPod as crocodile fat is at being a baldness cure. While the “iPod Killer” may be the most overplayed theme at the show, occasionally, something emerges from the CES that is worthy of the attention of Mac users. This year’s item of interest was Google’s new video service.

For the happily unaware, the story can be encapsulated as follows. Google is starting a video service, a service that at least partly follows the less popular model of buying videos rather requiring a subscription. Contrast this with the majority of soon to be online video services which, surprise, follow the cash gouge subscription model solely. Google also eschews the other industry standard: DRM from Microsoft. Instead, Google will be providing their own DRM for the content providers that wish to use DRM. When all is said and done what you are basically left with is an iTunes type store using Google’s DRM that lacks iPod compatability.

Clearly, this is a direct assault on Apple. Such an obvious attack leaves Apple fans in an immediate quandary: Competing against Apple is bad but Google is a pure good, even their motto is “Don’t Be Evil.” It is a mind-boggling dilemma, the kind of thing that Captain Kirk would clearly cite to confuse a planet-ruling computer so badly that it would self-destruct. The first notion we need to put to bed is that just because a company competes directly with Apple that the mere competition somehow makes that company less likable or a more evil corporate entity. Apple isn’t perfect and more competition isn’t always a bad thing, even for Apple. So Google’s entry into the market should not, suddenly, catapult Google into the greasy black hell most Mac users reserve for Microsoft and, now, H&R Block.

From a Google -v- Apple perspective, everything is groovy. The real danger is to Google and it lies with the risks Google is assuming with this initiative, the risks to Google’s image and identity. Google, as it has been previously noted, is widely considered to be the ultimate good in computing. The feel good aura surrounding Google isn’t surprising, after all, the company has been carefully managed to appear friendly and helpful to their legions of users worldwide.

It all starts with the motto: “Don’t Be Evil.” A simple statement and one most of us probably try to live by. In the case of Google, it could be rewritten “Don’t Be Microsoft” and have the same meaning and impact. Google does not want to be seen as a profit snuffling company that is constantly trying to wring every last penny from their users wallets. Put differently: Google doesn’t want to be seen as the next Microsoft, even if that is what they yearn to eventually become.

The happy vibe continues with the deft use of humor. Google is constantly making cute jokes, replacing their standard graphic with a seasonal/custom logo (still Googlized) to mark interesting days and making sure writers are constantly writing stories about what a great place Google is for the employees. So, you have a group of people who don’t take themselves too seriously and provide employees with excellent working conditions? What isn’t to love? It is as if some hippy commune served gourmet food and just, incidentally, turned a profit.

Which is enough to make investors happy, but to get people to actually use their services, Google has to offer superior performance. Currently, the Google search engine, with its complicated algorithms, is thought to be the hands down winner in the search wars. Yet Google suffers, though less so, from the same limitations as other search engines. For example, type in Thunderbird and you’ll get an idea of the limitations. Were you looking for information about a car made by Ford? The crack Air Force flying squad? The mythical beast that carries off the children of Illinois? There are ways around these frustrations but a smarter search engine could always replace Google. One is certainly on the way. In the future, pundits assure us, these problems will be eliminated and the skies will be safe for our flying cars. The point is that Google is vulnerable; even if people love their search engine today, their tastes can change in an instant if a better option comes along.

Wisely, Google also offers a mail service, Google Maps, Google Desktop, Google Donut Finder etc. What do all of these products have in common? They are all in perpetual beta and they are all free. People don’t expect too much out “free” and, even if they do (techy types), slapping the Beta tag on a product is an excuse to not have it work in all circumstances and in all environments. The truth is that Google’s Betas are much better than many competitors’ final products but Google manages to keep expectations purposely low.

This brings us back to Google’s new video service. For the first time Google will be asking end users, instead of advertisers, to foot the bill. And that might cause some problems. If a kindly neighborhood kid comes by to mow your lawn and does a halfway decent job of it for free, you’ll sit on your porch and marvel over the fantastic job little Bobby did. Bobby may be regaling you with various advertisements while mowing your lawn but the service is “free” so you’ll gush. If you’re paying little Bobby fifty bucks to mow your over fertilized patch of green you’re going to demand a lot more. The spots little Bobby missed when the service was free now suddenly seem like wide open prairies, that sprinkler head the pre-teen busted with every mowing now seems like wanton carelessness. You soon start to wonder about little Bobbie’s work ethic and if he is spending the fifty spot you grudgingly pay him on drugs.

None of that means that Google can’t pull it off, though there are reasons to think the road may be difficult. For now you have to sit in front of computer to watch the video, the DRM is proprietary and content providers are allowed to charge whatever sum they wish for the shows. The last one may sound like a prescription for over-priced doom, but content providers are aware of demand curves even if they constantly seem to ignore them. The big risk for Google isn’t that the venture will be unprofitable, the big risk is that the average Joe will stop seeing Google as a groovy uncle who gives excellent toys just to be nice and start seeing Google as the fast food employer who says they want the job to “fun.” If that happens Google will, in the words of copywriter Steve Hayden commenting on Apple’s Lemmings Ad in 1985, have bitten the “karmic weenie.”