EightBlack.

I would have been happy to fly all the way from Melbourne just to sit and hear this 30 minute conversation between John Battelle and Eric Schmidt, the unflappable CEO of Google. (Photo courtesy of Wired)

John Battelle is one cool customer. Slick. Professional. And gets the space we play in better than just about anyone I’ve met. He also asks the questions everyone wants answered but dont want to ask themselves.

Again, still amazed by the sheer size and population of the room were sitting in. I’ll hunt for a photo in a minute.

This conversation was picked up by every major newswire within minutes of the interview finishing. Here’s a sample.

Informationweek and Wired.com

Unedited notes:

Battelle = John Battelle
ES = Eric Schmidt

“ES: I’ll give you all a choice as to what we are going to announce today…

1. Gmail comes out of beta
2. Google wireless toilet
3. Food becomes a revenue source
4. Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Very interested in collaboration. (No they’re not, they’re interested in kicking the shit out of MSFT, as they should).

Battelle: This completes the office suite. How will MSFT react?
ES: I dont know, I dont work there…? (he’s ex Sun, Novell etc)

(Laughter….)

ES: Docs and Spreadsheet is not a competitor to Office (pigs bum it aint, but you stick to your story and I’ll stick to mine)

Different way of managing information, casual, sharing.

Battelle: C’mon, its a competitor to MSFT Office….

This provides a free alternative. I’m sure that MSFT will have a response. Presentation, Access, Sharing…

Lets move on then to a small little deal announced last week - DoubleClick. Lets talk about that. Battelle interviewed Sergey back in 2004. Sergey said “We can always do a deal with DoubleClick - but we’d never do that”

Whats changed now in the 3 years… and why?

ES: There are 4 thrusts around Google at the moment…

1. To build the worlds most interesting supercomputers
2. End user solutions (ie Search)
3. Advertising
4. And the way Google is run, culture etc

Need to offer a full set of services in advertising. Obvious online video will have a significant ad component. Advertising is about relevance. DoubleClick is more targeted, better tools since 2004. Advertising tools.

User will be happy because ad will be more targeted and more relevant.

Math of the deal is terrifying to some in the industry.

Schmidt wouldnt comment on the financials. Battelle asked why the number got to a billion more than the number mentioned a week ago. (Google agreed to pay US$3.1 billion when the rumoured number on the table was around the $2 billion mark). Apparently, MSFT are renowned for being cheap when it comes to acquisitions. (I sat next to a MS Developer who works for the Microsoft Live Team). I told him to put his resume on Monster.com (kidding…)

DoubleClick is all about human beings making the decisions. Google is all about automation. How will this work? Integration planning is just beginning.

ES believes Google will be able to provide technology which will allow humans to make better decisions.

JB: Talk about Performix, SEO/SEM business. Whats long term plan with Performix (I think they’ll spin this off)

Google Pack - suite of software. Application that deletes doubleclick cookies. ES reckons they’ll figure it out. You watch, the cookies wont be disabled anymore.

JB started to worry because he does business with Google and DoubleClick

Too much information about his business. (Perry Marshall thinks the same) Here’s an extract of an email I got from Perry last Friday…

“Analytics is a whole world unto itself. I’ve done some promo along those lines but I’m also leery about giving Google more and more and more info…. a dilemma”.

ES: Look, it makes sense to not alienate users, so Google will work this out. We need your business, we need to allay your fears. You dont have to use Google and DoubleClick - there are other options (no there aren’t) but it was a nice thing to say. Schmidt is perceptive, smart, non confrontational.

MSFT started stirring the pot re anti-trust (MSFT and AT&T complaining in the Washington Post and WSJ re anti trust). They’re wrong. Became vocal about this. Customers have lots of choices. ES said they had a chance to buy and lost.

Controversy around Google - involves media.

YouTube copyright - Viacomm. Do you believe the Viacomm approach is a negotiationg tactic. He replied “yes”

Mentioned ABC copyright letter - 16 year old actually sent the letter and requested removal. They did. Then the ABC (the real one) called and said put it back in. Which they did.

YouTube is user generated content. There will be many platforms like this. Doesn’t seem phased by the whole copyright issues.

Just what are Viacomm negotiating?

JB: Referred to Jeff Bezos - What do you make of S3? Asked this question to ES. Schmidt complimentary of S3, Google working on something equivalent but they are going to do it differently. This platform is very powerful. Who else could build this? Only a handful of companies could build this. One group that is missing - the telcos.

Are you concerned about telcos as competitors? ES doesnt see it that way, he sees them as partners. Smart comment, doesnt bait anyone.

Net Neutrality? ES very concerned if NN gets broken or fails. Google could survive if they did have to pay the fees, but it shouldnt be the way.

(Applause by the whole audience after this comment)

Whats interesting to Google? What companies, what technologies?

ES: biggest growth areas, mobile mobile mobile. GPS information in them now. 3G and 4G networks will have tremendous power. Applications and advertising solutions

Local space - big area of growth and big area of interest to Google

Battelle: Eric, whats the very first thing you do when you wake up in the morning, what are you thinking about?

ES: The very first thing! I get on email in the morning….(laughter)

Lets talk about what online means. People are online now all the time. The thing he thinks about all the time now is scaling. ES is a true pro and controls the flow of the conversation

“In order to win on the internet, you have to have a scaling strategy” - Key quote.

For Google, this means - more data centres, more cash flow, more people

How much we have in front of us.

Battelle: One of the largest questions facing all of us - we are creating extraordinary clouds of data, pulling all that information together is Googles mission. But can I (I the individual) pull all that data together? What a great question. ES wants the individual to be able to have this control.

ES on the board of Apple. Does that mean he’ll get the iPhone before everyone else?

ES - Apple is an amazing company. Great people, technology Apple has an office suite, iTunes etc. Is there conflict? No

Summary:

Schmidt and Battelle work well together and its easy to see that they both respect each other. There’s no doubt that Schmidt has has shit together and is driving the company as hard and fast as he can. The key for me at least, is that Google have focus, have direction, know their strengths (and weaknesses) and don’t intend to lose their grip on the market share they have.

It was clear that Google will be in the mobile space, and is working quickly on this. Same goes for computing solutions (the worlds largest supercomputers) and getting people to think differently about how they collaborate with office products (like Word and Excel).

It’s also clear that Google are working furiously on a local search solution.

If MSFT dont think Google are coming after their market - they need to think again. Its an absolute certainty.

Steve Ballmer, who recently referred to Google as being “a one trick pony” might soon find out that this pony has grown into a fully mature racehorse and is about to kick the crap out of them. Worringly, MSFT wont realise its happening unless its too late.

Trouble is - it might already be.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 12:28 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.