There is a buzz in the news about Larry Page's threat to his employees that they will lose 25 percent of their bonuses if they do not get their act together regarding social media. I'll avoid commenting on the concept of threatening employees as a management tool and let Larry find out for himself that it's not a good idea. Instead, let me cut straight to the crux of all this.
Google is scared to death that Facebook will somehow eat its lunch. And the main fear is that a social media-based search can eventually usurp a conventional search engine. That's what this is all about.
We've been hearing about social media-enhanced search everywhere. The premise is that you'll be able to use your friends as some sort of search resource that would be many times better than the "slapdash" results you get from Google.
This is just bullcrap.
First of all, as a mental exercise, let's just take Google and all search engines and destroy them. Now ask your friends to find something for you and see how far you get.
I suppose they could get some results by combing through various directories, but the bulk of navigation within the confines of the Web is done through search engines with their crawlers and bots. I don't see anything changing that. Let's be serious.
Social media does have a distinct power, though. For example, I often use my Twitter account (@therealdvorak) to crowd source information. This is a type of social media-enhanced search. I have enough followers to find out just about anything by asking the followers a specific question—generally one that is not easy to answer with Google. Within 10 seconds, I begin to get results, and they're mostly good results if not great results.
But as a routine mechanism, I can already see the problems inherent with social media search. First of all, you cannot relentlessly hound people to answer your queries. I do it once or twice a week, maybe. I cannot imagine the reaction if I crowd sourced all my Google search queries. I suspect no good would come of it. People would resent it at some point. "Can't this idiot do his own research?"
Then you have to wonder if you really want all your searches out in the open for public scrutiny. Public speculation, comments, and rumors would evolve. "Why is Jane asking these questions? Oh my god, she's pregnant!" Who needs that aggravation?
And then there are the follow-ups. In a social environment, there is a lot of interaction, much of it unwanted.
When I do a Twitter crowd source search, I get my answers within a few minutes. But then they keep coming, often for days. Soon there are hundreds if not thousands. These are also accompanied by queries: "Did you get the answer you were looking for?" "Can you tell me what answer you liked best?" "Did you get my answer, I have not heard from you." And on and on.
In a pure, social search environment, this would quickly become intolerable and every search would now become a burden on the person doing the search. There isn't any burden when you use Google.
Google's problems are not going to be solved by social integration. They were actually created by social media. The problems began when blogs started referencing each other and the company has been fighting these linking problems and other forms of "SEO" that try to game Google.
In fact, Google had to bring real humans in to hand-adjust results because of all this. As far as I'm concerned, it should have more humans involved, not less. That's the kind of "social" the company should re-emphasize. Robots cannot do everything.
As for worrying about Facebook? Puh-leeeze.
You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.
More John C. Dvorak:
Go off-topic with John C. Dvorak.