Google Snags Adam Lasnik
A couple of months ago, it looks like Google hired Adam Lasnik to be a Webmaster Advocate, or Search Evangelist. Adam’s new job is being described as a MiniMatt, a second Matt Cutts, giving Google a more honest and open voice both outside and inside the GooglePlex. Outside, he’ll be “hanging out at Webmaster conferences and various geek gatherings, occasional replying to Google-related blog or forum posts, tackling some Webmaster-related e-mails”, and inside, acting as an advocate for those of us on the outside, making sure our concerns are given equal weight inside the ‘Plex.
I think this is beyond great. First off, I’ve been reading Bladam, his blog, for a long while, and they couldn’t have picked a better person. Adam certainly knows his stuff, and has a certain honesty and perspective severly lacking at Google. Also, Google has had a problem the last few months, with public opinion turning against them far faster than it ever did against Microsoft, and while Google isn’t considered completely “evil” yet, it hasn’t done much to fight that feeling. By hiring someone to bridge that gap between Googlers and the rest of the world, Google may not have to fight the same fight Microsoft is dealing with right now.
The fact is, there are some great people at Microsoft, most notably Scoble, who fight every day to get the world to realize how hard that company works. There are some people that are genuinely convinced that if they could get into Bill Gates’ office, they’d find plans for world domination and cheating users, for charging the hell out of customers, making Windows buggy on purpose, and a million other things. The fact is, there are tens of thousands of people at Microsoft doing their damndest to put out good products, and millions of man-hours of work gets dismissed because it comes from the “evil empire”, and the evangelists and product managers at Microsoft fight every day a losing battle against public opinion.
Google has been travelling down that same path. Worse, they’ve been better at it than Microsoft has. I think that at this point, there are many people who don’t want to trust Google anymore. There is a growing number of people who want Google to fail, so that nicer, more honest, more transparent companies, like Yahoo, can succeed. To be honest, if you gave Yahoo everything Google has created, but let Yahoo keep its corporate culture, would you prefer it to the Google we have? Maybe, maybe not, but the idea sounds so tempting.
I want Google to succeed. I don’t want them to crush all comers (I’d like it if Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask and AOL all succeeded as well), but I do feel a certain affinity for Google. I don’t trust Google, and I trust them less every month, but I still like them, and respect them, and I hope that they face they present is as inaccurate as the face Microsoft used to present. I hope I’m wrong about Google, and I think the entire internet hopes so too.
Hiring someone whose job is to be honest with the rest of the world, and to bring some honesty into the closed community that is Google, could not come at a better time, and is a needed shot in the arm for a company that has earned every bit of bad press Google has received. It isn’t enough, but it is a great start. Microsoft hiring Scoble was a great start, and things have improved from there. Lets see Google build from this, and start treating its users with respect.
Here’s part of what Adam has to say, in explaining it on his blog:
My main focus is on broadening communications between Google and Webmasters… learning as much as I can from both Matt and the Webmasters he chats with so amiably and then building upon this rapport. Or, more colloquially, as it’s been joked around the office, my uber-challenging goal is to become a “MiniMatt.” Though a colleague did note that a MiniMatt sounds like a scary cross between a convenience store and a diminutive vaccum cleaner. Hmm.
I’ll also be a “Webmaster Advocate” inside the Googleplex. I’ve seen firsthand that tons of folks here already eagerly read and appreciate Google- and search-related comments throughout the Web; I’ll be doing what I can to expedite concerns, bug reports, and other feedback to the right colleagues.
But I can’t always keep up with everything going on outside Google, especially when I’ve got a traditional set of duties in the quality group and webspam. In normal Google tradition, when you have too much work for one CPU to do, you shard it across multiple computers. So I asked my manager if I could shard myself, and my manager said yes. After that, I kept my eyes open for people that I’d seen around the web and respected. I wanted someone with knowledge of search and who was intelligent, nice, patient, and well-spoken. When I saw that Adam was available, I invited him down to lunch, and I liked him a lot.
I fail to see how Yahoo is more honest or has a better corporate culture, given the China incidents, and how they continually just try to spin around it, and other issues they have(ads in spyware products, aggressive software bundling, and so on). I think you prefer the Yahoo culture/personality over Google’s culture/personality (and also that you had some kind of personal bad experience with Google). But that does not mean Yahoo is more honest.
The fact is every major corporation has faults, and I don’t think Google has more than others, it’s just that because they have become so much a part of people’s lives, when they do wrong it is felt more. In fact, I think Yahoo should worry that people are not more hurt when they do wrong, like with MS and Google.
Comment by or | May 14, 2006
Yahoo has made some horrible mistakes in China, obviously, but they have not alienated the companies they have to work with to have a future in the long-term. No one is afraid to work with Yahoo, to collaborate and make business deals, and no one accuses them of trying to control people’s private lives when they release new products. No one is perfect, but some people are more honest.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | May 14, 2006
One important factor to always remember is that Google Yahoo and MSN are offering FREE quality products and services to the world.
No one is forced to use them, but hundreds of millions are now DEPENDING on them.
Sometimes it is easy to take for granted the:
Free Search Engines
Free News Access
Free Emails
Free Web Hosting
Free Blog Hosting
Free Software
Free Web Services
Free Chat
Free IM
Free VOIP
etc…etc…etc..
GYM certainly have their flaws, but society is SO-O much better off that they are around and doing what they do in our lifetime. So much has happened in just one generation.
Comment by Search Engines WEB | May 14, 2006
Nathan, I think you are over-estimating, due to much media attention, how much businesses
don’t want to work with Google (last I checked several businesses and growing are working with them). Remember, they are not yet as mature a company as Yahoo.
For Google, you’ll have to be honest about the reasons *some* businesses are afraid. It’s partly because of their fast and profitable rise. Yahoo is a bit more tame. And unlike Yahoo, Google was not as open about their plans/products. That’s a difference in culture. You can say Yahoo talks more about their plans. But I know many people who are not as open as others- some of them are dishonest, and some are not- it’s just their personality. Do you have to tell everything you’re doing to be honest? No, instead intentionally misleading others is being dishonest. For competitive reasons, Google seems to have built a culture of keeping their internal stuff a secret, which have caused them to surprise the business world in their rise, but is hurting them now that they are large. Now, you don’t like that culture, and the business world doesn’t, and they do need to open up more, but that’s not necessarily a reflection on their integrity. Again, you can tell that over the last couple of months that they have learned the need to mature in this area.
In my opinion when it comes to privacy, Google is more straightforward than Yahoo. Google’s installation messages are among the few that grabs your attention, and warns of what’s being shared with their servers.(their decision to make this so clear may have fueled some of the debate). Also, Yahoo has more info about its users than Google, and close to as much search history, but we are more publicly aware of Google’s gathering practices than Yahoo. Nathan, you are well aware that the privacy accusations regarding Google are often overblown in relation to other companies.
Btw, I think Yahoo is a great company. But I think they have faults like Google, only that in different areas. And, I agree that Google have problems, but like MS, due to success their problems are sometimes unfairly focused on more than than other companies.
Comment by or | May 14, 2006
Well, lots of things to respond to in that article! But I think one of the big things is that, the way it reads, you’re letting Microsoft off way too easy.
The other thing is that it seems in one part of the article you give little weight to how much impact one or a few people can have, but in other parts of your article a single person can have a huge effect. Granted you’re talking about a company’s public face when you’re talking about one person having an effect, but remember that Microsoft earned it’s reputation. It’s not (just) for lack of them having a good PR person.
Comment by Step | May 15, 2006
This does seem like a good move for Google. Somehow I’ve never liked Yahoo and I probably never will. Maybe I’m holding a grudge against them for cluttering up their main page (http://search.yahoo.com isn’t cluttered) years ago, but I still feel like their search isn’t nearly as relevant as Google, Ask, or Microsoft’s.
Comment by Niraj | May 15, 2006
Nathan, thank you for the kind words. I am blessed with hardworking and caring colleagues here, and I’m truly optimistic that our good intentions will become more visible in the months to come.
“Openness” is not controlled by a simple on-off switch. It’s challenging for so many reasons, but I’ve now seen firsthand that Google’s committed to becoming more open, sharing more, communicating more.
Comment by Adam Lasnik | May 16, 2006