Let’s get this out of the way now if it wasn’t apparent through my older posts, I am a Google fan. They throw mounds of free tools at us, the way they interconnect every single one of their applications makes it easier for individuals, and businesses alike, to work more efficiently, and they epitomize the cool tech company. For all of this outward growth and movement it’s impossible not to have the occasional stumble, Google wave anyone? Below I discuss where, despite my love for Google, I believe they’ve gone too far.
If you weren’t out grilling and enjoying the suppressive heat of the summer you might have already heard the news through TechCrunch on Saturday about Google, not Google Ventures, investing over 100 million dollars to Zynga for the secretive and upcoming Google Games launch. If you’re unfamiliar with Zynga they are the company responsible for crippling middle aged women’s lives.
Yes they are the creators of Farmville. The move is odd considering Zynga’s closely intertwined with Facebook. Still the ability to contend with Facebook, something Google has wanted to do for awhile, is probably why Zynga has already raised around a half billion dollars. With that kind of capital you can be sure Google is ready to take a stab at the social media market.
Despite the haughty nature of Zynga’s past discretions, Google stands to generate a decent amount in the first quarter of 2011, projected sales for Zynga alone are 1.0 billion. With the ability to have users logged in to play games will allow Google to begin tracking data that previously was only possible by Facebook. A huge amount of people, 15 million unique visitors in May alone, are invested in these games and continue coming back month after month. With money, visitors, and information like that it’s no surprise Google wishes to jump in the ring.
It’s clear why Google would want to tap into the social media market but I’m just not sure if it will, ultimately, be ethical. We are getting to a point in technology where one company could conceivably hold a monopoly in almost every facet of information acquisition throughout the Internet.
I realize that taking one monopoly, Facebook, and creating a competitor is healthy but we have to look at a possible conclusion – Google wins. They then have the ability to not only define API target marketing, like Facebook does, but could possibly utilize search results to populate that marketing as well. Awkward and even more invasive than technology is already.
I know I sound like a Luddite and perhaps I’m being overtly paranoid; Google may once again offer a streamlined, cool, superior service. It is debatable to what extent one company should be allowed to hold such personal information from so many different facets. Additionally, for a company so invested in creating viable spam free content it’s surprising that they would work with a company accused of the very thing. Only time will tell as Google Games is slated to launch later this year.
