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Do you wonder about the future of the Web?
I do! So did Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Let’s recapitulate what he predicted during his reign at Google!
Who is Eric Schmidt and why should we care?
Over the years Eric Schmidt — formerly CEO and chairman of Google — has been an ambiguous figure.
He has been known for giving some intriguing insights into
- the Internet
- and the future of technology.
Some of his remarks were very controversial to say the least.
Many things he has expressed were hidden between the lines.
Eric Schmidt has given us lots to think about no matter whether you think Google is advantageous for your business or not.
Schmidt is one of the people who decided how the future of the Web will look like.
Thus even now after having been replaced as Google CEO it’s great to know what he predicted.
As we know Sundar Pichai has been the leading figure over at Alphabet since 2015.
While Pichai is the boring accountant type of guy Schmidt was the more outspoken flashy type of CEO.
In fact it’s eye opening to read old interviews with Eric Schmidt and compare his words from back then to the situation today.
2007: Google will never track user data
A while ago I’ve reread an interview from 2007 where Schmidt stated, let me cite:
“Can users get their own data and e.g. give it to Yahoo?
Schmidt says that:
‘Google has made a commitment never to track personal data (search history, Gmail etc).’
He says that:
‘end users wouldn’t choose to adopt the services Google offers otherwise.’”
Just think about it. How much their strategy has changed!
Google services now not only are collecting all kinds of private data, you can download it now as well.
Many privacy scandals followed.
The one with Google Streetview cars collecting Wifi spot passwords and reading private emails was just the worst one.
At the same time Facebook has been even more negligent about privacy and people did not leave.
Thus Google was able to change its approach altogether as well. They just realized that nobody really cares.
Google knew early how important user data collection is for manifold reasons.
That’s the core of this quote even though it was proven to be wrong.
Nowadays Google uses all kinds of tools to collect data about its users, with AI tools being the worst offender in this area.
That’s why we should care.
Schmidt shows how standards and ethics change at will.
2011: Siri is better than Google
When Eric Schmidt responded to the US senate in 2011 he tried to make the officials believe that Google is not a monopoly.
He was explaining that there is already a better new search out there.
It’s the virtual assistant called Siri you can use since the iPhone 4S.
He was trying to convince the regulators that Google is no threat for the free market.
While at it he revealed some intriguing insights about the future of search and beyond.
Eric Schmidt said that
“history shows that popular technology is often supplanted by entirely new models.”
A few weeks after the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri.
Its voice-activated search and task-completion service was built into the iPhone 4S.
As one respected technology site reported (line breaks added by me):
“[E]veryone keeps insisting that Apple will eventually get into the search engine business. Well they have.
But not in the way that everyone was thinking. Siri is their entry point.”
Another commentator has described Siri more simply as intended to be a ‘Google killer.’”
Schmidt was trying to convince government officials that Apple’s Siri is the next big thing in search technology.
He argued that it will actually prevent a Google monopoly in this market.
Of course everything Eric Schmidt says has some purpose.
Here he aimed to convince lawmakers that there is still some competition in the search industry.
His main point: there is no need for regulation by the government.
Likewise in the quote above he meant to explain why Google is trying to keep its users.
It’s all about privacy evidently not about the Google bottom line.
Yet by 2024 Apple finally officially declared that it will never compete with Google at search.
They actually work together and Apple pays Google for providing results to Siri!
Reading between the lines is always a good idea with Google spokespeople.
Yet Eric Schmidt has the special talent of the slip of the tongue.
He once exclaimed that you can “just move” in case you don’t like the way Google Streetview depicts your home
Schmidt also told the press that if you have something you want to hide on the Web you shouldn’t do it in the first place.
Just a few months after his controversial statements on online privacy Schmidt has silenced a former lover.
One of the measures he ordered was removing her blog from the Web.
He gained quite a reputation on the Web for his escapades over the years.
So any remarks by Mr. Schmidt have to be taken with a grain of salt.
On the other hand they allowed a sneak peek into the future search strategy of Google.
No matter what Schmidt said about a particular subject the sheer fact that he mentions it means it’s important.
Thus we had to listen to his words to predict Google’s next steps.
We know now that they really care about Siri. What does this mean?
I expected that they would soon launch their own voice recognition based personal assistant to compete with Apple.
Like with Android they were late to the table but they would offer the better product I presumed.
Remember that they were late with search as well.
There were dozens of search engines before Google!
Yet they have managed to solve the first generation search issues of the competing products and excel.
Eric Schmidt aimed to protect Google from regulators insisting on Siri being the next huge leap in search technology.
Yet he also expressed how important this development is for Google.
Google really needs to compete at voice search assistants as well in order to stay competitive overall in the future.
It did. What else was Eric Schmidt talking about?
2011: Opinion is better than algorithms
Eric Schmidt explained why Google acquired local restaurant review service Zagat.
He went on to depict on how they planned to introduce these reviews on on local Google search results.
Reviews on Google are the most important local SEO factor ever since!
Schmidt was of course keen on dismissing the notion that this move is an anti-competitive measure that endangers competing services like Yelp.
He pointed out how quickly Yelp is growing even despite the overwhelming competition from Google’s own local search results.
Eric Schmidt thus confirmed how important local search and reviews will be in the future.
He insisted that Google is of course planning to grab a substantial portion of this market.
What could this mean in particular?
I can imagine that sooner or later Google will show more of its own reviews instead of “scraping” third party content.
Yes Google copies content from sites like Yelp or TravelAdvisor.
Both sites have complained about this practice of using their content.
Let me summarize: Eric Schmidt cares about
- identity
- opinion
- mobile search.
They want to know who you are, where you are and what you think.
Then they want to use this data to provide other people with what they want.
2015: The Internet will disappear
In one of his late interviews as a Google rep in 2015 Schmidt said that “the Internet will disappear”.
He meant to say that the Web will become so ubiquitous that we won’t even notice it anymore.
It was due to the IoT (Internet of Things) that was the hype back then.
This didn’t happen yet it seems.
There are things like home appliances that connect to the Web. Yet we’re still mostly computer or phone bound to connect.
Even TV sets or tablets are less in use than those standard tools.
This is just another example that Schmidt was not very good at predicting in general it seems.
So it’s not just that he misled the public on behalf of Google. He may have simply erred.
The future that did or didn’t happen.
This is the future of search and the Web as a whole according to Eric Schmidt.
Did it happen? Some of it did!
When it comes to Siri and the likes being the next big thing he was right.
It’s your personal assistant knowing everything about you and finding everything you need even before you ask.
It’s called ChatGPT, Gemini (by Google) or Claude nowadays.
* Creative Commons image by the WEF.
