Google doesn't get 'social', but Apple doesn't understand the Internet

Exhibit A: iTunes (the service) is essentially blocked off from being accessed by people who don't have iTunes (the program) installed. This becomes VERY obvious if you run Linux. The App Store and the iTune music library are not easily searchable or browseable from your Linux PC.<p>3rd party websites that do this instead aren't really the point, either.

I think it would be more accurate to say that from Apple's perspective 'the internet' is more than just the World Wide Web. Apps (and desktop applications) are peers to the browser - not something that necessarily has to run within it.<p>Part of the reason so much online activity shifted to the web in the web 1.0 era was that the browser sidestepped the problems of distributing and updating client applications.<p>With its app stores, Apple has solved these problems, and put applications back on an equal footing with web apps.<p>Whether or not this is is the winning strategy over the long term remains to be seen, but I think it's hard to make the case that Apple doesn't understand the internet.

Apple understands the internet, it just doesn't like what it sees. There's a lot of smut, hate speech, pirated content, and malware out there.<p>Just as Google has tried to do with its search engine, Apple is building a system that makes it easy to find quality content. Content that is legal, age rated and doesn't harm your devices. A lot of families value those qualities over 'absolute freedom'.

Thinking about the questions at the end,<p>Microsoft is (or was) really good at backwards compatibility (and making it easy to import other formats into their own). This is their weakness: they are focused on getting content into their own formats.<p>Facebook's strength is to get people to impart information into their system. Their weakness is in always trying to make it public (or at the least visible to anyone you friend)

"Google doesn't know how to have fun"<p>Has anyone ever actually said this? Between the logo doodles, April fools jokes, and bright colors, Google is one of the funnest companies around.

What this is basically saying is that the software these companies create doesn't understand the complexities and chaos of human interaction and thought.<p>Pretty sure people have been working on this problem for a while, and it won't be solved anytime soon.

Apps are a return to the walled garden -- the anti-Internet, if you will.

iOS tries hard to make web apps first class citizens. And the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript parts that make this possible are in HTML5.<p>It's not that Apple doesn't understand the internet, it's that many geeks want "native" apps, rather than having web apps on mobile devices. Apple tolerates these apps, but just barely, and offers the web as the way out of their walled garden.

I'd venture to say the internet doesn't get Apple. Many geeks are just anti anything Apple, and have an irrational hatred for them.<p>Apple have made huge contributions to the internet, such as Webkit, promoting web standards, the iPhone and yes, even the iTunes store - still the biggest internet-based media distribution channel.

The author claims that Google doesn't "get" social because social relies on messiness and Google's forte is providing order. However, Facebook, an organization who does seem to understand social exceedingly well, is known for its emphasis on organization. We see stories about the higher-ups in Facebook, such as Zuckerberg, and their heavy hitters whom have gone on to other projects (colloquially known as the "Facebook Mafia") all sharing this desire to organize messy, chaotic information across numerous domains.<p>If Facebook succeeds in social, at least in part because of its attention to order and organization, why is this fatal for Google?

&#62;<i>"What, for example, is Microsoft really, really good at? Or Facebook?"</i><p>Microsoft is really good at B2B.<p>Facebook has a great email replacement because it does not fill your inbox with your friend's vacation photos, but still provides the opportunity to view them.

I think facebook understand human intra-actions. It understand community. But it lacks understanding complications in relationships. What is lacks is understanding of what is excess of usual social-ness. I dont really think they are helping anyone with their social gaming time-waste-con or their wall post advertisements or lot of means to do completely unproductive stuff.<p>For Microsoft its simple. They understand customers, and they understand that avg customer never needs over-excellence in product. So, they would never be creative like apple, or tech-savvy like google. Its sad, but the software giant will never be upto the mark when it comes to driving technology and innovations.

People buy Apple because they like the way they work in comparison to everything else. Since a lot of people seem to be buying Apple devices, by extension does that mean a lot of people don't understand the internet?

This article doesn't make sense. Recap: Apple gets people but doesn't get the internet because the internet is too messy. Google gets the internet but doesn't get people because people are too messy.

what is this article about? It is totally random, not edited. It clearly lacks lack of thought.

Google has failed multiple times at launching social apps. Is there an equivalent series of Apple failures from being too controlling? If not, what makes this a blindspot?

Internet != Web

Also I think Google get social, they appreciate it's potential but just haven't succeeded at it yet. They weren't focused on it.