Chief information officers (CIOs) have become somewhat more prominent in the executive suite, and a new kind of professional has emerged, the data scientist, who combines the skills of software programmer, statistician and storyteller/artist to extract the nuggets of gold hidden under mountains of data. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, predicts that the job of statistician will become the “sexiest” around. Data, he explains, are widely available; what is scarce is the ability to extract wisdom from them.

Yahoo used to be the “social” human-friendly web company and Google the soulless, algorithm-obsessed robots. Now, Google is synthesizing passive data about user activity using an algorithm. Essentially, they’re letting humans organize the web using passively-generated metadata, versus using active editors.

Google isn’t willing to piss its users off to get to the next level. Zuckerberg is willing to piss off Facebook’s users by changing the platform. He is in the midst of changing his platform once again from something that was only for private friends and family to something that’s more public so that Facebook can effectively compete in search (or, at least, be like Twitter and sell its feeds to Google or Microsoft). Google just isn’t willing to do that over and over.

Google avec les liens promotionnels a fait goûter, à des milliers d’annonceurs, la joie de la mesure de la performance. Une nouvelle génération de CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), qui a grandi avec Google et le culte du ROI, est entrain de prendre le pouvoir. Une génération qui ne se contente plus des « elle est cool cette pub », des « j’adore la créa », ou des « super ton taux d’agrément ». Une génération qui pense que ce que je fais doit être mesurable, traçable, prouvable. Cette génération qui a 35 ans aujourd’hui sera aux commandes des compagnies à la fin de la décennie et imposera au monde du marketing et de la communication des outils de mesure de la performance réellement efficient. Ce changement radical de mode de pensée que d’aucun appelle « Math Marketing » ou « prédictive marketing » va durablement et profondément changer le monde de la communication. Avec des conséquences assez radicales pour l’ensemble de l’industrie. Assez rapidement ce n’est les messages que les annonceurs achèteront mais la performance pure. Avec des conséquences assez fondamentales pour le modèle économique des agences et des éditeurs. Vous verrez qu’à la fin de la décennie les revenus à la performance représenteront l’essentiel de la marge brute des agences et des médias. En terme de RH, les compétences qui manipulent et comprennent les données marketing verront leur salaire s’envoler et prendront le pouvoir au sein des structures de communication. Les « cool guys » de la prochaine décennie ne seront plus les créatifs ou les web-guys mais les statisticiens.

It’s not just about abortion, it’s about the next 20 years. Twenties and Thirties it was the role of government, Fifties and Sixties it was civil rights. The next two decades it’s gonna be privacy. I’m talking about the Internet. I’m talking about cell phones. I’m talking about health records and who’s gay and who’s not. And moreover, in a country born on the right to be free, what could be more fundamental than that?

Do some people complain about Google? Yes, it is often the same people who complain about the internet and about change and technology and simply use Google as their target simply because it is so big and so innovative. Google is the fastest growing company in the history of the world, according to the Times of London. It is the No. 1 brand for three years running, which means that people not only know but admire it.

What the fuck is going on inside Google? How much more out of control and undisciplined can this place get? How many new goddamn operating systems are they going to create? They’ve already got Android, and nobody wants it. Now they’re going to make yet another operating system, this time out of a browser that nobody wants. What’s next? A Gmail-based operating system? A YouTube-based operating system? Honestly, Google, is there anyone in charge over there? Is there anyone who knows how to criticize anything in that fucked up little Montessori preschool of yours? I mean I guess it’s nice that you all get to spend 20 percent of your time dreaming up useless shit, and I guess you have to use the Montessori method and tell everyone that whatever little piece of shit they’ve created is just so wonderful and perfect and beautiful — but really, as I’ve told Eric before, that doesn’t mean you have to release everything these bozos dream up. There’s a word for this. It’s called “no”.