What would Apple Do?

Image by Robert Scoble via Flickr

I’m working my way through Jeff Javis’s Audio-book “What would Google Do?” at the moment.  It is one of the best studies on Google and their current, and future influence on online and business worlds.  The book looks at the business models that Google champions and shows how they are destined to fit into our online and offline lives.

Jeff reasonably points out that Google’s example is the future of business on the Internet.  Googles' example of free products, services and exchange of ideas is successful for them, and is shaping the way modern businesses on and off the Internet are needing to work to be successful in the modern business landscape.

I like the information and there is a lot of really good ideas about how we need to really focus away from old business models and start to think about “What Would Google Do?”.  But I would really like Jeff to write the book “What would Apple Do?”.  

To their credit, Google has changed the current business landscape, and are helping to destroy the old established business models.  Then to Apple's credit, the success of redefining the old business models, and almost reinventing them for the online world.  I would not go as far to say that Apple is the anti-Google, but more so that Apple is the model for the transition time between the old business (mainly media) and the Internet.

If Google were successful because they gave everything away, then Apple is successful for locking everything down.  If Google are successful for changing the old business models, then Apple is successful for adapting the old business models to work, but then being able to change when the time is right.

Which is better? Well I have written before about how the old business models are dying, and even though we see newspapers and TV trying pay-walls and other ways to try and postpone the inevitable, that is really all they seem to be doing.  They still don't seem to understand the new online world, and as the population continues to adopt the online world, they will need a company like Apple to help with the transition.

While I was thinking about “what would Google do” I kept wondering about how the transition from old media to new media would happen for those who are not or can’t be plugged into the new media.  And at the end of the day, it is all about the consumers way of thinking. And Apple seem to be on that wave length. 

For example, iTunes worked with DRM in the early days because those new to the digital space expected restrictions and to pay for their content.  They expected that to have the convenience of digital media, that they would have some inconvenience in other areas.  The geeks always expect freedom over inconvenience, because to us the tech world is supposed to offer freedom and convenience and cost savings.

Then once Apple was successful, they removed (most of) the DRM and freedom won out.  The old business model was changed and the transition was reasonably painless.  Yet we still complain about Apple's involvement in other areas like TV, movies, and now books.  Could Apple's goal here be to reinvent the E-book market - not by opening it up, but just by the sheer momentum of the uber successful device and delivery method?

I'm really interested in why it is that Apple are successful by being so different to Google, is it just that there are Google people and Apple people?  

Please Jeff, look into this as I think that by only focusing on one side of the coin we may be missing out on understanding the online future.  My fear is that Google is so in-tune with the Geeks and techs, that as the unwashed masses venture online, our Utopian systems will be supplanted by the closed systems that the masses understand.  And that Apple's systems are going to be the ones they look to.

So What Would Apple Do? It is a good question, and worth a few dollars.

Jason Remnant

...if it isn't Broken, WWAD?