Tuesday, January 4, 2011

In 2011, do not pay taxes (to Google)

I was reading a nice piece from TechCrunch, that got me started on what the key movements could be for a better economy in 2011. I have two main ideas :
First, it would be good if we stopped paying Google any more taxes. After all, the WWW is ready to die (or be born again), and there are "civilized" places that are already replacing it : FB and all other social networks, to start with.
It is as if we were going out of the Gold Rush era, when gold seekers would enrich peak and shovel vendors while going bust at the same time, and new, organized business (as Sears or the railway monopolies) would patiently build their trade.
Yes we need a new Google, because it's high time we got paying for value, not for Google sponsored links. And we really need Google, because I do not like the perspective of an internet totally dominated by social networks. Innovation happens at the fringes after all ...
Second idea, we need a vision. All this social technology is so powerful that it really needs the ideals that ignited the web at the very beginning to take hold of society. Of course, by society, I also mean business. Umair Haque has written it all in his "New Capitalist Manifesto"
For us E2.0 practicionners, it probably means moving from technology to strategy and then to meaning. Transformation. After more than five years working in this field, I've found out that nothing is more important to the succes of communities, of corporate social networks, of pedia environments and of any social technology initiative than trust and autonomy.
It's all about people, not taxes. I liked the "do not evil" stuff better