iInnovate interviewed Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Guy Kawasaki outlined the main topics in a recent blog post. The last interview question was about high-potential disruptive technologies. Eric's response included (a) having many initiatives to invent the killer app; (b) developing technologies around automatic translation, mobility, & media including video; and (c) automating advertising for traditional businesses such as TV and radio. Here is a transcript:

Q: What are some interesting little things that either Google is doing today or that you're seeing other people doing out there that are really high-potential high-risk technologies that can potentially become potential disruptive technologies in the future? [last 1 min 10 sec of the video]

Eric: It's very hard to know. (a) Google is organized under the principle that we don't know which is the killer app, but we're more likely to be the inventors of it... because we have so many initiatives around it.
(b) The ones that are the most interesting are all around new technologies around, for example, automatic translation, the use of mobile technologies and new media, and of course the adoption of video broadly.
(c) From a revenue perspective, we have many many technologies that we're applying in advertising, in the deployment of much larger advertising systems, and going into these large businesses that have not been automated and automating the advertising business, so, for example, in television and radio and that sort of stuff. There is a very large opportunity. There are a lot of clever ideas in those spaces.

Very interesting. Here are a few of my thoughts:

(a) Google may invent a killer app with all their initiatives, but, they should also be prepared to provide a platform that allows others to create new killer apps. Yes, there's a lot of innovation going on inside of Google, but there's also a lot of innovation going on outside of Google.

(b) I agree that mobile and media technologies will strongly impact the future! (Full disclosure: I manage the Mobile & Media Systems Lab. )

(c) Automating advertising for traditional businesses such as television and radio is a big opportunity, but there will be a lot of big players in traditional advertising that won't want to see it happen. It will be very interesting to see how Google moves forward in these more traditional industries!

Tags: Eric Schmidt, Google, mobile technology, media technology, killer app, automated advertising, HP

Feel free to include a URL in your comments.

---

Posted 03-23-2007 5:20 AM by susie.wee