Search Versus Store

A couple of weeks ago, after much speculation, news came out that Google had launched its Google Health product, which as the site claims, "puts you in charge of your health information." Translated, that last part means, "We are in charge of your information, but we will let you access it." Cynicism aside, the company offers a fairly decent set of functionality, but not having tested out other offerings, such as those from WebMD, it’s not immediate clear how Google’s ranks in terms of others. The irony of Google offering a health related product stems partly from the nature of the health industry. Perhaps no other field has such overhead and such opacity that the average person feels completely out of touch as the health industry. Not only are the inner workings incredibly murky, but health ranks among the most fragmented areas with respect to the information that results from an individual’s activities over the course of their life. Think of all the doctors you have visited over the course of your life and all the prescriptions that you might have filled. Most likely, that entails years of information across a wide swath of locations. Almost anyone could create an online application that allows you to enter in your doctor’s information, any current medications you take, conditions you might have, drug interactions, a pill-reminder calendar, etc. Doing that adds some value as it puts online, and for free, information you might have in a Franklin Covey organizer or in a book that you picked up at the store. Google Health shows the most promise in providing access to data that until now remained out of reach and offline, namely your medical records. While not technically here, this borders on Web 3.0, in which category a site like Mint.com resides with its amazing interface but even more amazing ability to consolidate online information from what previously seemed disparate sources – your various banks and financial institutions.

While one could argue that Mint offers merely a web-version of Intuit’s Quicken, a software version of one’s medical health information doesn’t seem to exist, and if any company has the resources and positioning to help pull that information together, outside of Microsoft, you would probably struggle to name one other company ahead of Google on that list. Something, though, about Google offering a product aimed at the most personal information possible, doesn’t sit right. We’re performance marketers and certainly not the most overly trusting of Google’s intentions. Then again, as performance marketers, we probably don’t trust anyone’s intentions off the bad. To us, optimization doesn’t mean the right ad at the right time; it means the most profitable ad for that time. Our quirks and slight anti-Google sentiments don’t take away from the effectiveness of Google’s product, as judged in one trial by the frequency of usage of the records by patients. And for better or worse, you need a Google if you want to motivate an industry that has little incentive to offer a better user experience and increased user control. The leverage of Google’s user base and the fear of being the place that doesn’t support the system will drive most to adopt, especially realizing that people have greater choices and access to choice today. From the user adoption side, Google does one thing very well. They create a product and perpetuate the belief that you miss out if you don’t use it. Thanks to their dominance in search, they have an incredible supply of this goodwill, and despite their lesser successes, e.g., Orkut, they haven’t come close to reaching the threshold where users will not try it.

For Google, Health has so many advantages. Google knows better than anyone, except perhaps Microsoft, that if you can get a user hooked on one product, you will likely convert them to your other products, and even if Health doesn’t directly make money for them, with their current Fort Knox of cash, they can easily afford for it to became their version of the XBox – a category leading money loser. Think about Microsoft Office. The use of one translates so well into the use of another that given the choice between using one program for word processing and another that don’t integrate all that well compared to using two by the same company that work amazing well, most people will adopt the integrated set. Google plants the seeds in their privacy policy by saying that Google Health "can help you save your doctors’ contact information into your Google Contact List." As for monetization, this is Google though, and even though they claim they won’t sell your data, do not read that as implying they don’t see this as a potential money maker. Once you have this data to pivot off of, the options become almost endless. While I can’t see them doing this, imagine being paid a percentage of the lifetime value for referring a person to a particular lifestyle drug like Propecia (hair loss) or Viagra (loss of something else). But you could see them doing what Mint and others do by analyzing your data and suggesting alternatives such as promoting health care plans. They won’t sell your data but that doesn’t mean they won’t leverage the data to get into medical lead generation.

Ultimately, the real issue with a product like Health comes down to the difference between searching and storing, especially with the monopolistic, black or white Google. Searching adds tremendous value, but at many levels it still feels relatively impersonal. You are seeking information and what you seek can provide insight into you as a person, but it includes a high degree of plausible deniability. Think of the internal dialog that could take place, "I didn’t actually search for that, it was for a project or for a friend." Storage on the other hand is incredibly private. Most people would open up their search log to others before they would their hard drive. Even though Microsoft runs the operating systems and the programs for the majority of computer users, you don’t think of them as having access to what you create using their programs. Storage is a very internal affair, whereas online search and what Google came to do better than others, is an external affair. Once you mix the internal and the external, something doesn’t sit as well. Plus, Google needs to make money. Offering free products with no revenue option might work as a strategic choice for some period of time but Google has shareholders and Google is an advertising platform at the end of the day. There is a fundamental conflict of interest, and users have no leverage. They don’t pay for the product, so they don’t get access to any real customer support, and because they don’t pay for the product, they become almost second class citizens who must abide by the will of the creator, and it absolves any real responsibility by Google to the users. They can change their mind when they want, and no matter what they say, Google can start to leverage the data how they want. It’s like a company telling their publishers they pick the right ad at the right time. It’s only partially true. Perhaps search versus storage is the separation between church and state, and Google’s entering the storage game with something so integral to our lives is really their combining church and state or simply a consolidation of power.