Google's Head of (Anti?) Social Media

So Google is planning to remedy its strategic Achilles Heel......... GigaOm:

Google says it’s willing to accept its shortcomings on the social web and bring in a “Head of Social” to set it on the right course. The company has hired an executive recruiter to fill the position, and is currently in the process of casting its net as widely as possible.

Though competition from Google sends shivers down spines in just about every sector — from news and book publishers to phone makers to venture capital — the company’s dominance has a gaping hole on the social web. Google has tried to introduce social sites, from Orkut to Buzz, but they’ve had limited appeal, hampered by a misunderstanding of user needs. In recent months Google has added a social layer onto its existing products, like search and maps. And it does have powerhouse publishing and communication properties in Blogger and Gmail on the outskirts of the social web. But there’s no formidable master plan to speak of.

Acquisition is no answer either. From Dodgeball to Jaiku.... the list of leading products it has bought is a litany of opportunities missed (YouTube being a - very expensive - success but still loses millions), and Buzz's introduction was a trainwreck in slow motion, and an object lesson in how to design antisocial media. Also, the list of Social Media Luminaries who nosily enter (and then later, quietly leave) Google is measured in revolving door revolutions. Still, a start is to admit on has a problem.

Question is, will a "Head of Social" have the necessary clout to get stuff through an algorithmic culture, which is - we have been told - just a tad arrogant. This probably won't fly without some top down air cover.

In a way its a sign that Google is all growed up, as now they are having to deal with changing themselves to face new and dangerous competition. Evidence from companies that have been here before (Fixed Line Telcos for example, who had to develop Mobile and Internet businesses) is that what works best is to:

- Carve the Social operations out to one side and let them report in to one of the most senior people in the company (or else they will be squashed politically).

- Best if they are even on another campus to develop their own culture and attract the sort of people they need

- Give them a Serious - and we mean Serious - budget to run their own thing (otherwise the Big Battalions that run the infrastructure and the money making services will just nix any project that threatens their hegemony.

Of course, one option is to acquire something successful, but here Google faces the problem that the proven successful ones are hugely overvalued and they tend to break what they acquire - but if it was bought, added to, well funded, and largely left alone (see 3 steps above) it may work.