Fitness Landscape

Until very recently, several German publishers were at war with Google News. Why? Because they said Google News had become a news hub with links to articles that were created by others who were not getting enough credit (read “money”). Jeff Jarvis was contemptuous about their stance:

“(They) stomp their feet like pouty kindergartners missing a turn at kickball, whining “that’s not fair” and yelling that everything wrong on this playground is the fault of another kid, then running to hide behind the skirt of the teacher.”

The reality, as per Jarvis, was that they “cannot compete in the marketplace”.

In his book, Adapt, Tim Harford talks about the “fitness landscape”:

“The fitness landscape is a jumble of cliffs and chasms, plateaus and jagged summits. Valleys represent bad solutions; mountain tops are good.”

As if finding/creating peak wasn’t hard enough:

“The peaks keep moving - sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.”

And then Harford makes a very interesting observation:

“The Google peak is moving fast, more like a rolling wave than a mountain. At the moment, Google is surfing along, adapting its strategy to stay on or near the crest of the wave. Like surfing itself, this is harder than it looks.”

And just like a surfer does fall eventually, so too does Google (in some areas). In recent times, Facebook’s Instant Articles is fast becoming the new go-to place for publishers who want their articles to be read on mobile devices.

That’s the speed at which the tech industry peak wave moves in the fitness landscape. Or as John Herrman wrote:

“For the brief time that Google News seemed inevitable and dominant…on a more comforting note, haha, remember Google News?”

Ha ha indeed.

Kind of funny that even as the Germans are starting to train their guns on Google, the guns may be aimed at the wrong company! After all, Facebook’s Instant Articles is fast becoming the new Google News.