Keen On… John Borthwick: Why Social Isn't in Google's DNA (TCTV)

With billions of dollars flowing into today’s social economy, betaworks CEO John Borthwick sees the social economy radically changing not only media, but all 21st century industries. It’s 1998 all over again, he told me when we met last week in New York City – thus arguing that today’s social boom still has at least a couple of years of innovation left in it.

But while Borthwick – whose betaworks portfolio includes bit.ly, TweetDeck, SocialFlow and Chartbeat – is bullish about the future of social media, he isn’t quite as bullish about Google. Suggesting that social isn’t in Google’s DNA, Borthwick, who used to run technology strategy at Time Warner, believes that the web now not only needs social search but that today’s social media companies – Twitter, Facebook et al – are much more strategically positioned to build a social search engine than Google.

The first half of this interview can be found here.

Borthwick on why 2011 is like 1998

Borthwick on monetization, curation, and real innovation

Borthwick on why social isn’t in Google’s DNA

Crunchbase

• JOHN BORTHWICK

Person: John Borthwick

Website: betaworks.com

Companies: betaworks, Outside.in, Fotolog, Time Warner, Daylife, AOL

John Borthwick is CEO of betaworks. betaworks is a technology company that operates as a studio. betaworks builds new products, runs companies and seed invests. Prior to betaworks John was Senior Vice President of Alliances and Technology Strategy for Time Warner Inc. John’s company, WP-Studio, founded in 1994, was one of the first content studios in New York’s Silicon Alley. John holds an MBA from Wharton (1994) and an undergraduate degree BA...

→ Learn more