Today Eric Schmidt was a trending topic on Twitter. The reason seems that at AllThingsD9l Walt Mossberg was interviewing Eric Schmidt the former Google CEO. Please listen to this man. He has an amazing viewpoint!
This could also fill into privacy or collective intelligence but the topic is much deeper.
While most people discuss on privacy issues almost everyone oversees the fact that it is really about internet business models. Eric Schmidt is telling everyone the “secreet” of Googles success and it seems that almost nobody is listening:

The following is taken from around 4:47 where a discussion about the app market and privacy inside it rises up.

Eric Schmidt: “What else could we do besides just informing people. ”
Walter Mossberg: “You could curate. ”
Eric Schmidt: “But we made the decission to not curate. We stay focused on open platforms. The apple model is the inverse of the Google model. And I think the competition is very healthy. The fact of the matter is that the apple model produces beautiful products of a specific market size and share with an awful lot of clever stuff going on that are entirely controlled by apple. The Google model ist just the inverse. It’s ok. Let the market decide. It’s called competition.”

Let’s try to understand what is really going on here!
Realize that google within a very short time just became market leader in the app market and take into mind that apple had several advantages in this market:

• first mover in the phone / app market
• superior hardware
• fashion brand. To have an iPod iPhone was just “hip”
• iTunes and the combination with music

We conclude:
It is all about being open and setting open standards. Just like the whole internet is!
If you are interested in more please compare for my article Why open source wins and then Jonathan Rosenberg’s post about this topic.