Google Chairman Eric Schmidt came out and told his audience at the Wall Street Journal‘s D: All Things Digital conference on Wednesday that when it came to taking Facebook head on he screwed up.
As Facebook crosses the 700 million member mark and Google spends billions to catch up the company’s heavy hitter said:
“Three years ago I wrote memos talking about this general problem. I knew that I had to do something and I failed to do it. A CEO should take responsibility. I screwed up.”
Google attempted to build their own social network called Orkut in 2004, however much like various other programs at Google the company only offered a very small staff while attempting to determine if the project held any real weight, a standard practice for their Google Labs programs.
Since that time Google has failed to purchase Groupon for $6 billion, has failed to generate Twitter type social relevance with Google Buzz and are again attempting to chase down Facebook’s Like button with the Google +1 option that has a long way to go.
[Photo: Schmidt at D Conference via Asa Mathat/All Things Digital]
