Google’s Attempt to Takeover the World Reaches New Levels
November 17, 2009 1 Comment
Our Twitterific Future
November 17, 2009 1 Comment
Murdoch vs. Google
November 9, 2009 2 Comments
Yes, Google is making me stupid
I’ve become incredibly adept at multitasking. I like jumping in and out of books that are easily digested in small, thought-provoking chunks. I’m also quite good getting a sense of what a book is about through fragments bouncing around the Internet; a blog post here, a New Yorker article there, and voila! I can talk about Dos Passos’ place in the American literary canon without looking like a complete fool. But I’m losing my ability to sit down and actually read the damn book. And even if I am perfectly capable of masking this deficiency in polite company, I feel like a fraud. So for the next few weeks, I’m going to try to read the damn book.
All of which is to say that this article seems a lot more persuasive now than when I first read it.
November 6, 2009 13 Comments
Google Bleg
October 22, 2009 4 Comments
Free or Ad-Free?
July 15, 2009 1 Comment
tackling brands is tricky, tackling verbs is even harder
Matt Yglesias asks “Is bing better?” in reference to Microsoft’s new search engine which may or may not become a real competitor to Google. Microsoft often enters these various markets with mixed success – the Zune has gained some ground recently, at least as far as I can tell speaking with friends. I haven’t checked the data. The Xbox remains popular and competitive against rivals Playstation and Nintendo. And, of course, Windows is still the top dog there – for now.
But creating a competitive search engine is tricky. Not only are there already a number of other search engines – like Ask.com and Yahoo! – but even those don’t really compete against Google in any meaningful way. This is largely because Google has transcended mere brand status and has become a verb. Once something becomes a sort of universal noun, that’s bad enough. Kleenex did this in the tissue market, becoming pretty much synonymous with tissue. So whether or not you were using a generic tissue or a Kleenex, you called it a Kleenex. They transcended brand. But it’s so much more potent to achieve verb status, and that’s what Google’s done. You “google” something now – you rarely hear someone say “search.” You never hear anyone say “just ask it” or “just yahoo it” – or at least, I never do. [Read more →]
July 9, 2009 12 Comments
Google Chrome OS
July 8, 2009 7 Comments
Google’s Responsibility
“The internet is the strongest force for individual self-expression ever invented. Governments around the world, even democratically elected, have difficulty with [the flow of] information online. Dictatorships and closed communities one after the other will try and shut down communication from inside. Strategies governments use trying to shut down people’s speech are terrible strategies and will not succeed . . .”
This, of course, is from the same company that helps the Chinese government filter out “objectionable” content from Internet searches. I’m generally uninterested in Google’s corporate PR strategy, but this strikes me as a gigantic cop-out. In essence, Schmidt is suggesting that Google’s technical support for repressive regimes is irrelevant because attempts to limit “self-expression” won’t succeed. Well, they might succeed if the Chinese government works hand-in-glove with our most advanced software companies to shut down online dissent. At the very least, I daresay Google’s efforts will help prolong the regime’s ability to control the flow of public information. And if Schmidt truly believes that efforts to limit information are a lost cause, isn’t he essentially lying to his company’s client, the Chinese government, which seems to be operating under the assumption that the Great Firewall is pretty darn effective at “shut[ting] down people’s speech?”
The most noxious thing about this passively-constructed exercise in corporate ass-covering is how Schmidt simultaneously applauds the information revolution for empowering free speech while abdicating responsibility for facilitating government repression. After all, how can crackdown-enabling corporations like Google be criticized if the free flow of information is an inevitability? Those dissidents – they’ll find away around our firewalls – after all, they always do! Except when they, err, don’t.
As an avowed techno-skeptic, I’m not very confident that Schmidt’s much-ballyhooed information revolution will magically solve state repression. I’m quite confident, however, that celebrating these developments while simultaneously working behind the scenes to control their most radical features is the worst kind of corporate hypocrisy.
June 26, 2009 8 Comments
