Slashdot Mirror
A Pair of Google Bits
Vengeance writes "Check out this excellent BusinessWeek story about Google's business strategy and how it can survive without selling out to banner ads. The best line in the article: Google saves money by using Linux :)" Here's a second story about Google's Toolbar Plugin and privacy concerns that it raises (course in this case, it looks like it blatantly tells you what its doing, so if it bothers you, you at least can't claim ignorance. And it doesn't look like a big deal either). It raises an eyebrow, but not my red flag.
It's unfortunate that we get boggled down first in privacy concerns before discussiong whether the product is a good idea in the first place. I mean, I understand why this has to happen now, it's just unfortunate.
(But I really am interested in people's opinions of the toolbar...)
--
Why does earning money have to play a role?
At no point in time will I begrudge Google from earning money, so long as they keep their priorities straight. If they have to bow to the 'pay-for-top-link' crowd, then make the paid links a different color so we know which link was the commercial link and which was the information link. When the two actually coincide . . . cool, do something special.
The reason I use Google isn't because it lacks banner ads, it is because it gives me good results. The fact I don't have to wade through banner ads is just a wonderful bonus. Let them please make a good living doing this, let Google set the example for other businesses to follow.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Friend of mine works for (large Texas-based computer manufacturer who uses Ask Jeeve's engine as the basis of their online tech support thing, called Ask Dudley or some equally shitty name). According to him it would give "interesting" results sometimes when it was first brought online and it's vocab hadn't been trained/tuned much.
For example: searching for ATAPI.SYS would bring up as one of the options something like "I'd like to know more about EAT PUSSY." (Somehow ATA PI.SYS (space for empahsis) sounded like that to Ask Jeeve's engine.)
Needless to say, that was changed real quick. :-)
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
In large engineering projects, such as search engines, the amount of work to be done is something more than linearly related to the size of the project. Back when google was two guys, they had defined the key algorithm and it was really cool. But.... really cool is a long, long way from a business. For example, how do you index over a billion pages and still keep the search fast? How do you distribute the database and the searches over linux machines to reduce cost at little (or no) expense in reliability? How do you keep crafty webmasters from tricking your algorithms?
Do you really think google is the same as it was, just bigger? Give me a break.
Just why do the companies, even the great ones, think that their headcount MUST grow?
They don't. Exar is the world leader in analog interfaces for digital imagers and they've been around since the 1960s. They have around 200 employees.
I don't mean to distract you all from your ranting, but has anyone noticed that this Google toolbar is really, really cool? It's not just another obnoxious way to make sure you get funneled towards their site (i.e. both IE's and Netscape's "search features".)
Among other things, it can highlight instances of your search terms on a page, instantly transfer you to Google's cached copy of your current page, and search for pages on the same site as the one you're viewing. It also adds an "up one level" button (the web equivalent of "../").
The only feature that has privacy issues is the "PageRank" display, which tells you how "important" the current page is. It's not very useful, and it's easily disabled.
Google also gets points for using all of IE's advanced features properly. Those of you who frequently claim that ActiveX is only useful for trojans should try installing this toolbar, as it's an excellent counter-example.
Nice job, Google people.
MSK
Some of us think that approaches to a problem that are both non-obvious and extremely powerful (which, IMO at least, is true of Page Rank) are exactly the reason that patents were invented. This is not a patent that is:
Patents exist precisely to protect inventions that don't fall into one or more of the above categories. It's not so much patents that most slashdotters are angry about, it's patent abuses, and Google's patent clearly isn't abusing the system.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
There are two versions that you can install ... ...
...
...
One doesn't gather info, but you don't have all of the 'features' either
Guess everything's a trade-off
Back to work
Silpon Designs
Scented Paper Products
You aren't a math major are you? They currently boast 23,000,000 searches per day. Let's assume that if you had to *pay* (nevermind the fact that it's only a penny, if you have to go to the trouble to find a way to pay them, it's easier to use someone else) the daily usage will probably fall to maybe 5 million or less. Then they are raking in $50,000/day. 365 days a year, that's over $18E6/yr -- not bad for a search engine, even at the decreased usage rate -- BUT the big thing here is not the money you have to pay -- it's the privacy issue. IF they have a method to log each time I search, and tie that info to some account with which I pay them (maybe every 1000 searches or so), then it's one short line of perl from there to associating *WHAT* I searched for with my account... right now they can of course associate your searching patterns with your IP, but most people are still unfortuneate enough that they dial into a modem pool with a bank of IP's, and thus the association becomes less meaningful. But if you have an ACCOUNT to pay them with, that gets updated each time you search, I would certainly not use google any longer, despite the fact that they are the ONLY engine I use at the moment..
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
How many of you would be willing to pay to use google on, say, a 1 cent/search basis? 2 cents? 5?
1 cent sounds fair to me. I don't want them going out of business 2 years down the line, just because they don't sell pagerank spots or whatever. I need that search!
My other sig is also a
My fiance is just got her degree in journalism. Like the line in Pulp Fiction, that pretty much made me interested in journalism too. ;-) (We did talk a lot about what she studied, pretty relevant stuff to this modern, media-heavy age.)
Anyway, having pull quotes from a business's competitors (NothernLosers and Astalavista, both of whose search engines I can't stand for the cruddiness of their result sets) is really, really stinky journalism. What a suprise both of them slammed Google! I'm shocked! Google must be a horrible company! :-/ This article must have been written by a high-school intern, as it obviously shows the person looked for The Other Viewpoint, but didn't try to get objective other viewpoints (like, at a guess, from stock analysts who are in theory neutral).
And yes, we did snicker about her getting a BJ on graduation day. (Bachelors in Journalism) :-D She always was at the head of her class...
--
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
is here.
Jm
On to Yahoo! and Lycos he goes, enters the search "black bear". Guess how many porn sites he got back?
Ok, now this I gotta see. Here's yahoo's results:
- Black Bear Cabin Rentals - manages and rents privately owned cabins located in the mountains of North Georgia.
- Big Black Bear Shop - offering plush Teddy Bears and stuffed toys.
- Black Bear Campground - offers camping in Orange County, New York.
- Black Bear Campground - enjoy the sights, sounds and recreation available
in the area.
- Black Bear Camp & Lodge - clothing optional private campground and
bunkhouse for adult men. --ok, but not really porn
- Black Bear Review - international literary magazine for the concerned poet
and artist.
- Black Bear Camp & Lodge - clothing optional private campground and
bunkhouse for adult men.
- Black Bear Diner - offers a sample menu and locations.
- Black Bear Diner - offers a sample menu and locations.
Yahoo seems to duplicate the same couple resources over and over again, not so good compared to their competition.Lycos did pretty well also, here's the lycos results:
- The American Bear Association (ABA) home page - The home page of The
American Bear Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting
the well-being of bears and all wildlife through a better understanding.
- Black Bear...American Black Bear...Michigan Black Bear - GarLyn Farm
ZOOlogical Park now features american black bear. Photo's, information, and
links to more sites about black bear and other animals.
- NEW NABC INDEX - The mission of the North American Bear Center is to
enhance the understanding of the general public of the habits, needs and environment of bears in
North America.
- Wildlife Endangered Species - Black Bear - they are a rare sight in Texas, the black bear is the
most common kind of bear in the United States. Black bears are considered to be endangered in the
state of Texas. Black bears
- An American Black Bear - Fuzzy, weighing in at more than 400 pounds, lives
at GarLyn Farm ZOOlogical Park. Also links to more bear information.
- Black Bear Conservation Committee - Promoting the restoration of the
Louisiana black bear in its historic range, through education, research,
and habitat management.
- Working With Wildlife - Black Bear - NC State University - Notes about
wildlife management of the Black Bear.
- American Black Bear - (Encarta® Concise Encyclopedia Article)
- American Black Bear - Fact sheet from "About the Animals" where information on a large variety of
animals can be obtained, from present day habitat to estimated populations.
- Black Bear Paging Service - Providing local paging service, products and accessories for West
Virginia and southern Ohio. A member of SoutherNet Association of paging.
- Black Bear Lodge - Located on Little St. Germaine Lake out of St. Germaine WI. A four season resort.
They have fishing, golfing, hunting, skiing, and snowmobiling nearby.
- Black Bear Inn, South Lake Tahoe - The Inn is nestled on a wooded acre, offering luxury
accommodations in a rustic, mountain setting. Black Bear Inn's main lodge has five generous guest
rooms, and there are three cabins on the grounds
- Black Bear B&B - Located in the scenic Sunday River Valley, on Sunday River Road, the Black Bear
offers an alternative to guests who appreciate being within two miles of one of the East's
outstanding ski areas, Sunday
- Black Bear Design - Design professional web sites for affordable rates. All artwork is custom
artwork; no clip art is used.
Looks like Lycos is doing pretty well...I also tried google, and their results are pretty good also.
What's amazing is that someone would post such a comment and not even bother trying the search. Come on, it's pretty damn simple.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
OK. They're not collecting personal information here folks. Frankly, if it helps refine the search(es) that I perform, I'm all for it.
Example:
A friend of mine was working at a provincial park last summer. He was working on the park's web site and decided he needed a picture of a Black Bear. On to Yahoo! and Lycos he goes, enters the search "black bear". Guess how many porn sites he got back? Try this search now on google, and you actually get "Black Bear" information. NOT porn. Anything to refine the database is fine with me.
You can install the Google toolbar without the PageRank features that transmit URL's back to Google. Those sneaky bastards hid this option behind a huge freaking button that clearly states this.
Sean
System Requirements
Microsoft Windows OS
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or greater
Your operating system does not appear to meet these requirements.
Your system infomation was reported as:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/2.0; X11); Supports MD5-Digest; Supports gzip encoding
Install the Google Toolbar
Because your system does not appear to meet the system requirements for the Google Toolbar, installation has been cancelled.
The patent-pending technology, PageRank, is Google's method of rating the importance of Web pages by counting the number of other Web pages that link to them.
So, will Slashdotters (and, more specifically, the editors) jump all over Google once this patent is granted? Or do Slashdot favorites win a "get out of flamage free" card?
They also have to be given credit for being up front about what they are doing, I haven't seen anything change on their site without soem sort of an explanation.
Also, the toolbar shouldn't be a concern for most Slashdotters because it is only available for Windows...or maybe it should, who knows. We rabid computer geeks wouldn't worry about Windows would we?
Icebox
Lycos, Alta Vista, Inktomi, etc. all have had the cool factor and then lost it just as quickly. Whats next - Infrasearch? FAST?