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Wired Reports on 'Googlemania'
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As a tie-in with its March 2004 cover story on the search phenomenon that is Google, Wired has posted its Complete Guide to Googlemania. Written before Google delayed its IPO earlier this month, the feature nevertheless offers a series of interesting articles focused on the search engine giant. Particularly interesting sections include Googlemaniacs (in which 'superusers' like Matt Groening and Garry Trudeau discuss how they use Google on a daily basis), a look at how blog comment spammers have taken advantage of Google's PageRank system, and a gallery of hypothetical interface redesigns by a group of artists and graphic designers."
Look at the crap these guys put together.
First off, the first guy's "idea" is nothing but a rip-off of this contest winning idea.
The others are nothing but blatant political posturing.
Scott
The IPO is not necessarily delayed. The CEO's statements that were taken to mean there was a delay were actually consistent with his previous statements. Google has never publicly stated that they would be doing an IPO.
Yes. Unreasonably free as in you have to register with a credit card/driver's license/social security number/European equivalents just to use the free service.
My google interface is on my locally stored homepage, and is displayed as a simple white text box with the word Google beside it. The form itself then links to http://www.google.com/search, so I don't even have any idea what Google's homepage looks like. Plus I have quick links to all my regular webpages/portals/groups etc...
So if you want a new google interface, design one and access it on your local drive.
"It doesn't matter if it's half their money or all of their money..."
OOooh yes it does, especially in a publically held company in the tech market. This move wouldn't be allowed unless there were assurances that the 10 billion dollars in assets could be quickly turned into 20 billion.
It's a lot easier to take risks like that with tens of millions of dollars, not billions.
"Derp de derp."
Right, and those risks are incorporated into the fair market value (deceptive, though, because Google is still private). Microsoft is a huge corporation with a huge pool of self-interested investors run by people who only seek to increase shareholder value (viva capitalistas!). You make a good point about the risk of $10 billion, but the fact that Microsoft made the offer (regardless of what fraction of cash reserves this offer represents) means that Microsoft assessed the risk (I'm sure they did) and either deemed it not too risky, or a risky investment with potential payoffs that made it worthwhile.
Additionally, there don't even necessarily need to be any assurances about the payoffs. All that matters is the NPV (including factors such as volatility, discount rates, etc.) is positive. It doesn't matter if they pay $10 billion now and the $20 billion payoff comes 10 years down the road, if the present value of that $20 billion 10 years from now is $10 billion and one penny then (technically) it's a good investment.
The fact that the payoff is 10 years from now does not matter at all to the investor because he/she can always sell it for what it's worth today in the free market (though it is almost always -- excluding deflation -- true that a $20 bn payoff tomorrow will be worth more than a $20 bn payoff in 10 years).
Sorry if this is "so last week
Actually, apparently it's so 18 months ago. The site FAQ shows that it was featured on Slashdot on Sept 8, 2002 and (in true Slashdot dupe tradition) Sept 12, 2002).
Belloc
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Yeah... Too bad there is no such thing as the number Google.
There is, however, the number googol, which may be "infinite for all practical purposes", but, come on, this is Slashdot.
Without the googol, you couldn't have the googolplex, and without the googolplex you couldn't have things like this
Jenny Holzer, "Artist"
Actually, Jenny Holzer is an excellent artist, regardless of your/her political leaning. Most people don't get the full effect of her work since her installations typically don't photograph well. Speaking from experience, her work is really quite powerful in person.
Of course, the most famous phrase she has used in her work is appropriate to mention here: "Protect Me from What I Want" (for bonus points, note the location of the sign).
What kind of crack are you smoking? IE gained popularity because of two things:
1) They pre-installed the browser with the OS.
2) They fucked around with browser implementation standards.
IE wasn't better. Microsoft included their own tags and "VB script" that would make it's browser do things that Netscape couldn't.
When web site developers foolishly started using these proprietary tags, web site viewers realized that half the sites they were going to didn't work "properly" in Netscape, and Netscape lost marketshare.
Netscape didn't get the nickname "Nutscrape" from users who know what they were talking about, it got the name from people who preferred the glitz and galmour of all the cool, new, RFC breaking features that IE provided.
"You do not associate with us because we are different. We do not associate with you because you are stupid."
Can you say paranoia?
Google is a private company. They do not have to release any of their information on how they operate to the outside world if they don't want to.
The only time they will have to is when/if they actually go public at which time they will have to file volumes of reports with the SEC as well as for their banking partners, investors, etc.