Google's Impact on the Internet

Kierkegaard writes "The Globe & Mail and Fortune Magazine both wrote a piece on Google, arguably one of the most important companies in the world, and its influence and impact on the Internet. In particular, they mention the effects of Google's recent new services, like Blogger and Maps, as well as their take on how Google threatens the Microsoft Corporation. "If Sergey and Larry stick to their corporate mantra -- Don't be evil -- and are able to stem degeneration into the typically corrupt corporate ethos, who knows, they may just succeed in assuming the fair and honourable dominion over the world's information they so naively set out to achieve eight years ago in their garage.""

Comments

Google important?

[Threni]

If they weren't around I'd just be using Yahoo or whatever, and having less unused space in my various free web-based email accounts.

Re:Google important?

[jeroenb]

Well, Google is extremely important with regards to the internet, regardless of whether there would be alternatives if they didn't exist.

But in general (as the posting claims)? I think that's overestimating the importance of the internet as a whole, at least in the current situation.

Re:Google important?

[thirteenVA]

That's a rather cynical view. How could you possibly try to downplay the impact of Google by attempting to paint them as yet another search engine and email provider.

Without Google I'd have lost hours searching through wads of irrelevant and/or paid listings in yahoo or MSN.

Without Google I'd have been lost when trying to convert teaspoons to tablespoons or quarts to liters.

Without Google, we'd be lost in a sea of paid advertisements lurking as 'relevant articles'.

Only recently have I found it more difficult to pull good results from google, but even so, their usefulness is unparalleled. Google maps is easily the best web-based mapping application. Gmail leaves other mail providers in the dust (and gives free POP access, which is rare) Google local is incredibly useful for finding nearby shops and restaurants.

I can no longer imagine a world without Google, and can only laugh at your attempt to downplay their importance in todays society.

Re:Google important?

[thirteenVA]

It's amazing to think that 8 years ago some of the greatest minds in the world were saying "How will we organize and access the far reaches of the web". Two college students took it upon themselves to figure it out and deploy that solution to the world.

Sergey and Brin take their job very serious. Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility, yet they've carried it and with dignity. I see little if any abuses of the power they hold. How many other companies could do what google does and resist the temptation to abuse their audience or subject them to slanted views/opinions or worse.

Google's only agenda is to get you where you want to be.

Re:Google important?

[mwvdlee]

If cars weren't around, you'd just walk. If beds didn't exists, you'd just sleep on the ground. If fire was never discovered, you'd just eat raw meat. Are any of these therefore unimportant?

Re:Google important?

[IchBinEinPenguin]

And if MS weren't around we'd all be using Apple (or something).
Just becuase, in an alternate rality, someone else _could_ have taken their place doesn't make them unimportant.
If Earths atmosphere didn't have O2 we might have evolved to breathe methane instead. Doesn't mean O2 isn't important!

Re:Google important?

[jeroenb]

Sergey and Brin take their job very serious. Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility, yet they've carried it and with dignity.

These two have done great things yes, but don't downplay the work of two other great minds, Larry and Page.

Re:Google important?

[Threni]

> If cars weren't around, you'd just walk. If beds didn't exists, you'd just
> sleep on the ground. If fire was never discovered, you'd just eat raw meat. Are
> any of these therefore unimportant?

Now you're suggesting that Google was the first company to offer a method of searching other peoples websites for information? Is that why they're `one of the most important companies in the world`?

Re:Google important?

[Momoru]

I agree, despite what all the fanatics say, Google hasn't ever really offered anything "new" persay. Yes, the way their map program works is neat and because of its speed it is better then other ones out there, but MapQuest and other came out with "internet mapping" years before, and even had satellite pix too. Google may have came out with a better search algorhythm but it was just as easy to find stuff on the web before they came along (Yahoo's old directory, though hell for them to maintain, was better then anything currently out today). In terms of search Google is now behind the curve as far as I'm concerned as it doesn't cluster results like clusty.com and some newer engines do. Their blogger as mentioned by the poster was not created by them, they only bought it. Gmail again uses a new type of technology to make it fast, but it still lacks what other basic free email services have had for years (out of office replys, etc). The way it threads messages was also already implemented by desktop based email programs. Google is neat, but I think it is a vast overstatement to say they are integrally important to the way the Internet is today. If they hadn't done it, one of the many tons of other sites that were like them even back 5 years ago would have stepped up. Indeed if anything Yahoo! was more important as this was the first largely recognized search engine. And they started 4 years before the punk kids at Google did.

Re:Google important?

[centron]

Yeah, just like if Firefox weren't around you'd just use IE, and if computers weren't around you'd just use a pen and paper, right?

Re:Google important?

[afabbro]

It's amazing to think that 8 years ago some of the greatest minds in the world were saying "How will we organize and access the far reaches of the web". Two college students took it upon themselves to figure it out and deploy that solution to the world...Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility...

Google does not organize. They simply provide a good search engine.

From an information architecture point of view, the Internet is a disaster - nothing is structured, everything is equal weight, nothing is verified, etc. It's like the deconstructionists won the war.

Google has not solved the problem of information organization, or even attempted to. Google is not the Star Trek library computer. The day has not yet come where I can "look up" what I want on the Web instead of trying to "search" or "find" it.

I'm not criticizing the Internet or Google here. I'm just pointing out that fanboys like thirteenVA are way off the mark...Google did not "figure out" how to "oraganize and access the far reaches of the Web". They just built a search engine. That's it.

Re:Google important?

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

I would guess that there have been other search engines that have had something like the same ideals, but only because they were unable to sell it at the time. My memory defeats me on WHICH search engines they were, but someone around here probably coded the things, so they might take offense to this type of comment.

Google became popular pretty quick and gets a lot of PR, but search HAS been around forever and the question in my mind is whether or not there have been other engines that were pushed out of the 'not being evil' market by them in the past. I'd guess yes, but they were already destined to die off for other reasons.

What's interesting about the level of 'google love' around here is that it is counter to the standard approach to any large company... Is this massively effective PR combined with a fit for compatibility, or is the compatibility manufactured? Google strikes me as a company run by very smart people, and having the nerds on your side when you run a large piece of the computer world seems like one of the more 'duh' ideas in history....

Re:Google important?

[NoOneInParticular]

Results 1 - 10 of about 387,000,000 for important?. (0.19 seconds)

Re:Google important?

[abulafia]

Sergey and Brin take their job very serious.

Didn't you mean David and Brin?

Re:Google important?

[gmuslera]

I used altavista/infoseek/etc before google appeared, and believe me, searching was painful. Yahoo had their meaning in that environment, because searching in their directory filtered a lot of unrelated pages that just had the words you searched, no relevance attached. Google jumped in with a practical way to reach the ideal of getting fast (probably the 1st result) of what you are searching for. There are some companies that refined that idea a bit further (i.e. Teoma) but what created google changed drastically what was the meaning of searching in internet (if was bad then, think how would be now with blogs speaking about everything you write, or actual webbased spam techniques).

GMail is another big change on the previous email concepts. Just the idea of having enough mail storage for the rest of your life, and a way to really be able to take advantage of it (not sure if gmail do some kind of mailrank more than just star important messages, but its search is pretty good anyway) was something completely new in the webmail (or plain mail) arena.

But there are another more important change in all of it. If google dont existed, maybe with time one of the search engine companies maybe could had that idea, think, for a moment, that Microsoft acquired it, patented the idea so no other search engine could come close in results relevance, and filled that with big graphical ads, very strong windows dependency and that the first page of results were mostly paid links.

Yes, google is very important. Even if tomorrow closes the doors, they changed internet for good in a big way. And if it continues to innovate with as good concepts in the future as it did in the past, internet will be a great place to live in.

Re:Google important?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google used to be a lot better than the other web search engines, especially after AltaVista began to stagnate, but it's getting pretty even these days. I tend to use all three of the main ones (Google, Yahoo, MSN) from time to time, and although I primarily use Google, I sometimes get better results with the others (especially Yahoo).

As things stand now, I still think Google is the best, but in narrow terms of web searching, the others are catching up. Where Google remains far ahead is in its progress on non-web searching, both online and offline.

Re:Google important?

[viscount]

These two have done great things yes, but don't downplay the work of two other great minds, Larry and Page.

Pah - the real brains behind Google were Sergei and Larry. Page and Brin were a couple of no-hope chancers who jumped on the bandwagon after Sergei and Larry had done all the difficult work...

Re:Google important?

[fbjon]

They make a good product. We love good products.

Re:Google important?

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Not EXACTLY true.

Rambus made some of the best product out there for a little while, and the hate around here for their product was quite visceral because of their rather shady tactics. Lots of companies make good products but then piss off their users.

EX: I dislike Microsoft quite a bit for various reasons, but I still love their natural keyboards. They're wonderful and make my poor computer-abused wrists happy.

So my love of good products is not complete. There are other considerations in my loving a company or a product.

Re:Google important?

[RealAlaskan]

... and if computers weren't around you'd just use a pen and paper, right?

Well, yes, actually. Pen and paper, and a slide rule.

Re:Google important?

[ciroknight]

The fact is, there's no point in trying to organize the information on the internet; the internet is a decentralized datamass. Since all of the data isn't constrained to even one location, data can go off and online as it chooses, adding to the symphony of discord.

If, perchance, a computer were to start caching the internet, it would be pertainant to implement an organization algorithm, and personally, I would hate to see all of the indexes. It's currently incalculable the data to metadata ratio currently in existance on the internet, but I can assure you it's probably somewhere close to 2:1 or even 1:1. HTML, XML, and stylesheets are everywhere, and images like blank.jpg, spacing and padding are just as obnoxious.

The truth is, the closest we've come to organizing the internet is the Wikipedia. All of us are pouring our webpages and content into the Wikipedia under categories and subcategories, and for the first time, there seems to be some organized way to access everything. This is very close to the computer on Star Trek, if you want to get technical.

Lastly, I'll leave with a question. If the Wikipedia is on the internet, then if we were to cache the internet, we'd have to add the wikipedia to another organizational structure right? So wouldn't we basically be adding the Wiki, to a Wiki?

Re:Google important?

[sgt_doom]

EXACTLY SO! You put it perfectly! Microsoft's slogan: Where do you want to go today? GOOD LUCK!!!!

Google truly rocks!!

Re:Google important?

[ergo98]

It's amazing to think that 8 years ago some of the greatest minds in the world were saying

What a delusional revisionist world you live in. Amazingly I remember the pre-Google days, when search engines like AltaVista and Excite! provided great results. While much is made of Google's oft referenced PageRank, the other search engines had their own algorithms to give good results, and they were quite effective as well...that is until the search engine spammers started gaming the system. Sort of like what's happening with Google these days.

Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility

You can't be for real. Responsibility? Come on.

How many other companies could do what google does and resist the temptation to abuse their audience or subject them to slanted views/opinions or worse.

Google hasn't "abused" their position because they were very late to the party, basically making a clone of Excite!. So if you're late to the party, how do you differentiate yourself?

In Google's case they went the minimalist route, and it is exactly that minimalist, non-ad interface that got them noticed in geek circles, and the rest is history. This isn't because they were benevolent givers, but rather that otherwise they would have been a footnote in history (there have been dozens upon dozens of search engines that have come and gone). In return they made themselves a couple of billion dollars. Such selfless people they are.

This Google love-in stuff is ridiculous, and embarrassing. Google did not invent search, but actually came to the party quite late, and the only thing magical about Google's technology is...their business plan.

Re:Google important?

[FCon4]

Sergey and Brin take their job very serious.

It's not Sergey and Brin...it's Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Re:Google important?

[naily]

Lets not underestimate the brand here. I mean, whose going to AltaVista someone? Or MSN them? And Yahooing them sounds positively disgusting.

Re:Google important?

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Let me just tell you something:

Repeating an argument doesn't make it stronger.

If you need Google to help you translate units such as quarts and liters, you have bigger problems than those a search engine can solve.

Repeating an argument doesn't make it stronger.

Re:Google important?

[mwvdlee]

I'm suggesting none of the sort.
Before cars, there were steam locomotives, bikes, cariages and others, a car is still one of the most important vehicles in the world.
Probably whatever's important in your life has been done a few billion times before too, that doesn't make it any less important.

Re:Google important?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does when his comment gets modded up and you're a useless troll. HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAA I love having mod points.

Re:Google important?

[SphericalCrusher]

And I take it you'd manually look up road directions on a map and use MapQuest for a little text based directions as well? And you must not mind a lot of ads with your free webbased e-mail. I understand that people have a choice of what they want, but you can't honestly say that Yahoo is an alternative to Google right now.

Isn't is kinda scary?

[Sanity]

I must say that I have growing concerns about the prospect of one company effectively determining what can and cannot be found on the world wide web, not to mention one company handling the email of a vast proportion of Internet users.

I mean, much as I hate to criticise one of Slashdot's fatted calves, and much as I recognise how innovative Google is, and what a keen grasp they clearly have of how to design user interfaces for the web, Google are answerable to shareholders, not some higher moral sense, much as we all would like to think that they are.

I recently wrote a blog entry on this subject, and suggested that it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search network that could do what Google does, but without any centralised reliance on a service, but rather a decentralised reliance on other people. Click the link for more detail about how this could be achieved in a scalable way.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Google, there was Yahoo, THE search engine. It seems entirely unlikely that any one company could ultimately restrict what can and cannot be found. If useful knowledge isn't be presented by one agent, I'm sure some enterprising individual(s) will come up with something that DOES present it.

If Google gets lazy, someone else will be willing to take over.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

MSN is used by many people who won't change their home pages in IE. Yahoo is used by many others, evidenced by its high level of registered users, who are more familiar with that site.

Google may be a verb, but it doesn't control the WWW or what can and cannot be found on it.

If Google tried to censor or in any way hamper what could and could not be found on the web, there will be others who take over, and Google knows this. They'd lose ad revenue, consequently, and that's the end of them. That is why they have extended support to the open-source community, and stuck to their "Do no evil" policy.

It's in their best personal, moral and business interest.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Sanity]

A p2p type network would be sloooooow

Not necessarily, the paper linked in my blog entry demonstrates that this is possible in logarithmic time. With a UDP-based protocol it could be very fast indeed.

give you different results each time you logged on

Why?

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Albio]

If you can't find something important on Google, do you just giveup?

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[DrLex]

Now it would be really scary if, on the day when Google has reached its goal of 'internet information domination', Microsoft announces that Google was actually a MS subsidiary, made to look like an opponent. Then suddenly Google becomes 'MS Google' and an evil laugh emanates from Redmond... :)

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Jurph]

I think you mean a sacred cow.

A "fatted calf" is fattened up because it's about to be slaughtered and eaten. A "sacred cow" is in no such danger.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[garcia]

I must say that I have growing concerns about the prospect of one company effectively determining what can and cannot be found on the world wide web, not to mention one company handling the email of a vast proportion of Internet users.

While I see what you are saying and I agree due to my tinfoilhatness I have to disagree that it is "handling the email of a vast proportion of Internet users."

This is a typical Slashdotter perception. Most people outside of "techies" don't use GMail. They may in the future but they aren't currently.

So for right now, let's not get *that* worried about them handling all the Internet's email but I do agree we should keep it in the back of our minds for later.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[dema]

I must say that I have growing concerns about the prospect of one company effectively determining what can and cannot be found on the world wide web, not to mention one company handling the email of a vast proportion of Internet users.

http://www.a9.com

http://www.alltheweb.com/

http://www.yahoo.com

http://search.msn.com

http://www.lycos.com/

http://www.altavista.com/

http://www.dogpile.com/

http://search.excite.com/

http://search.looksmart.com/

http://www.ask.com/

Where are you getting this "one company" stuff? Same goes for email, just because Google knows how to design a good interface does mean they are the only option.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[XMyth]

So, when I write one of these...how much are you going to sue me for?

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[utexaspunk]

Isn't is kinda scary?

is sure is kinda scary, but are and were are the ones that really keep me up at night...

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Zate]

Its only scary when its a company like Microsoft. Your afraid of what happens when Google gets a monoply because your previous experience with monopolies was bad. "Dont be evil" says it all.

Your current reaction/apprehension/fear is a direct result of other companies being evil and seeking not to do good for the common man, but to line their own pocket. Google just happens to have hit on an attitude and ethos that in basic terms puts doing good first and reaping the rewards of doing good second. Just so happens it works really well. I for one hope other companies take notice that making a fun interesting work environment and promoting "the greater good" can be just as lucrative as being a snake in the grass and fouling up the internet with malware, spyware and virii. Google are the direct Anti-MSFT and i for one welcome our new benevolent non-evil overlords :)

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Sanity]

I was assuming this would be similar to Gnutella, where you get different results based on which super-node you connect to.

No, its a different approach that doesn't rely on supernodes, its entirely decentralised, and far more scalable than a supernode-based architecture.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[golgotha007]

I also used Yahoo exclusively for web searching. However, I hated how 'busy' their site was and the time it took to load up all the flashy bits.

When I first discovered Google, sometime in 98 or 99, the number one thing that attracted me (besides good search results) was the non-obstrusive nature of their webpage.
It was nice and simple and loaded quickly because of the content (or lack thereof).

One thing that I can't stand are web pages that are so busy looking, I can't easily figure out how to get the information I need.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[AviLazar]

You will disappear in 5.4.3.2. Damn spies.

Move along people nothing to see here, we will give you an extra Gigabyte of google space. Aren't we cool? Now go Google something.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[daviddennis]

Let's say that tomorrow Google says that, in the interest of increasing revenue, they are going to implement GooglePops, their new pop up and pop under advertising service. "Our advertisers have been asking for fresh methods of recovering customer eyeballs in this space," said a Google rep.

The outcry would be immediate. The Slashdot story would get 5,000 comments. There would be people who said that this proved that Google was evil, after all. And there would be people who would defend them, in the context that pop-up ads are effective, and therefore what people really want.

In the end, Google would lose a tremendous amount of credibility. People would start laughing at them. And AltaVista and A9 and MSN would work ever harder, knowing they could knock Google straight off the perch. A lot of people would stop using Google and would never come back. And the Googleplex would no longer attract the very best people, as it does today.

This is the beauty of that ever-adjusting system we call the free market. People who don't like Google will go to other search engines if they see it as truly "bad". And enough is now understood about search that it wouldn't be that difficult to create a new search engine with similar quality results.

This is our protection against Google turning "bad". They know that if they do, they lose credibility and customers. The people who run Google are smart and know where the money is: In being the biggest and most respected search company on the planet.

They're not going to give that up for a bunch of pop-up ads. But if they do, we'll desert them in droves, and they'll get exactly what they deserve.

Hope that helped.

D

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Google, there was Yahoo, THE search engine

You've got your web history mixed up there, nephew. Before Google, there was AltaVista, THE search engine. Yahoo! was THE web directory..the distinction being that a directory has its web pages organized in a categorical hierarchy, and back then, Yahoo! hired web surfers to do nothing BUT categorize the entire web. Yahoo!'s directory is still there, but it has really, really suffered since searching overtook directory seeking, and in general could not keep up with the exponential growth of the web.

But I miss it. It's a completely different approach to finding what you need on the web. Instead of doing a dumb search where some fancy shmancy algorithm (PageRank in Google's case) figures out with keywords and inbound links and other magic whether the page it has indexed is relevant, you actually just POINT at the topic you want and find a list of the most relevant sites or subtopics, which then lead to more specific relevant sites. If you wanted information on a topic, rather than some particular detail or fact, it was very handy.

Which makes me wonder. Part of the downfall of creating the kind of semantic tree that is a web directory is the sheer labor intensity of it. It's very hard to write good AI to do semantic categorization, so a manual approach is still the way to go. But what about the wiki approach? How about a collectively maintained web directory? Or is this what those "folksonomies" already are?

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search network that could do what Google does, but without any centralised reliance on a service, but rather a decentralised reliance on other people.

In that case, check out The Internet Portal. They're trying to build exactly what you're describing -- something similar to the Google 'grid' platform that they run all these distributed net-wide services upon, except it's distributed among all of its owners instead of centrally controlled.

On the other hand, I'm ok with Google, specifically because they're NOT Microsoft. Anything that helps to loosen Microsoft's grip on computing is good, in my opinion.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Simon Garlick]

Man, ten years ago* Altavista was "THE" search engine. It was so far superior to everything else there just wasn't any comparison.

*holy crap. Is it that long already? I feel old.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[moonbender]

I didn't read the PDF (meh) paper you link to, but I'm wondering how a P2P web search would deal with the issue of trusting search results gained from peers. Seems like a playground for "SEO" crooks.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Ismilar]

Here, try Google's directory:
http://directory.google.com/
I assume it's indexed using computational algorithms and not people (or perhaps pigeons), but it's still quite convenient.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Ismilar]

"Yahoo is used by many others, evidenced by its high level of registered users, who are more familiar with that site."

I would have to argue that. A lot of those people registered for Yahoo Games, or Yahoo Messenger. I have an account I made for playing games a couple years ago, and the account is still active, but I do not think I have ever used Yahoo Search (and either do any of the people I play the games with).
So the number of people using Yahoo Search is probably far less than their registered users (although I suppose I would switch to them if Google tried to censor or hamper their searches, so your point still stands).

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[16384]

Before Altavista was *the* search engine, one had to manage with Yanoff's list (a list of good websites and tools, it probably had almost everything because the web was much smaller), use gopher, archie to search ftp sites. I remember when Yahoo was yahoo.standford.edu and when Lycos was a good search engine. Heck, Mosaic was an acceptable browser and I still used gopher once in a while. (I even used webmail a few times... :) )

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Andy Dodd]

I'd be inclined to disagree with you on that.

I think a lot of "techies" are less likely to use GMail because they don't use any form of webmail at all.

I know a LOT of non-techies that use GMail exclusively for their mail. While I have a GMail account, I don't use it, as I have my own pretty decent webmail system set up.

(I LOVE IMP, it rocks!)

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[BewireNomali]

lol...

this overlord thing... isn't that dead yet?

in regards to promoting the greater good, regardless of the ethos of the original founders, the company is now publically traded. They are now beholden to meeting quarterly expectations, actually moreso than companies like Microsoft because the stock is currently overvalued. This "innovation" just happens to be them collecting server side apps already popular as judged by what people are looking for (they are google, after all) and BUYING companies that already code for those specialties. Sounds like MS to me.

The whole idea of a benevolent overlord is an oxymoron. To win, you must conquer. And actually, because Legg Mason, Value Trust, and Fidelity own 35% of google themselves, you should be welcoming them and other fund companies like them, who just so happen to rule the world with other people's money.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google are evil and smart, they'll introduce controls to their advantage very slowly and secretly. Their software isn't open source, so we don't know what they're really doing, and odds are they already have configurable filtering technologies in place so they can comply with the legal requirements of various governments.

An evil Google might also be wise to wait until their edge is virtually insurmountable for non-geeks, like the MS Windows edge in the desktop/laptop PC OS market. Crawling an indexing the web requires an enormous amount of resources, and the requirements just keep getting higher.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[gniv]

a9 is using Google in the background;
excite and dogpile are metasearch engines, they use google and others.
So there aren't that many choices.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the market share of each of those, and how many are just meta-search engines (ie relying on the results of others), or use the same underlying indices? I could provide an extensive list of operating systems that run on x86 desktop/laptop PCs too, but MS Windows is the only one that really matters today, since it has 90%+ market share. If Google gets to 90%+ market share, we'll have very good reasons to worry.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have said much the same thing about computer operating systems in the 1980s. When it all changed was when Microsoft Windows, by virtue of network economies, became the only viable choice (round about this time, Microsoft also began to change its behaviour in various ways). If a similar economic model exists in Google's markets, we may have to watch it carefully.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.alltheweb.com/

http://www.yahoo.com

http://search.msn.com

http://www.lycos.com/

http://www.altavista.com/

http://search.looksmart.com/

http://www.ask.com/

grandparent still has a point, i count more than one company.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[ciroknight]

Would this be something like how Coral indexes/caches the internet? Could it even be Added to Coral, so that you would have a very Google-esqe interface to not only find a site, but to present a copy of it to you, even if the original site is down?

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you don't know, even Google returns different results from time to time. They admit the replication between several data centers is not working so well. The speed concern does not have a theoretical ground.

Basically, it seems you're FUDding p2p stuff. It's still in the early stage, and we haven't explored its potentiality enough. I would rather expect, after some p2p search starts really working, a search company might start saying what you said.

Google supports FOSS. But they will never support P2P seriously. Why? Because spreading of FOSS doesn't affect their ad business, but P2P does. And it's much more difficult to take control of P2P. They recognize their potential enemy. Sorry for my bad English.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[anti-trojan]

It is actually Open Directory sorted by PageRank.

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[daviddennis]

I like your analogy but I don't think it quite works.

An operating system is something that's extremely painful for most people to switch. An operating system also brings with it a universe of third-party products, which are what really makes it difficult to switch.

You can switch web sites by just typing a different URL into your browser or changing your bookmarks or default home page. Web sites do not have a monopoly of use of third-party products; anyone can link to Wikipedia, for example, and if you don't link to it it does not prevent other people from accessing it directly. So it's not like an OS where there is that intensity of control.

Since every search engine has access to the same raw information if it's willing to get the same computing power, I don't see network effects as being a big problem.

If you have good counterarguments to this, though, I'd love to hear them, since your statement did make me think.

D

Re:Isn't is kinda scary?

[Simon Garlick]

IIRC, Yahoo was originally at akebono.stanford.edu. It wasn't even important enough to merit a hostname of its own :)

Internet barons...

[Gopal.V]

Google's always behind technology
Yahoo's always behind safe money (see the Y! News vs G News)

And Microsoft is behind all evil,
Netscape survived as Firefox and
Macromedia just went to Adobe ..

That's a brief history of the web since Y2K :)

Wait...

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

so if they're not evil and corrupt, they can be fair and hono(u)rable in their endeavo(u)rs?

I've seen more insightful commentary in polls for Slashdot polls.

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. The "degeneration into the typically corrupt corporate ethos" sounds like some kind of proletariat crap. TYPICALLY? They're just companies, people. Sometimes people get too greedy, but it's hardly the norm.

Googlewhack

[Malc]

Thank you Google. Without you that madman Dave Gorman might have stopped after meeting people with the same name. But with your help he got to play Googlewhack and I got to listen to his stories and split my sides with laughter.

What about the not-so-good things?

[Enigma_Man]

I'm curious to hear from people that have bad experiences with Google, or wish they did something another way, or even any examples of "corporate evilness" from them.

I'm not trying to be trollish, just curious if anybody has any perspective other than the very good experiences most of us have had with Google.

-Jesse

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Timesprout]

Google ate my hamster.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[DelawareBoy]

How about Google assisting censorship in China?

http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2005/04/15/ ch ina_censorship_working_google_workers_happy/

As an avid reader of Slashdot, I think we all can find a bit of evil in this..

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[michaelhood]

Google's AdWords program is completely opaque in it's processes. I get my clicks reduced/"slowed"/paused on some keywords, and through the roof on others. Google flat out ignores requests for explanations. Google also turns a huge blind eye to fradulent clicks, which we estimate could be as high as 10-20% of all registered clicks. This is not limited to just myself. Both issues are well documented on the webmasterworld.com forums by dozens of other advertisers. Higher volume advertisers get no preferential treatment from what I can tell, except that we just run into problems *more* often, due to the volume.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[mgs1000]

"Don't be evil...unless there is money to be made"

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[kawika]

Click fraud in Adwords/Adsense. Google says the problem is minimal, but it's not. Yes, it's in Google's best interest to clean it up to maintain confidence in the system, but they don't want to let on how big a problem it is for the same reason. They don't want people to start asking for credits or refunds.

Scams perpetrated through Adwords/Adsense. Keywords are being bid up by the scum that can afford to--the ones that lie to make the sale. It's tough for a legit company to compete with one that will lie. As a publisher I have almost no control over what ads are displayed on the site, I can only block by URL and not by company for example. I cannot block Claria the company, I must block whatever URL they or their affiliates decide to use this week. And I'm limited to a total of 200 URLs in the Adwords block list.

Toleration of spyware distribution through blogger.com. Want some spyware? Try one of these blogs.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[m50d]

Someone offered RSS feeds of Google news, and they takedown'd him. That was the point they became evil in my book.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[oneiros27]

You can either bring no service, or service in compliance with the rules and regulations of the locations that you are providing the service.

Which one is more evil? Refusing to provide your service to a population that could otherwise benefit from it, even in its reduced capacity, or making it available, even if you might not be happy with the terms you're required to comply with?

The correct answer -- neither. Neither one is inherently evil. The first one is petty and immature, and the second one can be construed as greedy without knowing all of the details.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Broiler]

Google also turns a huge blind eye to fradulent clicks...
FYI
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/19 27212&from=rss/

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[xtracto]

That was an interesting point. For what you state here, and some other things I have been reading, it seems Google is not as good with their "Clients" as it is with their users.

Now, that is sad, because I can see it quite similar to other companies monopolistic practices. Of course, I know there are other web page search engines but being google the most used, I guess people want advertise there, and Google knowing it, can ignore their advertisers claims...

I hope that does not go bad to goole, as I can think some other company (MS, Y!, AV, etc) could get a better "Ad revenew scheme" that really attracts advertisers (here, I think M$ has a better posibility to do that as they have lot$ of ca$h to $pend)

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[eric_brissette]

As far as I knew, the whole Chinese censorship thing wasn't about money. My understanding (which may be wrong, correct me if I am) was that Google was attempting to pre-censor some news stories for the Chinese, so that China wouldn't block the site completely. It was a choice between leaving out some stories, or having China block the entire site. Maybe it was the wrong choice, but the reasons behind it didn't seem all that sinister.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[DelawareBoy]

Here's a touchy subject. (No trolling, really, trying to make a counter example).

Is it better not to have slavery? Or to have slavery and abide by the law, and treat your slaves as nice as you can? I'd vote that the first one is the more socially responsible one.

Yeah, this is a bit of a stretch comparison, but the point I'm trying to make is that Google could have made a stand to say, "what you, China, is doing is wrong, and we will "do no evil." Instead, they accept the check and say, "we'll do what we can."

Can you shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding?

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding?

No. No, you can't.

Love,
TMBG.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[tompercival]

I prefix any email address I give so that it is particular to the company I am contacting - I'm hardly a breakaway revolutionary there. I wrote to Google to ask about future services using the alias google@mydomain.com. The vast majority of spam I now receive is to that alias. I wrote to them to ask them why and funnily enough never heard back from them.

I know that's hardly the end of the world but it's depresing nonetheless.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Bullfish]

While I grasp the concept of brand loyalty, I have to shake my head at attributing good, evil etc to MS, Apple Google and the like. They are after all, companies that look to their bottom line and shareholders first. Anyone one of these companies will, and have made decisions that have pissed off their faithful and warmed the cockles of their users hearts at times. Jobs wasn't brought in, for example, to warm the hearts of the apple fans, he was brought in to get the company making lots of money. He's done that, mainly through the iPod of late, but he's done it. Gates, like him or not, has done his job very well. Screeching "robber baron" is pointless, he isn't that, he's a business man. A successful business man. Frankly, all of these companies practices are mild compared to the historical record of how companies have behaved in the past 100 year (and more). Google's core business is information retrieval, something they do very well.

Just remember, all these companies are really after your dollar and should not be confused with being your pals. As one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition goes: "a friend is a friend until you sell him something, then he becomes a customer".

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an email I received last year:

I have decided to reject the Google job offer. For a company that has managed to attract some of the cream of Computing (even Rob Pike has joined and Bill Joy has said he's thinking about it), and which prides itself on its laid-back work environment, this is probably a remarkable decision. However, after dealing with them for many months over the "hiring process", their carefully cultivated "do no evil" media image is just that, an elaborate front on what is a pretty ruthless company, which displays good old American IT capitalism at its worst...

Why do I think that? When I initially applied for the job, I applied under the impression I was going to work in Zurich in their new Zurich office (which they announced with great fanfare (http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/ 05/going-out-of-our-way-to-find-right.html), on the open-source Linux kernel (thus feeding work back into the community with myself receiving credit). After a long interview process, which in a drip-drip fashion changed all these initial assumptions, I find myself being offered a job which requires relocation to America, is unlikely to allow publication of any work I produce there, and which requires myself to stop all work on my open source projects, even though that work would be performed in my spare time! If I knew that to be the case when I applied, I would not have bothered, and I suspect they trap a lot of people into accepting the job in the same way.

The European computer scientist friendly image they obtained by their announcement of the Zurich office is a case in point. In their blog and press releases they make great play that they're a caring company, opening up a European office for all the poor Europeans who don't want to relocate to America. I applied due to this, and during the interview process the goal-posts changed from a job in Zurich, to a job in Zurich with an initial three months in California, to an initial three months in Zurich and then one year in California (a neat inversion, someone there must know psychology), to an email last night when they've now said an initial one month in America, two months in Zurich, and then back to America. Once I'm over in California for the initial month, I can easily envisage they will change their mind and forget about the two months in Zurich (after all three major relocations in the space of three months is hardly easy on myself).

Even though I will be working on the Linux kernel, I am beginning to suspect I will never feed anything back to the open source community. For a company which have built up such an adoring fanbase they are actually incredibly secretive. From extensive web searches (using Google how ironic ) they prove to have published no source code and have fed nothing back to the Linux kernel (apart from one or two line fixes which is in their interest, as it saves them from re-patching the code in new kernel releases). They have in actuality released nothing, code or academic papers, which gives any clue to their internal architecture or the extensive IP they must have built up.

The demand that I stop work on my open source projects is totally unreasonable. [Description of the wide usage of his Open Source project deleted]. I don't think stopping all work on [it] is a good swap for a job where I won't be allowed to publish anything.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[oneiros27]

Of course, they as a company can't directly piss off a country, or they run the risk of their employees being detained, should they ever attempt to visit that country.

They can take the profit gained from China, and roll it into something (that's not directly owned by their company) that would otherwise benefit the Chinese people, possibly even to directly fight the types of oppression that's being discussed.

Of course, if they were to do something like that, they'd want to make sure to hide that they were doing such a thing.

Note -- I have no connections to Google. I have no reason to believe that they are doing this, or to believe that they aren't. This is pure speculation on my part, to show that there may be a time when a perceived bad thing can actually be a good thing, but there may be reason to mask that the good thing is happening.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Dun Malg]

Here's a touchy subject. (No trolling, really, trying to make a counter example). Is it better not to have slavery? Or to have slavery and abide by the law, and treat your slaves as nice as you can? I'd vote that the first one is the more socially responsible one. Yeah, this is a bit of a stretch comparison, but the point I'm trying to make is that Google could have made a stand to say, "what you, China, is doing is wrong, and we will "do no evil." Instead, they accept the check and say, "we'll do what we can."

Your counter example is poorly chosen. It should be more along the lines of:

"Is it better to deal with slave owners to afford their slaves with some limited freedoms, or to refuse to deal with them entirely unless they free their slaves?"

China doesn't give a rat's ass what Google thinks of its censorship policy, so taking the moral high ground is essentially unproductive posturing. The real question is is it better to make a purely symbolic all-or-nothing stand on principle, or to do as much good as you can with the limited options available?

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[HerbertLipschitz]

Google seems to polarize /.'ers like nothing else. Perhaps there is an element of envy?

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[PMoonlite]

lots of spammers are out there guessing addresses. it doesn't seem unlikely to me that "google@yourdomain" would be a common guess.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[fizban]

1) If the slave owners have alternate options regarding the thing they were working with you on, you either a) continue to work with them and try to affect change from the inside by making yourself critical to their success and removing the alternatives, which is a slow process, b) pressure the alternatives to agree with you, or c) try to forcefully take the power away from them (which may have a cost to you as well).

2) If they have no power (i.e. in order to continue as they are, they require whatever it is you give them) then you refuse to work with them until they abide by your rules.

This is world politics at its simplest. Look at North Korea. The U.S. tried to go straight to (2), but found that North Korea actually had power and alternate support options, so it is threatening (1c) while quietly doing (1b).

With Iraq, because the U.S. calculated the cost as low, they tried (1b) for a little while, then moved to (1c).

With respect to China, I suspect Google is doing (1a), trying to make themselves critical to the Chinese, after which they can start doing whatever the hell they want no matter what the Chinese government says. I consider (1a) to be the path favored by people of a more "liberal" mindset, which I think Google probably is.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree. very good points.

except it's "EFFECT" change.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[permaculture]

They turned me into a newt!

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[michaelhood]

This only refers to people inflating their clicks on THEIR OWN AdSense pages. This has *NOTHING* to do with people clicking on MY AdWords ads to force me to overspend. It's an attempt to push me out of position by competition so they can have the top positions that I pay more than one dollar per click for.

Re:What about the not-so-good things?

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment was checked with SpellBound

Which doesn't seem to be very effective, unless "revenew" was slipped into the dictionary unannounced...

I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[Adult film producer]

Unless you reject cookies from google outright, they can learn a lot about you. The colour of shirts you like to wear, what cpu manufacturer you prefer, what ideas you had for mother's day presents, everything concerning your sexuality, your political leanings (left, right, fascist, communist.)

Give them a few years and their database of profiles will be awsome.. I just hope their not working in concert with any covert u.s. government institutions.

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[FluffyPanda]

I hear this a lot, but I don't quite see how this is possible.

When you click on a link in google (unless it's an adsense advert) they have no way of knowing where you've gone, or what you're doing while your there.

They won't know that I went to the ebuyer.com link from my "Cheap CPU" search and not dabs.com, and even if they modify the returned URL to track your movements (something I haven't seen them do yet), once I'm there they'll certainly have no clue whether I bought AMD, Intel or just decided to go to a highstreet shop.

I don't think the google data mining is quite as pervasive as the tinfoil hats would have us believe

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[Anonymous Coward]

+3 interesting on slashdot is most peoples -1 stark raving paranoid

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[Adult film producer]

Google uses one cookie that never expires, and it crosses all their services (one cookie for gmail, web searches, image searches, maps, etc.) And then there is google toolbar which is even more viral in nature. Yes, each time you type something into google websearch, each of your queries is stored and associated with your cookie.

They don't know who you are though right ? Well.. maybe not you, but thats where gmail comes in. Most people will enter their real names/addy's/etc ..

One cookie to rule them all.

Wired article on google worries

Go google google :)

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more worried about Gmail than their search tools.

We all know about their advertising techniques (scanning emails). They can create a very detailed profile of each Gmail user like that.

Now let's say they also figure out your approximate location based on your IP address.

Also, think about the social network they can build from the invites that are needed to create a new account.

Put that all together, and what do we get? A geographical social network map, in which detailed information for each node (user) is available. This can be a very powerful and harmless advertising tool but what if Google decides to become even a little bit evil?

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[Neurotoxic666]

everything concerning your sexuality

What? Like one can use Google Image search to find free sex pictures? You gotta be kidding... =P

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[FluffyPanda]

But the google that most people know is the search engine, google.com. Gmail is a different issue. I use it, and accept that I'm storing a fair amount of information on their servers, possibly some of it of some interest to marketing companies.

That said, their cookie probably provides less information about me than typing my name into their search engine does. It's hard to be active on the web and maintain anonimity.

Plus the idea that google is in bed with some kind of secret government agency just sounds a bit far fetched.

Re:I'd love to be on the inside of this machine

[harl]

This is just ignorant. You need to be afraid of big business getting those profiles rather than the government.

Look they can't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I searched for "google evil" and got a mere 3.3 million hits but ... ...searching for "microsoft evil" yielded a token 2.6 million hits.

They pretty much cancel each other out as I see it.

Re:Look they can't be evil

[Albio]

But how many of the "google evil" hits were talking about "google's do no evil" policy? And how many of the "microsoft evil" hits were actually flaming microsoft?

Re:Look they can't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I tried

"Google is evil" - 1,210 hits
"Microsoft is evil" - 6,730 hits

Therefore Microsoft is six times more evil than Google.

QED

Re:Look they can't be evil

[iamnot]

and "canada evil" yields 6 million hits...so we'd better be careful

Re:Look they can't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

There's probably less reference to "Microsoft Evil" because it's become a pervasive belief in society and probably less cited on websites as opposed to a "newer, sexier, more current" power like Google.

For example, "Pope Evil" is already nipping on Microsoft's heels with 2,580,000 hits.

I need to get back to my huffing habit now. Goodbye.

Google = "The Internet"

[pete19]

I tend to find that especially amongst "non-geeks", Google IS the internet. Could they have much more of an impact than that?

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

I tend to find that especially amongst "non-geeks", IE is the interweb. Which is worse?

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? I heard "Internet Explorer".

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[dlZ]

I've noticed that many of my home clients swear by Yahoo or MSN, and don't even realise how large Google has gotten. A lot of them also like their Internet providers page as their homepage, though, because it feels more AOLish than having a useful start page.

But I'd say they feel that IE is the Internet more than anything else. We recommand and install Firefox for all our clients, and I've heard remarks ranging from "Oh, other people make IE now, too?" to "Oh, IE is the best, that's why it comes with Windows." Oh, 95% of these clients are spyware removal, infected to the point that you can't even get into Windows or if you can it's completely unuseable.

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found that most of the non-geeks here at work tend to use Ask Jevees as their primary web search, and when presented with google, they use like Jevees and get really upset when they can't find what they're looking for.

Then again, these were 6th graders who think MTV still means Music Television, I imagine that's where they saw the ad for Ask Jevees. Personally, I had never bothered with it because as all true geeks know that if it's not on Google, it's not on the web. You can imagine my surprise when I told the class to 'google-it' for the first time and they all went to Jevees. They all new the phrase, and identified with web-searching, but it was not tied to google.com.

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[Neurotoxic666]

I tend to find that especially amongst "geeks", Google IS God. :)

Re:Google = "The Internet"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very true..When I first signed on the internet over 10 years ago, I thought the internet was only www or "the world wide web". Then I learned about IRC and the fact that the internet is made of many "layers" or services on different ports other then port 80.

Perhaps...

[gandell]

Consider this. Yahoo, MSN, and many others have begun scrambling to provide the same services that Google has right now. Toolbars, Desktop Search apps, and even increased space in your email accounts. Like it or not, Google has changed the face of the search industry. Will they keep their dominance? It depends on how the technology evolves. I've not seen any of the other internet based companies have the same impact. I'd say that makes Google pretty important.

Re:Perhaps...

[Threni]

> Like it or not, Google has changed the face of the search industry

I'd not call that `changing the face of the search industry`. But I wasn't denying they've affected how some other companies, simply that it's not one of the most important companies in the world, which was the original, laughable claim to which I was responding.

Re:Perhaps...

[packeteer]

I dont consider a company important just because it forces its competitors to compete. Thats how the system is suposed to work. Think about this; if Google suddenly ceased to exist would our lives be much different? I know that really like how google helps me find stuff really quick but its not like before google was around i sat around all day thinking about how lame search engines were. Basically what im trying to say is that Google is "one of the more important technology companies that are fairly new", not simply one of the "most important companies".

Re:Perhaps...

[TGK]

And people in the 16th century didn't sit around all day thinking about how lame horses were.

I'm not saying Google is the Automobile to Yahoo's horse, but your argument is flawed.

Re:Perhaps...

[smittyoneeach]

I dont consider a company important just because it forces its competitors to compete. Thats how the system is suposed to work.

class Feedback_loop_company {};
Feedback_loop_company Google = new Feedback_loop_company();

Yeah, if we didn't have this instance, we'd have to make a new one. The fact that it's here, and taking the tortise approach to world domination, as opposed to the hare, makes Google at least interesting, if not important.
You know that the thought of their own OS distribution has to have crossed their minds...

Re:Perhaps...

[packeteer]

Are you saying people in the 16th century were unhappy becuase they didn't know what they were missing out on? Are you trying to say Google is as revolutionary as an automobile?

Re:Perhaps...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Um... anyone that sees google maps side by side with mapquest might come to that conclusion.

Re:Perhaps...

[hairykrishna]

Many people use the internet as their primary source of information. Google is the starting point for the (vast) majority of these peoples research.

If thiis doesn't make it one of the worlds most important companies, what does?

Re:Perhaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably echoed many other times on this list, but here's my opinion on Google. As long as searches like "atomic weight helium" don't pop up links to "power rangers in pink spandex" then Google will get my vote. But when the google bombers find ways to promote their porno, then I'll be looking for the next great search engine.

But as long as I can search for "solaris package list" and hit that "I'm feeling lucky" button and get directed straight to Sun's package listing for solaris 8. Then it's all good.

Of course, I liked the occational google bomb that poke fun at Bush or Bill Gates or what not. Those are just funny.

Re:Perhaps...

[Buskaatt]

Does that make them "one of the most important companies in the world" though? One of the top 1000 maybe. If somebody's life is that changed by Blogger and Maps, maybe they need to go outside and look at some local wildlife or something.

No I didn't rtfa, I didn't even get through the description on the front page before I cringed. Most important company ... sigh.

Re:Perhaps...

[bigman2003]

Google is very important and I believe it has changed the face of the search industry, and the way that the web is used.

5 years ago, I spent time 'surfing the web' by using things like 'Yahoo Cool Sites' and their 'Surfers Picks.' I'd get to an interesting site and pretty much read the entire thing. Sites like 'Mississippi Mobile Homes' (pre-commercialization) and 'Avocado Memories' still stick in my head many years after I first saw them.

Now, I don't look at entire sites, I only look at individual pages. I do a search on a subject and find what I am looking for. The snippet on Google ensures that I don't just randomly click on sites until I find the right one- I usually find it right away.

This is good, this is efficient, this is great. But it is a lot less fun.

I run a site (see my sig) which has about 55 different pages on it. As I look at my site statistics, I see that most of my visitors only view one page. Of course this could mean that they don't like it, so they leave. That's okay. But, my number one referrer is actually Google IMAGES. So I guess that a lot of people are coming just to steal a picture, then they leave.

So the Internet experience has changed. People no longer surf the web, they use it. But if I compare it to a magazine, I think it has lost a lot of it's charm. For instance, if I am reading Newsweek, I enjoy all of the OTHER stuff, like the comics page, the side-bars, the one page stories, the sub-stories from the main article, etc. etc. But if I was doing research on the web, I would miss all of that and go straight to yet another boring story about Iraq.

I use the web all day long, and Google is indespensible. But sometimes it would be nice just to stop and smell the roses, wander around and see what's out there. But it's hard to do when what I want is available right from the Google toolbar.

Re:Perhaps...

[eison]

Yahoo and AltaVista and MapQuest all had a similar degree of impact at their peak.
Point is, Google is eminently replaceable whenever somebody smarter comes along.

Re:Perhaps...

[Zevez]

What you want is firefox plus the StumbleUpon extension.

https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/morei nfo.php?id=138&application=firefox

This is semi-random browsing at its finest.

April 20, 2005

[michaelhood]

Sterling, VA (REUTERS) April 20, 2005 -- The recent thrust of Google stories on the ever-popular Slashdot website have not been just a coincidence. Slashdot will be renamed to Googledot effective May 1, 2005. Slashdot editors seek to assure the readership that all of Slashdot's features will remain, including but not limited to 3+ Google stories per day, and an infinite amount of dupes.

Re:April 20, 2005

[slapout]

That's fine. Just as long as they develop a troll-filter.

Re:April 20, 2005

[Ingolfke]

Sterling, VA (REUTERS) April 20, 2005 - Correction, in the previous report REUTERS reported that ...features will remain, including but not limited to 3+ Google stories per day, and an infinite amount of dupes.

This should have read ...features will remain, including but not limited to 3+ Google stories per day, and a new rolling post mirror service that will mirror the posts from prevoius days .

Re:April 20, 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

You're off by one month!

Garage?

[MoonFacedAssassin]

...they may just succeed in assuming the fair and honourable dominion over the world's information they so naively set out to achieve eight years ago in their garage.

Is it just me, or does it seem every computer "revolution" begins in a garage (*ahem* apple, etc)?

*Note to self* Get a garage.

Re:Garage?

[maxwell demon]

Hmmm ... did they have a garage at CERN to develop the WWW in? :-)

Re:Garage?

[Elminst]

Out back.. around the corner, past the supercollider.

Re:Garage?

[Chexum]

Garage.. I think here it means the Stanford University. (Am I the only one remembering the google.stanford.edu address?). So.. how that build-a-university program of yours is going, eh?

Re:Garage?

[Momoru]

Except if i recall it was in their dorm room, not a garage

Re:Garage?

[dajak]

Here in Europe we invent things in garden sheds.

That's why I converted the pantry, which used to be the garden shed, into the office I am posting from right now.

I work at a university, but if I ever invent something it really happened in the garden shed.

Re:Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

ooh.. the 'garage' Hey, fellas, 'the garage'. well, la-di-da, Mr. Frenchman.

It's a carhole.

Re:Garage?

[rob_squared]

Just download it from apple.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

Re:Garage?

[ydrol]

Is it just me, or does it seem every computer "revolution" begins in a garage (*ahem* apple, etc)?

*Note to self* Get a garage.

More like .. Get a woman. You dont think they have thier hardware in the garage by *choice* do you?

Re:Garage?

[MoonFacedAssassin]

More like .. Get a woman.

Got a woman, just don't have the garage :) Darn duplex! Maybe I can start a revolution out of the closets I have hardware stuffed in.

Threatening M$ ??? How?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'll admit I didn't RTFAs, but I have to ask: how in ${deity}'s name can Google threaten M$? Do they sell OSes, OA suites, etc.?

This is like this "iPod killer" fixation: why does everything have to be viewed as a threat to M$? Is billg's incapacity to accept to have to compete (fairly) and resulting intolerance of potential competitors rubbing off everyone else?

Google a threat?

[gtoomey]

Google revenue: 3 Billion. Microsoft Revenue: 38 Billion

Unless Google pulls a rabbit out of a hat (like a new operating system), I cant see this changing any time soon.

Re:Google a threat?

[Anonymous Coward]

just sit back and watch as all those systems slip through their fingers...

Re:Google a threat?

[Anonymous Coward]

they said they were a threat, not stomping MS into the ground.

Re:Google a threat?

[Deliveranc3]

You do realize the first billion is by far the hardest don't you.

Google isn't all powerful yet for a diffrent reason, they simply haven't had enough time at the top yet, yahoo, hotbot and all other search engines initially provided increadibly accurate results but were later spammed out of existance and are only now returning to functionality.

Google will likely face the same fate, the attacks on blogs has been one symptom the attack on googles adwords may be the next.

Re:Google a threat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google a threat? - Google revenue: 3 Billion. Microsoft Revenue: 38 Billion

A megacorp called IBM used to be complacent about a pimply pipsqueak young upstart called Microsoft (I remember it well).

Unless Google pulls a rabbit out of a hat (like a new operating system), I cant see this changing any time soon.

If by soon you mean next week, you're probably right. If by soon you mean 5 years, you could be in for a surprise.

Re:Google a threat?

[rob_squared]

I don't know. I had a dream last night I was on an airplane trading stocks, and google's share price was $500something.

Re:Google a threat?

[solferino]

Google revenue: 3 Billion. Microsoft Revenue: 38 Billion

Unless Google pulls a rabbit out of a hat (like a new operating system), I cant see this changing any time soon.

Google market capitalisation: 55 Billion. Microsoft market capitalisation: 265 Billion.

The market appears to disagree with you.

Re:Google a threat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft started around 1975.
Google was around 1996.

~21 years longer in business. Cant really compare revenue, since microsoft has been at it for that much longer.

YaGooHooGle!

[Dante Shamest]

For those of you who can't decide whether Yahoo! or Google is better...

YaGooHooGle!

Re:YaGooHooGle!

[n54]

http://yagoohoogle.com/search.php?q=lol

Re:YaGooHooGle!

[xtracto]

I would mod you not funny but Interesting & | informative, I went to that page and searched for some terms, from the most common (what is a computer?) to more specific information like utility theory derivatives economy exchange market buyer seller.

From what I saw, i think Google interface is better, for example, for the first search, the results page in Yahoo! start with some ads, while Google begins with "Web definitions for computer".

I searched also for Inmortum for a specific obscure term (it was my brother's rock band name =oP) and I found 2 different pages. (sorry they are in spanish).
For the sake of information, the page by Google is closer to what I would like to find when looking for "Inmortum" (as it has some information about the music scene in the state where the group was), while Yahoo's page is an essay from a guy that was also in the band and chose the name as his pseudonim.

Well, I think when I have more time I would like to make more tests with this page. I know it is quite simple as having 2 windows opened but, it is quite useful when searching some other things.

Well, to close I would like to add that I searched for (I could not resist... sorry) Google Sucks and Yahoo Sucks. That yield cool results, for the Google sucks, Google throws (as first link) a page with the title A Complete Waste of Time :: Why Google sucks, sadly, it is from 2003 while Yahoo links you to GoogleWatch.

When searching Yahoo Sucks, both pages direct to www.scubatampa.com/yahoo.html.

They haven't been too evil

[tech-hawger]

I think they're doing a good job of "not being evil". People freaked out when Gmail first came out because of the whole we'll-scan-your-emails-to-show-relevant-ads thing. But people aren't complaining too much now with 2 gigs free space (and increasing everyday). Yahoo was all over the 1gig free e-mail but hasn't said much in regards to Google's 2gig offering. They have been getting new products to the market a lot faster than their competitors. It's now mostly Yahoo and Google with Microsoft somewhat lagging behind in the innovation and speed department.

Re:They haven't been too evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the email ads are extremely not pervasive too. The only one I even remember were ads for volunteer services. And now, thanks to the imap support, it's basically a free lunch. I will rue the day when they switch to a model that makes them actual amounts of money.

Re:They haven't been too evil

[rfc1394]

Yahoo was all over the 1gig free e-mail but hasn't said much in regards to Google's 2gig offering.

Yahoo!'s free e-mail went from 5 meg to 250 meg. I know this as a fact as I have a Yahoo! e-mail account. The 1 gb service is a charged service, it is not free.

Re:They haven't been too evil

[tech-hawger]

it supposedly will be free, by early May. Whenever that is.see here: http://whatsnew.mail.yahoo.com/ if you've paid you're going to get 2gigs( http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com/ ).

Re:They haven't been too evil

[rfc1394]

Yahoo was all over the 1gig free e-mail but hasn't said much in regards to Google's 2gig offering.

Yahoo!'s free e-mail went from 5 meg to 250 meg. I know this as a fact as I have a Yahoo! e-mail account. The 1 gb service is a charged service, it is not free.

it supposedly will be free, by early May. Whenever that is.see here: http://whatsnew.mail.yahoo.com if you've paid you're going to get 2gigs( http://mailplus.mail.yahoo.com ).

Thank you for your correction, I was wrong, and Yahoo will be raising the limit from 250 meg to 1gb.

I don't think extra space above that really makes much difference, unless you're archiving spam most people wouldn't use 1gb of space for mere text-based e-mail in a lifetime. Now, mail including rich attachments is another matter.

Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[FhnuZoag]

Yeah. So they think that goodness will triumph. Fat chance. The Dark Side always wins. Power corrupts. No matter what pledges are made, there is nothing concrete that will keep google from becoming 'evil'. After all, everyone's perception of evil changes, and who knows what would happen if Google starts thinking for people, deciding for its customers what it's best interests are? The online community is getting too reliant on google. We need competition. We need alternatives. If one group be allowed to dominate, it needs to be one with openness and non-profitness written into its being. And google does not have that.

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[fermion]

One thing that kept the internet a happy place for so long was that good ideas were given a place to prosper. As one serch engine declined in usefullness, another rose to take it's place. Competition was fierce among retailers and service providers. Users were sophisticated enough to see the technology, although they were often too young to have the experience to stay away from the scams.

This is no longer true. MS used the desktop monopoly to hijack and then nearly destroy meaningful browser innovation. Google has created a near search and ad monopoly that is going to be very difficult to unseat. Simple searches seldom resturn useful results at the top. We are way past the point where, in the past, we would have had a good aternative. MSN is not is.

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[phuturephunk]

Not necessarily. The Dark side wins when the majority play an honest game and someone who has ill intention breaks the rules to aquire the most amount of wealth, power..whatever..in the shortest amount of time.

When the majority of firms are part of the 'dark side' then it makes more sense to go counter what they do and just let the integrity and quality of your work speak for you. Eventually, the people get fed up with the dark side shitting on them and then they turn to you as a shining example of how to do it right..without anyone getting hurt in the process.

Or so it should work in a perfect world. Either way, with the general distrust and malaise people have towards corporate America, any firm that plays a good game is alright with me.

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google may not be inherently evil but it is a lot better to have competition because competetions demand innovations to get ahead. So competetion is needed not to avoid monopoly but to nuture ideas. But there should not be competetion within a corp because that would break down the whole corp and everyone loses.

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[kb9vcr]

Evil will always triumph because 'good', is dumb! (Dark Helmet)

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[asoko]

Corporations cannot have power except through corruption in government. They can do their best to deceive and spread FUD, but when word gets around, they won't stay in business unless the government helps them out. If google decides what your best interests are, you stop using them, but if other people vote on what your best interests are, you get things like prohibition of alcohol, smoking in bars (private businesses!), and the war on drugs.

And who says profit is a bad thing? EVERYONE is motivated by profit, whether monetary or spiritual or whatever. Do you think people would give charity without getting good feelings inside (or negating bad feelings of guilt)? We're higher level animals, but evolution favors those who do things in their own interests.

I agree, though, free market competition is the way to go. Right now google is making the best product by far, and so they dominate - for now. But we shouldn't rule out the possibility of someone else surpassing them in the future.

Re:Stay good, Google! Stay good!

[Mant]

There is plenty of alternate search engines, new services, web email, desktop search, on-line maps and just about anything else Google has.

If Google starts doing things its users don't like (its customer are the people who advertise on Google, not the users), they will switch. It costs nothing to type in a different web address to get an alternate service (although changing email addresses can be a pain).

Of course completion and alternatives are always good things. Google can't really lock in its users, all it can do is keep making its services more attractive than the competitors.

No non-profit groups is ever going to be competing in these areas, they cost too much money.

Their impact on the internets?

[hsmith]

They have converted slashdot into their press release center, you always know what is going on with google!

Google is way overestimated.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I will be modded down for this but still need to say it.

Google has had very little real impact on the "Internet". For those of us who used it before Google, before the web, P2P, bittorrent, and the hordes of stupid people who populate it, the internet is about the same.

I think that if Google has had any effect it is largely negative. Google Groups has done more harm then good, Usenet used to be a place you could go for real information. Now it is nothing but complete crap.

As for searching, Altavista was acceptable before google was on the scenes. Google really offers nothing new. They simple consolidate what can be found elsewhere by any savvy user.

Don't get me wrong. I think they are a great company and I use their products every day but I also think they are just another internet company and eventually they will be replaced. Companies like these (Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves) tend to have a boom followed by a period of dwindling interest as it finds its niche. Google is just another niche company that happens to be in the boom stage at the moment.

Re:Google is way overestimated.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not quite following how Google had a negative impact on USENET. I think USENET's decline in usage (and quality for that matter) is tied directly to the fact that they really didn't 'market' themselves as a useful service for information dissemination to the masses
I too used to go on USENET quite a bit to find out interesting tech information, but I stopped in the late ninties once surfing the web made getting that information a whole lot easier (and cleaner for tha tmatter). It's not a good thing when you can load up just about any unmoderated group and the first 500 threads are adverts for horse porn.
Usenet didn't keep with the times, therefore USENET is marginalized. Then again, you can still find great tech information (Novell is a great example here) on the moderated forums.

Re:Google is way overestimated.

[RMH101]

"they didn't market themselves"? who is "they"? usenet's totally decentralised, there is no "they" to market anything.
google groups has done usenet harm in a way: they've now got "google groups" and most younger people don't know their NNTP from their elbow. you can now not only post to usenet via google groups, but *start up new google groups* which obviously don't propogate out to usenet - hence a google groups user's unlikely to go and start using usenet.
usenet's signal to noise ratio is somewhat higher than the web though, possibly for exactly this reason...

Re:Google is way overestimated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

The Google groups thing was just an example of Google not being the Holy grail of the internet and the fact that openign technology to people is not alwasy a good thing.

When somethign good gets dilluted by the ignorant masses, it usually starts to suck.

live eb tonod

[binarybum]

that's right folks, donot be evil backwards looks a lot like latin or something for "destroy the earth". And let's not forget that google backwards looks a lot like el Goog which is probably spanish or something for "the Goog".

really though, honourable or not, "dominion over the world's information" is inherently evil.

beware.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Nostalgia

[ectotherm]

Remember "back in the day", around 1994, when there was Webcrawler, and every query brought back only 12 hits? And none of them were pR0n? And you had to go to a BBS via modem to get drivers? Gettin' old...

The Microsoft threat

[Jugalator]

Even if Google is dominating the internet search business at the moment, and doing that is a powerful position in the information age of today, I find it a bit exaggerated that there's a discussion on how Google may threaten Microsoft Corporation. They make everything from computer mice and game marketing, to maintaining an own development language, and operating systems spanning from the table PC to large datacenters. Let's not forget that. :-) This beast won't go down even if Google one day will overtake 100% of the web and information searches. Well, as long as Google search gives fair results and ranks Microsoft as highly as they should be ranked due to how PageRank works...

They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[ausoleil]

Think of the progression in the trilogy, "Lord of the Rings" -- the main character, Frodo Baggins, starts as an ingenue, takes on the task, and at the end, once he realizes the true power of the Ring, decides that he will keep it for himself. Of course, there is a twist of fate and a happy ending, but one thing was for certain: Frodo was seduced by the power the Ring offered.

The same thing will likely happen to Google, though the term 'evil' may a bit overused. Google is a public company now, and like all public companies, they have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. If the directors of the company will not do this, the board has a responsibility to put in place people who will.

That said, Google will become more like Microsoft and more like Adobe over time. They will try to protect their market share, they will try to prevent the entry of others into their market space that they perceive as a threat. And, given the world's propensity to pull for the "little guy" Google will in turn be perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a bully, a bad guy and therefore -- evil.

This is a natural progression for successful startups. Microsoft did not begin as a huge monolith, it was a small company that one could send an e-mail to the founders and usually get a reply. It was also a decent company from a service standpoint. They grew, their market grew and the service got a lot less personal and the stakes got a whole lot bigger. Thirty years later, they are thought of as a James Bond villain.

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[Chicane-UK]

Only on Slashdot would someone compare the Lord of the Rings to likely future of Google.. :)

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[Ender_Stonebender]

The same thing will likely happen to Google, though the term 'evil' may a bit overused. Google is a public company now, and like all public companies, they have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. If the directors of the company will not do this, the board has a responsibility to put in place people who will.

The philosophy behind "maximize shareholder value" is one that I have never been able to understand. A corporation will certainly want its stock to maintain some value - otherwise they will not be able get new capital through issuing new stock - but in the end it's not the stockholders that keep the company in business. It's the customers who keep the company in business. (And in the case of Google, the "customers" I'm referring to aren't the people giving Google money, they're the people using Google to search - although in Google's case some concessions must be made to advertisers.) A company that has customers who are happy with its products will probably maintain or increase the value of its stock (not to mention customer loyalty and word-of-mouth's affect on profit margins). A company that is increasing the value of its stock artificially (by stock buy-backs, for example), is probably not a company that is keeping its customers happy.

I'm not trying to say companies that are trying to maximize shareholder value are evil. I'm trying to say that I think the belief that maximizing shareholder value is a good business practice is misguided, as it's something that will happen naturally if the company is being run properly.

I know I'm probably talking out my ass and will be flamed for it, but that's the way I feel.

--Ender

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[Godwin O'Hitler]

You do realise the Lord of the Rings is a work of fiction, don't you?

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[CarrotLord]

To "Maximise Shareholder Value" is the whole point of a corporation. The Shareholders are the owners, who invest money in a company in order to see that money grow. They don't invest in a company in order to make customers happy. The only way that shareholders are able to measure the return on their investment is financially.

As an aside: Google's customers and its users are two different and independant groups...

As another aside: stock buy-backs are not an artificial way of increasing the value of stock. It's a company saying that they have cash, and they think that the best use of that cash is in purchasing their own shares. ie they've invested all they can justify, and can't gain any real benefit from investing any more. It benefits shareholders by increasing the "size" of each share. Sure, watching the stock price increase during a buyback doesn't necessarily represent the company growing in total value, but it *does* represent increasing shareholder value...

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[Anonymous Coward]

So who loses his finger? Larry or Sergey? And who gets to carry whom up Mount Doom?

More to the point who gets to play with Gandalfs(Schmidts') *staff*?

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[corblix]

Google is a public company now, and like all public companies, they have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. If the directors of the company will not do this, the board has a responsibility to put in place people who will.

Serious question: In what sense do they have this responsibility? Is there a law that says this must be their goal? Or is it merely a cultural expectation?

If the latter, then I don't see that Google must abide by it. During the run-up to their IPO, they were quite clear that they were not going to run things the traditional way. So the implied contract with their investors (absent any legal requirements to the contrary) is not the standard one.

Further, it is not automatically true that people put their money in various places only in order to see it grow. Foundations support research, not to make their money grow, but to get the research done. I gave to the Salvation Army, but not to make my money grow.

Obviously, Google's investors are mostly going to be in the "make my money grow" camp, but, again, Google was very open about the way things were going to work. If people didn't like that, they didn't have to put their money in GOOG.

Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually...

[dakirw]

The main character, Frodo Baggins, starts as an ingenue

Er, I was pretty sure that Frodo is/was male.

Sorry to nitpick here, but according to dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ingenue) , an ingenue is either a naive, innocent girl or young woman, or an actress playing such a role in a dramatic production.

Otherwise, you make some good points here.

If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!)

[pindlet]

Sergey and Larry are answerable to the stock holders now. Their responsibility is to maximise shareholder value. That may or may not coincide with a nice guy image. As for 'corrupt corporations' - they are there to make money for their owners, not be some quasi-religious body to make us feel good.

Re:If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!)

[Anonymous Coward]

- they are there to make money for their owners, not be some quasi-religious body to make us feel good.

Yes, now. Originally though, corporations had to assert at least way the creatation of the corporation would help "the common good" in their charter. Otherwise their charters wouldn't get approved by either the state or federal governments. Funny how times have changed....

Re:If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!)

[Anonymous Coward]

As for 'corrupt corporations' - they are there to make money for their owners, not be some quasi-religious body to make us feel good.

One could say a similar thing about Murder, Inc.

Re:If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!)

[FirienFirien]

Having a nice guy image is good for business; if you play it right. It's good for the stock holders, it's nice for the users. If google had been seen as a bad search engine that was powered by overworked child labour, it wouldn't have got to where it was now, because it didn't have the swath of extra features that have come as a product of their profit from being a good place to advertise and be seen.

There are industries where being less nice is more profitable; especially so if you hold a monopoly. However, since their services are provided for free, it's incredibly easy for us all to migrate elsewhere if they start being nasty. Maintaining (and improving) their business, whether or not it's as simple as having a motto of "do no evil", gets them more views, more advertisers, more revenue.

And, of course, more revenue means more services for us. Which is always nice.

Re:If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!)

[Jedi Alec]

you sure? one of the richest and longest-running businesses in the world is a quasi-religious body that generally tends to make people feel good(or at least attempts to do so by stating that they're forgiven for the bad stuff they did). From what I've heard they're in the process of replacing their CEO though.

Google micropayment system?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading .. i think it was a while back about that there was plans to integrate google micropayments integrated into google desktop .. sdomething like millicent .. whatever came of it? Anyone know? I remember reading about a patent they had filed on it.

Anyway, I am looking for the time when it will be possible to search for a song or movie or tv show and then be able "buy this song" or whatever. I guess they have to work out the DRM issue since the ipod and other mp3 players dont support an open DRM standard.

Ah .. google to the rescue google micropayments

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp? se ction=cm&id=1822 .. I think if they can do it where it's very unobstrusive and secure without having to fill out a form or something each time .. like one click micropayments off an icon or something (jeff bezos dont run out and patent it).

Re:Google micropayment system?

[Knight2K]

A music download service with Google's visibility probably would be the system to crack things wide open. I wonder if it might be the only way to finally be rid of DRM. This theory has 2 assumptions:

Assumption: Most people download movies, TV shows, music, etc. because the current legal services are too complicated (e.g. another program to learn, confusing rules on use, inconvenient to setup, etc.).

Assumption: Most people also download the above items because they aren't available digitally when people want them. That is, Spiderman 3 might come out in theaters and some people might want to buy the movie for home use the day after they see it in the theater.

If you could Google for digital pay media and the content you want is found when you want it, and there is an easy way to pay for it, then I think people would do it. iTunes proves this to an extent, but many users don't the bandwidth or the technical know-how to install it (scary as that might seem).

There are many disadvantages to p2p systems: it can be hard to find what you want, for some tools you have to queue up to download it from the people who have it, and when you finally do get it, it might not be what you were expecting.

A Google service with torrents from legitimate content providers for a fair price, would stomp all over the grey and black market. It would be quick and reliable and you would be downloading from fast servers rather than relying on single points behind a cable modem. And if the Google service is popular enough, there wouldn't be a need for DRM.... it would be so simple to access and pay for, that it would be more convenient for people to download a legal copy when they wanted it then find and download an illegal copy.

Ahh...

[dep01]

I just love Google. They are a shining example of how to do things right.

Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

So, all Google need to do now, is setup Google Religion, and use that to determine good and evil.

Re:Don't be evil

[GameSlave]

i can see it already.. The GBible... Googlenisis instead of Genesis... God becomes... Godle? ughh my head hurts already

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Don't forget to be the best search engine

[Dr.Opveter]

There were times all my buddies were using altavista because it gave good hits.
Google is just the best until it gets too big, too bloated and the right information doesn't pop up at the top of the list but rather adds related to your search. The next best search engine is just waiting to happen.

One of the most important!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...arguably one of the most important companies in the world..."

Huh??? What about, oh, I don't know... oil companies, food companies, telecom companies, drug and health industries, transportation.... I could go on, perhaps just consider companies that have been around for, oh, longer than 10 years or so for some companies that are vastly more "important" than some search engine.

The internet is not the entire world, people, much as we sometimes wish it were. If it magically went away today, the vast majority of the earth's population probably wouldn't even notice....

Re:One of the most important!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would!

Just wait

[Gatton]

Just wait till Google becomes Googlezon! Then we can really start to worry. I am waiting to hear the announcement that Google is moving their office to Cheyenne Mountain.

Re:Just wait

[McGiraf]

Funny? did the moderators actually clicked on the link?.

Go look at it, it's really good, well made and makes sense.

Wow

[mattmentecky]

arguably one of the most important companies in the world

I guess this is where the arguably comes in....Google is great and all but...one of the most important companies? In the grand grand scheme of things I would say that it is barely even relevant. Sit back and think about any company that is researching an AIDS cure/vaccine, cancer treatment, any kind of any disorder - Alzheimer's, parkinson's, multiple sclerosis...and depending on how you cut 'company' I would hazzard a bet to say that any non-profit company is more important/relevant than Google...

Keep perspective people, at least quantify your statement with "most important tech companies" and then you have a more sane argument. Google is just a good company.

Re:Wow

[dlZ]

I wish I hadn't posted so I could mod you up. I would definetely rate companies that are working to cure diseases as more important. The same with places feeding, housing, and just generally helping out those less fortunate.

Important as a tech company, but only until the next great thing happens. IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and countless others that have really moved the tech world or made it more accessable, well, that's important. If it wasn't for these kind of companies, Google would have been a moot point from the beginning, because no one would have needed it.

Re:Wow

[crosseyedatnite]

I guess being an example of a successful yet ethical by design company isn't important. No, wait, it IS important, if only to pressure the companies that are working on new drugs, building houses, and such to behave ethically, which I think they do need some help with.

I'm sorry, but your arguments that Google as a company isn't important are based on a very shallow examination of things.

Re:Wow

[yagu]

I disagree with your statement: "...., In the grand grand scheme of things I would say that it is barely even relevant...."

A company (or person for that matter) doesn't have to be curing a disease to be important... It merely has to be important. And Google is that! And, we can argue the nuance of how important, but for me any company that can "verb" its own name has done something (especially considering contextually the verb "Google" is a benign, even good construct, not an expletive).

Google may not produce sera for curing disease but consider Google's impact even on that slice of civilization. I'm willing to bet more than one researcher on more than many occasions has used Google as a research tool to further their work. Hence Google (IMO) probably DOES contribute to curing disease.

Likewise for all of the "non-profit" companies -- Google has impacted their day to day existence too.

I don't think any (from the parent post) "most important tech companies" modifier is necessary when describing Google as one of the most important companies. Google can stand alone on its merit.... and evidence of continued contribution.

Re:Wow

[tofucubes]

the LAZY researcher: well here's the research on aids, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=researching+o n+AIDS+cure looks I'll call it a day and go home

Re:Wow

[dlZ]

How is my comment over rated when the parent poster was not? Is this not a discussion forum, which I was doing? I have mod points right now, actually, and I'm not using them to just knock out posts because you don't agree with them.

I have a feeling this was modded over rated because I mentioned Microsoft as a company that has moved tech or made it more accessable. No matter how much people don't want to admit it, MS did help get machines on a lot of desks. You don't have to agree with their methods or like their software, but this is twice I mentioned MS in a non-negative way and was modded over rated now.

Innovation vs Popularization

[Locarius]

What it comes down to me is the fact that Google seems to actually care about pushing new ideas and new technologies. Microsoft has always been about giving the user as little as possible until someone else innovates, and then sinking cash into bringing it to the popular market.

Microsoft's impact on the Internet exists because most people are browsing from a Microsoft platform. If Google can introduce a platform to browse to all their services easily (Google branded Knoppix, perhaps) they might just remove the element of: "I'll use Microsoft Internet services because it must work smoothly with my OS".

Re:I just wonder...

[dlZ]

Your post has had an amazing impact on my day. It's a whole new paradigm. I will dialogue with you later.

And yet, the frogies are up in arms

[WindBourne]

What I find funny is that the french are going to work with MS on doing their books, and MS has a LONG, LONG, LONG history of screwing every one of their partners. Google comes along and is trying to do the rights things and then is accused of being nasty. What a world.

Re:And yet, the frogies are up in arms

[David Off]

This is a /. urban legend. The French culture minister said that he was not against working with MS, not that he would. I'm sure he would prefer a home grown solution, the French govt are one of the biggest adopters of OSS in the world.

Okay...

[koreaman]

Are we supposed to get a hard on every time Google is mentioned now? What's up with /.'s Google saturation lately?

Re:Okay...

[bigmouth000]

Yea, it's sad isnt' it that google just happens to bring out so many things that slashdot find's worthy to put up onto it's front page. But that's just the way it is. After all slashdot is 'News for nerds. stuff that really matters', i guess msn doesn't matter all that much to nerds anyways (sorry for the ms-bashing, just too tempting :P)

Reuters vs AP

[T-Kir]

Glad you directly 'quoted' Reuters there, and not the Associated Press.

Who knows what kind of charges you might have incurred?

:-P

Please Post Fortune Article

[donnacha]

I'd like to read the Fortune piece but they seem to changed their login requirements in order to thwart BugMeNot (subscribers have to enter their name, email and postal address rather than the username and password BugMeNot shares).

So, could someone with a subscription do us all a favor and cut n' paste?

Re:Please Post Fortune Article

[LordSnooty]

So, could someone with a subscription do us all a favor and cut n' paste?

No! You must adhere to the social contract by which you surrender all of your important personal information forever just for the sake of some article which might just say the same as the first one.

Re:Please Post Fortune Article

[donnacha]

No! You must adhere to the social contract by which you surrender all of your important personal information forever just for the sake of some article which might just say the same as the first one.

It's worse than that, these guys actually want... *gasp*... money!!!

Re:Please Post Fortune Article

[Anonymous Coward]

GATES VS. GOOGLE
Search and Destroy
Bill Gates is on a mission to build a Google killer. What got him so riled? The darling of search is moving into software--and that's Microsoft's turf.
FORTUNE
Monday, April 18, 2005
By Fred Vogelstein

Microsoft was already months into A massive project aimed at taking down Google when the truth began to dawn on Bill Gates. It was December 2003. He was poking around on the Google company website and came across a help-wanted page with descriptions of all the open jobs at Google. Why, he wondered, were the qualifications for so many of them identical to Microsoft job specs? Google was a web search business, yet here on the screen were postings for engineers with backgrounds that had nothing to do with search and everything to do with Microsoft's core business--people trained in things like operating-system design, compiler optimization, and distributed-systems architecture. Gates wondered whether Microsoft might be facing much more than a war in search. An e-mail he sent to a handful of execs that day said, in effect, "We have to watch these guys. It looks like they are building something to compete with us."

He sure got that right. Today Google isn't just a hugely successful search engine; it has morphed into a software company and is emerging as a major threat to Microsoft's dominance. You can use Google software with any Internet browser to search the web and your desktop for just about anything; send and store up to two gigabytes of e-mail via Gmail (Hotmail, Microsoft's rival free e-mail service, offers 250 megabytes, a fraction of that); manage, edit, and send digital photographs using Google's Picasa software, easily the best PC photo software out there; and, through Google's Blogger, create, post online, and print formatted documents--all without applications from Microsoft.

While Google was launching those products--all of them free--Microsoft has been trying in vain to catch up in search. It has spent about $150 million on its search project, code-named Underdog. But Google and lately Yahoo keep leaping ahead with innovations like local-area search complete with maps and satellite photos, ways to search inside a video file, and search designed for cellphones.

Simply put, Google has become a new kind of foe, and that's what has Gates so riled. It has combined software innovation with a brand-new Internet business model--and it wounds Gates' pride that he didn't get there first. Since Google doesn't sell its search products (it makes its money from the ads that accompany its search results), Microsoft can't muscle it out of the marketplace the way it did rivals like Netscape. But what really bothers Gates is that Google is gaining the ability to attack the very core of Microsoft's franchise--control over what users do first when they turn on their computers.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt all say that any talk about supplanting Microsoft is ludicrous. But the idea that Google will one day marginalize Microsoft's operating system and bypass Windows applications is already starting to become reality. The most paranoid people at Microsoft even think "Google Office" is inevitable. Google is taking over operating system features too, like desktop search. There are fewer uses for the start button in Windows now that Google's desktop search can locate any program, document, photo, music file, or e-mail on a computer.

All of which helps explain why inside Microsoft, the battle with Google has become far more than a fight over search: It's a certifiable grudge match for king of the hill in high tech. "Google is interesting not just because of web search, but because they're going to try to take that and use it to get into other parts of software," says Gates as he leans forward in his chair, his body coiled as if he could spring to his feet at any second. "If all there was was search, you really shouldn't care so much about it. I

Re:Please Post Fortune Article

[Anonymous Coward]

FI-nally!!

mod anonymous parent up!!!!

Re:Please Post Fortune Article

[donnacha]

Thanks.

I asked for someone to post the Fortune article, this guy did it anonmously.

Could someone with points please mod that post up so that other people can find it.

Being good and not evil is paying off quite well

[ByrneArena]

Revenue #s for Google: 2002: $307M 2003: $840M 2004: $1.73B Market capitalization of 50 Billion + has already surpassed Yahoo with half the employees. Has 2 billion in cash. All this without being evil. Remeber not everyone is Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. There ARE good people out there in the business world. I know it is hard to believe. But it is true.

Overlords

[moonpxi]

I, for once, would like to welcome our new search engine overlords!! Oh, wait, they already are our overlords!! Damn...

Social processes corrupt organizations.

[Futurepower(R)]

From the Globe and Mail article: "If Sergey and Larry stick to their corporate mantra - Don't be evil - and are able to stem degeneration into the typically corrupt corporate ethos, ..."

I find that interesting. I have come to the same conclusion, that there are social processes that cause organizations to become corrupt. I doubt that the leadership of Google has much theoretical understanding of those processes, so I worry that Google will eventually lose its ability to be successful.

Don't bother reading the Fortune Magazine "article". It is the typical Fortune Magazine hack job. In my opinion, Fortune Magazine's business plan is just to tell rich people what they want to hear. Also, the article is an advertisement to give money to the magazine, not the full article.

The Fortune Magazine article is called "Gates vs. Google". However, Microsoft has never been successful competing in areas where the company does not have a virtual monopoly due to proprietary file formats like those in NTFS and Microsoft Word.

In my opinion, Microsoft so lacks the ability to compete honestly that the company tries to steal what it cannot create. Microsoft is more a troublemaker than a competitor.

Re:Social processes corrupt organizations.

[Anonymous Coward]

>However, Microsoft has never been successful competing in areas where the company does not have a virtual monopoly due to proprietary file formats like those in NTFS and Microsoft Word.

*cough*Netscape Navigator*cough*

Google - "THE" Internet OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google - "THE" Internet OS?

Yahoo?

[vasqzr]

The old 'Google' as far as searching is concerned, was AltaVista

Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

I chuckle every time I see that "don't be evil" mentioned. Let's look every non-web app they've released:

Google Toolbar: IE/windows only. They actively resist efforts by Mozilla to make a full-featured version including pagerank.

Google Desktop Search: Not only is it windows only, it only supports the major Microsoft apps on that platform. No OpenOffice, Thunderbird, or any other open application support.

Picassa: Windows only. No plans for a non-windows version announced.

Keyhole: Windows only. No plans for a non-windows version announced.

Ah, but this one is coming to google maps you say. Not even close. Look at the capabilities of the Keyhole app vs the ridiculously low res photos from google maps before you bring that up.

Any other company that releases such an array of single-platform apps would be blasted by geeks for being closed minded and evil.

do not be evil?

[Stalyn]

Yeah... until Google Slavery is released in the next coming months... not to be confused with Sim Slavery.. that is what happens to EA employees.

Are you serious?

[cbreaker]

"Two college students took it upon themselves to figure it out and deploy that solution to the world."

That part is true. However, like another poster said (the first post actually) if they didn't come around we'd all just be using Yahoo, or Lycos, or one of the other companies that would probably be bigger if not for Google.

"Sergey and Brin take their job very serious."

How do you know? You know them personally? Or is this just what you read on a news clipping?

"Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility"

It's a search engine. It indexes web sites and delivers responses based on some criteria. It's cool stuff, for sure. But it's not like the world is in the balance and if Google gave the wrong responses world war would break out.

"they've carried it and with dignity. I see little if any abuses of the power they hold."

You stick with what works. Did you know that these guys are worth BILLIONS of dollars? And they're young?

Give Google some time. They're publically traded now. The two guys that created it will have less and less say about how things run. I mean, do you think every descision Microsoft makes rests solely on Gates?

"How many other companies could do what google does and resist the temptation to abuse their audience or subject them to slanted views/opinions or worse."

Google isn't the only game in town. If they started doing stuff like that, it's easy to just use something else. No software changes needed. No lock-in to Google. (yet.)

"Google's only agenda is to get you where you want to be."

No, wrong. SO wrong. Google's agenda is to MAKE MONEY.

Re:Are you serious?

[ultranova]

It's a search engine. It indexes web sites and delivers responses based on some criteria. It's cool stuff, for sure. But it's not like the world is in the balance and if Google gave the wrong responses world war would break out.

But if an evil alien race attacks the Earth and their mothership only has one weakness, how would you find that weakness if you couldn't Google for the alien's web site ?

I can just see it now - the alien's proton torpedoes are screaming down towards Google's server room, while a bunch of hackers who are gathered around a computer chew their fingernails in nervousness, reading result page after result page of link farm links. Then, suddenly, with just seconds left to go, they see it "Alien mothership is running Windows XP, unpatched". A few keystrokes later the ship loses power, the torpedo explodes midair with just seconds left to go, and all the aliens start sneezing and then die, their computerized immune systems crashing.

See ? Google and Windows XP are absolutely neccessary for Earth's defense in their respective roles of spy and saboteur.

Re:Are you serious?

[Money for Nothin']

"Google's only agenda is to get you where you want to be."

No, wrong. SO wrong. Google's agenda is to MAKE MONEY.

And Google does this by doing what, exactly? By getting you where you want to be, perhaps?

That is the very soul of their business; that is how they achieve their end-goal of making money. Without a quality service, Google wouldn't be even 1% as big as they are now. Just look at all the spam companies, ad-link pages, and so on -- these are companies which sell smoke up your skirt. And where are their owners?

They're merely providing for their families, not rolling in billions of dollars like Google's founders.

I do agree with the thrust of your argument though that eventually, Google's service quality will decline and the company as a whole will fall to some new competitor, in part because as a publicly-traded company, Sergey Brin and Larry Page will have a decreasing level of control over the company. That's often the way it goes.

Re:Of course.

['nother poster]

Big Brother is watching you. ;)

Remember before Google?

[Futurepower(R)]

It's possible you don't remember how painfully time-consuming were searches using AltaVista and Lycos.

Re:Remember before Google?

[cloudmaster]

Some people actually weren't around to use the web before Google. I remember being happy to find som emeta search engines that actually did a good job, so I could stop having to search Altavista first, then Lycos, then HotBot/Excite/Yahoo Directory. Now, if it's not in Google, it's probably not on the web...

Re:Remember before Google?

[crotherm]

Google... heh, why back in my day, I was happy to use Archie. It sure beat doing ls -lR on every ftp server I knew.

Re:Remember before Google?

[rk]

It's possible you don't remember that there's an actual real world outside the internet.

Re:Remember before Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anger problem

RTFA

[mike260]

Oh, wait, I can't because I don't have a Fortune subscription. And here's me with 5 mod points but no way to mod down the retard who posted the story.

Seach engine consolidation dangers

[robertdfeinman]

There is a serious issue with the fact that three search engines control almost all of the market. Such concentration leads to limits on the availability of information. In addition the poor quality of the algorithms used means relevant information gets missed. Read my short discussion of the issues involved here: http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_monopoly. html

Accounting practices

[Momoru]

Just reported in the Wall street journal today: The WSJ's "Heard on the Street" column discusses Google, saying that the co's profit may increase from last year, thanks in part to an accounting move. Before its IPO, Google chose to speed up when it would recognize more than $750 mln in expense related to cheap stock options granted to employees. Using a technique known as "accelerated amortization," Google recognized the bulk of this expense in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The flip side: Now that it is a public co and must report to investors every 3 months, this portion of Google's expenses is declining. That will burnish Google's results when compared with last year's. The main impact will begin to appear when Google reports 1Q results tomorrow. This year, Google will record an expense related to those cheap options of $146 mln, according to regulatory filings. That is down from $279 mln last year, a guaranteed $133 mln improvement in Google's bottom line even before the first Internet user clicked on a Google search advertisement. Had Google not shifted the expense schedule and followed a "straight-line" amortization schedule, it would have had to book a $171 mln expense this year, it said in regulatory filings. The benefit to Google grows next year.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[ByrneArena]

No offense, but 90+% of the world uses Windows. It is not being evil, its realizing your market.

I hate MS and think the Mac has a much better OS... but would you write an app that would be available to 2% of the market?

Because they used some level of business sense, it doesn't make them evil.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[wootest]

Google Toolbar: IE/windows only. They actively resist efforts by Mozilla to make a full-featured version including pagerank. They "actively resist" because they already link to a Firefox alternative with much the same functionality. Sounds like an endorsement to me.

Reportedly, Google have announced plans for Mac and Linux versions of Desktop Search, and Desktop Search recently gained support for Trillian logs, Firefox cache (that's even out of the box), even if we're conveniently skipping the plug-in API and repository.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

Ok, so standards support on web pages is stupid too. 90% plus uses IE, what's the point of supporting Firefox? Those web developers are just realizing market reality and ignoring the standards. I don't buy this argument. Just because it's more convenient to support one platform doesn't make it the right choice.

There are many cross platform toolkits available nowadays, wx, Java/SWT, even gtk, that they could be using to easily write apps that support all platforms with a minumum of additional work.

This is far more important for information services companies than other companies. Like online banking not supporting other platforms making those other platforms unusable for others, by making these apps windows only and continuing to do so, they lock people in to windows.

Re: you're sort of right

[BitterAndDrunk]

Keeping customers happy is definitely a major component of maximizing shareholder value but it's certainly not the only way.

Additionally, the stockholders are the owners. They're the ones who have money invested and want a return on that investment.

I'll agree 100% that Wall Street dances and finagling with the stock in artificial manners isn't in the best interests of either the stockholders or the company, but the goal of a company at the end of the day is to earn the owners money.
After all, if you start a pizza joint and hemmorage money for 6 months, chances are you're going to sell at a loss and stop doing the thing.

OK that's all well and good so let's discuss keeping customers happy.
Keeping customers happy is a well and noble goal except there's two things to consider:
Who's the customer you're trying to keep happy?
What's the impact on other customers?

From an Operations standpoint you see these two decisions made on a daily basis. If Company X fulfills order A for their high priority customer, it borks orders B and C for their lower volume customers who ordered first.

What's the right call? Do you piss off two low volume customers to appease your big guy, or do you tell the big guy that it's just the way the business works and you'll have to wait?
Additionally, you have what's often termed "service suckers". These account for between 5-10% of a company's customers typically. They're never happy and often cost money over the long haul to keep happy. The biggest nightmare for an Operations Director is the high volume service sucker. It's normally a better move to just drop the offending customer and refuse to do business with them. But that pisses off the stockholders who only see the next quarter gross profit loss and don't tie the extraneous balance sheet items back to the specific customer.

So while it's a noble idea to keep the customers happy as a driver to stockholder value, there's a balance to be struck between the costs of customer service and the revenue those customers provide to the firm.
Ultimately the CEO, CIO, and CFO have to meet with the Board of Directors (normally elected by said shareholders) and explain what their plan is and how it impacts the bottom line, thus increasing the wealth of the stockholders who have voted the Board in to do just that.

Bah I rambled. The point I'm trying to make is that maximizing stock holder value is a valid measurement simply because as the owner of the firm, they're ultimately concerned about the bottom line. The goal of the Board, however, is to appoint a CEO who has the vision to know what needs to be done over the next 5 years to maintain consistent earnings. Ultimately this does come back to the customer, and will be a driver in companies that are sustainable.

Wrong trilogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

thing about the 3 better star wars movies (starting with 'a new hope')

Google starts out living with his aunt and uncle - a simple farmers life. The he like gets these droids from the jawas and they like play a message that says 'Like help us obi-wan you're our only hope' and he's like NO WAY!
So he meets obi wan then goes to dagoba and meets yoda and becomes a jedi - this is like a public IPO. All of a sudden he has like awesome powers like he lifts his ship out of the swamp and Yoda's like "AWESOME!" because it was awesome.

So anyways he takes the millenium falcon-which is not a bird to the death star and kills darth vadar who is his father! Which is like Google killing Altavista or maybe Yahoo which are like their fathers... or maybe Yahoo is more like Aunt Baroo.

I have to go now, time to take my medication.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Globe & Mail story: same tired predictions

[hurricaen]

Haven't we been over this before? Is google really likely to try and make some network operating system that would serve as a complete replacement to anything but a stripped down local one? I really doubt it. No matter what the bandwidth, many applications (notably graphical ones) won't run well over the internet; it just can't be as fast as running locally. Isn't that why picassa is a local application? And the reason they hire OS and distributed system people is because they need to innovate to get their own kick-ass infrastructure running on low cost commodity hardware, the Google File System, and map/reduce being some of the innovations publicly known. I dunno, someone posted before a link to a blog entry that succinctly made this point better than I am right now; I would link to that if I could remember where it was... -K

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

"Much the same functionality" is exactly the point. It doesn't have the same functionality.

I don't know where you've seen these announcements, it doesn't match google's own stance listed on their site at http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?an swer=10073&topic=168 or http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?an swer=10072&topic=168. Looks like they are just avoiding the issue to me. I do notice they have Firefox and Thunderbird support now. That rather makes sense, as you pointed out they direct users to those applications, and indeed they've hired some of the developers. Still no sign of OpenOffice support though. But they do have an API so that you can extend their closed-source application for them.

Don't forget that they sold out recently

[StankDawg]

As soon as the company went public, it changed. "Don't be evil" immediately took a backseat to "make money" on the day that happened. It is inevitable. Look at the "innovations" that google had come out with in the past year or so since going public.

They have gmail, which sounds like a great idea, but they do scan the content of the emails to put ads there. They claim no humans see the messages, and we have no proof otherwise, but it is a dangerous idea.

So far, this is all fact. Now my fear is definately theory bordering on conspiracy and I admit that. The sad fact is that all of this is possible and it shouldn't be this close.

They have admitted to the New York Times back in November of 2002 that , "Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked.". Combine that with gmail and you get a database full of privacy violation. But that is just the start.

In the same New York Times article, when asked if they have ever turned any of this information over to anyone, they denied comment and refused to answer. The fact is that if they didn't log all of this data, and make these intrusive privacy policies, they wouldn't be putting our privacy at risk like this.

What about blogger? Do you think they log that also? Of course they do. They log the people who visit and what they read. They log who says what in their blogs. Then there is Picasa, for pictures on your hard drive. Don't even THINK about what they could find out from that desktop search tool that scours your entire hard drive for all of your files. Maybe it doesn't report everything now, but how long before they do? It may just be flipping a switch in the software to "phone home" with the information on the next update. By the time anyone knows, it is too late. the thought police are coming!

Now many many sites track similar information. Google is by no means the only one guilty of this type of tracking. But because of the large number of their "innovations" they have to potential to tie it all together and create a file on each and every user they have by data mining that information. They most assuredly have profiles on all of us and that should scare you to death. What have you used google for?

Yes, I am playing the "what if" game. But the fact is that it is dangerously close. The same holds true for Microsoft. I just don't have the same level of trust for google that I once had. As soon as they sold out to stickholders, I immediately worried that it would only be a matter of time before this huge database of profiles would be sold to the highest bidder (if it is not already). It is just getting too close to my privacy for my comfort which is why I am very careful about how I use Google and all of their wonderful "innovations".

I think everyone should do the same.

source: "Postcards from planet Google" November 28, 2002.

source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer November 29, 2002.

source: google-watch.org

source: Binary Revolution Radio episodes 87,86,70,43,42,41.

Re:Don't forget that they sold out recently

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a very poignant article on a real issue. Good job.

-phracktalism

Google's creating a rich container wih Firefox

[esconsult1]

It seems clear to me that Google has Seen the Light (tm) with the successfull Ajax implementations of Maps and Gmail. This means that an enhanced version of Firefox -- all pointed to by the new hires and empolyee requirements -- is in the works.

An enhanced version of Firefox freely downloadable from Google for all operating systems would be their own platform which, besides being able to view standard web pages, would enable then to distribute richer applications in a brand (Firefox) that has mindshare and user buy in.

Think! Mac applications are cool because of the contained environment that is OS X (except Apple did not create enough of their own native applications). Microsoft is successfull with their applications because they built a container that is at least perfect for them -- Windows. The same will apply to Google with what I am convinced will be the enhanced browser environment based on Firefox.

Why is Linux not gaining on the desktop? Because there is no "perfect Linux desktop container". The properties of such a container is that it should be standardized, easy to accept new client programs, have easy to use services and a well known API that is well documented and defined so that programmers can easily write to it.

Instead we have a bunch of fragmented containers (KDE, Gnome, lots of lesser known desktop environments) that are incomplete and immature. Heck, its a pain the ass sometimes to get simple brain-dead stuff such as printing and mounting a drive working. So you have projects like OpenOffice having to write their own container!!! And Miguel (bless his heart) making a version of Microsoft's .NET container (Mono) for Linux that is still incomplete and sits with an incomplete container -- Gnome, which is sitting on top of an incomplete desktop container -- Linux.

I know this is a rant, but my shop recently switched back to Windows from Linux desktops (about 40 people), why? Because the new CEO (and me too), were sick and tired of people trying to get things to work together properly. We were sick of not having an Exchange replacement (don't get me started on the open source once now "available"). And new hires and our clients were just plain used to using the dominant containers out there (windows/mac).

So Google is moving in the direction of best of all worlds. They are creating their own perfect container for their applications, that can run on imperfect operating systems. Genius! I don't even have to wish them luck, because its a great idea which has to work -- unless they get Evil.

Re:Google's creating a rich container wih Firefox

[Mistah Blue]

I'm curious why you went "back to Windows" instead of going to Apple with MacOS X?

Re:Google's creating a rich container wih Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably so they do not have to buy all new hardware.

Re:I just wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it was the confusion with "affect" as a noun i.e., "speaking with an affect" and "effect" as a verb i.e., "turning the ignition key effects the starting of the motor".
"Impact" will only fade in usage when the earth gets hit by an asteroid and newswriters face the absurdity of saying "The impact of the impact has impacted us all." English majors will have cause to rejoice in 2039.

Always in the garage

[Viceman001]

Why are all successful home grown businesses started in someone's garage? Hasn't anyone ever create anything in the den, or dining room? Am I doomed to failure because I don't have a garage and work in my mother's basement?

Google Beta = "The Internet"

[lbmouse]

Google IS the internet

To my 9 yo son, the name of the company is "Google Beta".

Re:Google Beta = "The Internet"

[The Cydonian]

What is particularly funny is that 'beta' in Hindi means just that, 'son'. :-)

ABSOLUTELY they are important

[gosand]

If they weren't around I'd just be using Yahoo or whatever, and having less unused space in my various free web-based email accounts.

If Google wasn't around, I would be using

Yahoo or whatever for my search engine.

I'd probably still be using Mapquest for maps (and cursing it).

I don't know if I'd be able to search newsgroups the way I do. Would DejaNews still be around?

I guess I'd have to use local.yahoo.com instead of local.google.com to find things in my area.

Image searching - well, I'd be out of luck.

I'd just have to figure out how to do some conversions (like celcius to fahrenheit)

And I don't even use all of Google's features. They are important, because they changed the game. They innovated, in a very simple way (to the end user). Google maps is awesome, but up until Google did it, Mapquest was "good enough". That is why they are important, because they seem to do the things they do VERY well. It would be scary to companies if Google decided to enter their area of expertise.

Re:ABSOLUTELY they are important

[ergo98]

They innovated, in a very simple way (to the end user). Google maps is awesome, but up until Google did it, Mapquest was "good enough". That is why they are important, because they seem to do the things they do VERY well

Google is not a technical powerhouse - Google is a business powerhouse. A service like Google Maps is amazing not because of the maps, or because of the satellite data, it's amazing because of the amount of computing resources and data Google manages to allocate to anonymous members of the computing public - Google manages to monetize high cost services in a profitable way.

This is similar to how Google's search interface is minimalist, with few, very low resource usage ads (compared to something like Excite! that is, or at least was, a monstrosity) - somehow Google makes money without sponsored links, billboard ads and popups.

THAT is what has made Google a force to be reckoned with. It's amazing that Google is releasing all of these services, but these are not technically innovating, and could have been done many years ago...it's just that no one could figure out how to make money from them.

Don't bet on it

[LukePieStalker]

It's interesting to note that Google and Starbucks, both companies that cultivate the "We're different, we're good guys" image, have recently hired lobbyists to make their cases in Washington.

Starbucks is a little further along the life cycle, and is already finding that there are only so many four-dollar lattes that people are willing to buy in day. Shareholders want things to be always improving, however. So, past a certain point the only option a company sees is to start influencing policy makers. Don't expect either company to put whats good for the citizenry ahead of what's good for the board.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[wootest]

Toolbar point taken - I've never actually tried it myself but I have seen the page. Official stances on the other-platforms issue seem to be an attempt to stifle the emails at best. In hindsight, I can't actually back up that claim on a Linux version as I can't find the place I read that. However...

"Google Desktop Search is a free, downloadable application that allows users to search through e-mail, instant messages, text files and the World Wide Web simultaneously.

Mac users shouldn't hold their breath, however. Google executives told Reuters that while the company plans to develop an OS X-compatible version of its new search tool, it has to be rebuilt from scratch for the Mac operating system." --MacNewsWorld, October 1st 2004

But they do have an API so that you can extend their closed-source application for them. All APIs are about extending or embracing the usage of something; making it appear as any one person or company is having everyone else do the work for them is pessimistic and biased at best - as is overly hyping the potential, of course. But at any rate, it's a good thing that they have an API - there are already OpenOffice.org/StarOffice plugins. No, it's not official, but it's created by someone because they needed it, just like the official, bundled plugins were created by Google employees because *they* needed it.

Your private data makes for good search

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone concerned about the varying degrees of private, personal data about you that is made so easily accessible online should consider Google's allegiance to search services. Consider the billions of records available about Americans and how personal and useful (and terribly terribly invasive) Google could be once it knows what data miners already have recorded about you. It's the same data that identity thieves and the American military industrial complex wants access to, too. You have no place to hide.

Only problem with your logic

[ByrneArena]

is that you don't take into account that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, keeping anyone from doing what they are doing.

Re:Only problem with your logic

[robertdfeinman]

I guess the multimillions of dollars required to set up such a large enterprise doesn't count in your definiton of "nothing"? Not to mention the staffing, expertise and avoidance of patent restrictions. What is possible in "theory" doesn't always match what is "practicable".

Re:Only problem with your logic

[ByrneArena]

I guess if you define a garage as a "large enterprise" and two peope as staffing and expertise you are right.

Where you go with your ideas once you conceive them is only limited by your desire to bring it to market.

Save that one

[wiredog]

for 1 April 2006.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[ByrneArena]

Not an issue of supporting. I'm using Firefox right now and Google is built into it. Exactly HOW is Google not supporting FF? I think most of your claims that they refuse to support certain platforms may be closer to conspiracy theories rather than facts. But that being said, if you are going to build an initial product to offer, what platform are you going to start with? One that will give you limited revenue growth or the one that everyone uses. Don't let your understanding of technology blur your common sense.

"Don't be evil" out of the window

[dtietze]

As heise.de just reported, Google appears to now be suing froogles.com - claiming they are intending to cash in on Google's popularity (or the popularity of froogle.com) by using the name part "oogle" in their name.

Never mind that Froogles.com has a granted trademark that predates Google's use of froogle.com by two years.

There goes "don't be evil". But that was to be expected (as a shareholder, I would expect nothing else).

Dan.

Google is the G in Freemasonry under the triangle

[Anonymous Coward]

Go on people, use google for your information, use their email, use their news, maps, blogs, etc.

In the end, they are the New World Order, it already happened and you missed it

Check the dates gmail.com and google.com were registered? Oh whats that? gmail was registered BEFORE google? I wonder why

Google's Impact

[Darken5000]

G-Porn! Google Porn, the best damn porn on the web. -What will they think of next?

Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently wrote a blog entry on this subject, and suggested that it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search network that could do what Google does

The big problem for any new entrant, including OSS, is that the search companies are busy getting patents on a lot of obvious and not so obvious search technology.

Re:IE = "The Internet"

[RealProgrammer]

Right. That's why I always rename the Firefox icon "Internet". As soon as I show them tabbed browsing, they're hooked.

Sneaky Redirects with IE

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are running Internet Explorer (which I believe some people on /. still do) they also log what you click on.

Source: Google's Sneaky Redirect

Re:IE = "The Internet"

[dlZ]

Yep, I like to rename it like that, also. Another things that I show them (I know it's not just in Firefox) that gets them hooked is the little search field, where they can do a Google, Yahoo, or whatever search without going to the actual homepage.

If google wasn't around...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be able to do my job!

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Mistah Blue]

Why bother with Mac? I won't use it on Tiger (which will be arriving on my doorstep next Friday), because I will have Spotlight integrated fully into the OS. Waste of money if you ask me.

I think I deciphered the slogan's true purpose

[tofucubes]

its probably part of Google's world domination plan.
"Don't be evil" seems like it is aimed at the moral vote...
canadiates in last presidential election should have picked up on this.

well anyway I just wanted to say something about our future...

Google overlords?

tall poppey

[Exter-C]

With much of the sensationalist press that covers google they are in a good position to really grow and if they remain true to many of the google etho's about keeping it simple and nice nothing to in your face with advertising then it may become a threat to microsoft. However If that occurs then google will start to be impacted by the same negative press that microsoft has suffered from irrespecive of what the company does or doesnt do in comparison to what MS has done over the years in what many people would claim as dirty business practices.
Thats the unfortunate world that we live in. Also the reality is that competition is good for everyone. look at what Microsoft has done in recent years. it has come from a company that was offering products that in many circumstances where substandard in areas of stability and security but now they have evolved and become a company that offers some much improved software that is stable and fairly secure. It can only improve from here. As many people say.. any vulnerability in an operating system is a good thing. as once its patched there is one less for people to find and exploit in the future.

The anotomy of a +3 troll from the author.

[Anonymous Coward]

The anotomy of a +3 troll from the author.

The first requirement of a troll is that it elicit emotional responses to things that really should have no emotions attached to them. Business, web searches, and technology are good examples. My above troll failed in that way a bit as it didn't get the audience it was targeted at but it is still a good example none the less.

First, when trolling as AC you must not ever be modded down to -1 or you post will most likely be lost. You need to be at least +1 to get the continued mods to raise it even further. A good way to guarantee this is to open with the default "I know I will me modded down for this" line. This makes the overzealous mods think twice as it conjures up a common group-think fallacy that by modding the post down they are nothing but sheeple. No one wants to admit they are sheeple so they will not conform and leave the obvious troll at 0.

Second, your troll must make an affirmation that is unpopular. In this case it was "Google is overestimated". Notice how the very subject of the troll is uncomfortable English. Overestimated, while applicable for this post is a poor choice of words and sets the replies up as wanting to call the poster on it but being scared that they will be called pedantic if they do as it is technically proper English. This causes then to take their frustration out in other ways.

The next step is to get some support form the old timers who still read /. but think it is a bullshit propaganda site. This can be achieved be evoking a nostalgic response of technology. (By the way I was on the "internet" before all the shit I mentioned). Usenet is often good for this but also calling attention to technology that gets covered in the media a lot like BT and P2P makes some younger posters identify. If you do this correctly you should be moved up to +1.

In this example I insult the newer technology claiming it is not part of the internet. This is about the same as claiming FM is not part of radio. The fact is that the internet is defined by its pieces, not the other way around.

Next you need to insult the masses bit. That is done by implying the internet is filled with hordes of ignorant users. Since nobody wants to admit their own ignorance you will be bumped up to +2 as they smugly think you are talking about somebody else, not them.

Next bring up more old technology and say it was just as good. Imply that others who were unable to use it are not internet savvy. Anyone who ever used Altavista knows it was crap but since it is so old, most people assume you are truthful and that it was acceptable.

Finally, you need to make amends for the offense you caused by saying that you actually like the company you just spent a whole post insulting. This is the final part where I said the positive things about google. This prevents the rabid fanboys from modding you down.

Good luck and happy trolling.

I have way to much time on my hands,

That's it...

[presidentbeef]

Apparently, if you want to be a successful company, you need to start with two people in a garage...

Been there done that

[Kaa]

All you guys looking for bright and shiny net future under the enlightened rule of Google should go and google for the "philosopher-king" meme...

Finally, An article that summarizes everything.

[bigmouth000]

Somehow I see Google as the only remaining geek domain in terms of large companies. Staying away from corparate sell-outs, and it's strength is it's quality and ingenuity of products. As someone said, While the companies today aim to conquer existing markets, Google gives a crap and creates markets for itself. That's the way to Go !!! ----- In Google we trust.

Ummm, *more* evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

I searched for "google evil" and got a mere 3.3 million hits but ... ...searching for "microsoft evil" yielded a token 2.6 million hits.

Isn't 3.3M > 2.6M?

Good point.

[Andy Dodd]

I have a Yahoo! account mainly because I was on a few Yahoo! Groups mailing lists. (Oh, their mailing list system SUCKS. I wonder when Google is going to get into that business... Mail archives with Google search capability would be WONDERFUL...)

I may have an account, but I hardly ever use Yahoo! anymore. Pretty much only for leeching movie listings with Plucker, and that's only because hollywood.com's mobile site neglects to put tags into some of their pages which breaks Plucker. Hollywood's mobile interface is so much better. (Their non-mobile site is Flash/JavaScript hell though.)

Yahoo $-)

[tofucubes]

I think yahoo has been doing pretty well since 2003... lot of people at slashdot are watch for innovation and new apps and services, but yahoo has been raking in some serious cash and doing very well http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=331 63

Google are already evil

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4287539.stm

and more off the top my head:

Google use targeted ads in email based on the content of your email.

Google rolled over for the CoS

Google have been known to add a comment to their own search results when they don't want to be directly associated/judged with those results.

Googlebot does not always honor where it is told to go and where it shouldn't.

But worst of all, everything you do with Google is permanently logged with them. They have a vast database of who searched what, when. If you don't regularly clear or deny your cookies then chances are they have an enormous portfolio of your searches and use of ALL their other services (like GMail etc) which can all be tied together. If you don't understand the implications of this then you shouldn't be using them, because this makes them the entire World's project Carnivore.

Re:Google are already evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's more:

Google's pagerank is often deeply flawed with all sorts of spurious blips and wierdness. It is also very exploitable and cheatable by those who want to up their ranking. Google often arbitrarily change pagerank so orders of results are shuffled about all over the place with no consistency.

Google's results have gone down hill in the last few years very badly and many agree. Often very complex search queries are required to get to certain types of technical information.

Google make mistakes. If you have ever spoken to someone from Google you will know they often don't check accuracy or information or make mistakes when classifying sites.

Google newsgroup search now sucks big time

Re:Google are already evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Do no evil is a great marketing ploy.

Google is a company and like all companies they view is to make money and to do that they have to keep on growing.

How can a company who is trying to dominate all aspects of peoples lives not be evil. How can a company who is trying to buy up patents / trademarks without even having a use in mind for it not be evil. Google is like all the other companies in sueing the small fish in their bid to dominate . Take an example being the Froogles.com thing were the small guy who registered his domain name years before googles froogle service is being hiked to court. not only this one buy google is sueing thousands of other people.

Google will eventually become another Tier 1 player with lots of smaller guys being free to innovate in their garage and other big players like MSN, Yahoo etc working to compete with yahoo. Remember years back Altavista was the top dog but is now nowhere, just like Yahoo, AlltheWeb, Ask Jeeves , NorthernLight ( or whatever it was called) etc .

No evil to me states the likes of Mozilla, Wikipedia etc who are open , free , arent out to make money and do not play to rules set by governments, business etc .

Google as a search engine is terrible, the only reason its Top dog is because its marketing is great. whats the saying ( with great marketing you can make a mediocre product/service into a fantastic product)

Googles search engine isn't that great and is flawed deaply.

Its time people wake up to the fact that google is about making the people behind it sheds of money. if anyone believes the founders / owners of google are out to help people then , they are mistaken .

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[wootest]

That's true, but maybe they take different stances on some of the decisions Spotlight took. Things like only one result per file might be limiting in some cases. (I have no previous experience of either Spotlight or Google Desktop Search or their respective innards, myself, so I might be talking out of my ass.) There's also bound to be situations where a summary of the "local results" inline with Google Web results will make all the difference. Who knows.

I love the Forbes article

[dusanv]

It has combined software innovation with a brand-new Internet business model--and it wounds Gates' pride that he didn't get there first

Seriously, what did MS do first? The association 'MS = cool new technology' makes not sense to me. They almost missed the Internet by their own admission. I think BillG isn't pissed that didn't come up with a cool search engine but because he can't kill Google like he did with numerous others.

Google is Like a Video Game....

[duerra]

When you play some sort of sports video game or whatever, and are doing well, the crowd starts cheering louder and louder. Eventually, it just can't get any louder.

Google is so highly praised for everything they're doing right now that as the audience, we simply can't make any more noise in cheering them on.

Re:Garage? Who can afford a Garage?

[cutecub]

With the median price of a home in Silicon Valley being over half a million dollars, starting your business in a Garage seems a little extravagant.

Perhaps in a few years, we'll be hearing about great companies being started in a dumpster...

Cue: rant about Silicon Valley not being the whole IT-World

Insert: remark designed to disarm rants about Silicon Valley not being the whole IT-World

-Sean

Directions to London

[ydnar]

C'mon, guys...not even a joke about driving to JFK airport?

Google Groups

[IanO]

Google has had Google Groups for awhile. It's in beta but isn't all their stuff :)

http://groups-beta.google.com/

Check out googlewatch.com....

[Banner]

And then tell me that google is following that ridiculous corporate motto.

Anytime anyone puts up a motto saying 'do no evil', well you have to wonder why. And 'do no evil' to who? Certainly not us the users!

Re:Check out googlewatch.com....

[Anonymous Coward]

googlewatch.com?

That's one of the looniest pages on the web. It reads like an April 1st joke. I'm far more worried about credit reporting companies than google, for example.

Enough Corporate Fawning

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on guys. Google is a good company, but if we didn't use google we'd use Altavista or Yahoo or something else.

It's not like the technology they have is rocket science. All they have is a software patent on fairly obvious technology.

What is really needed is a distributed search architecture they uses a similar rating system but circumvents the Google patent. Then make it a distributed crawler system and open source. We need search on the Internet as much as we need DNS. Everyone should be able to implement.

For the most part people would implement search indexing on their own sites.

It just has to get started.

Re:Enough Corporate Fawning

[Myself]

We need search on the Internet as much as we need DNS.

Agreed! I use "I'm feeling lucky" as a replacement for DNS these days. Sites could just as easily be hosted on numeric IPs, as long as they were ranked appropriately in the search results, the name of the host is essentially irrelevant.

Not the point you were making, but it's one that's stuck out at me a few times lately.

Anyone read "Machine Beauty?"

[__aamcgs2220]

The book I could have lived without, but if anyone has read it, or otherwise knows something about the LifeStreams idea proposed by David Gelertner et al., I'm interested to hear your opinions about whether or not Google is headed in this direction. The way I see it, they're still in the phases of building up the infrastructure, interface, etc., and that LifeStreams, or something very much like it, could very well be the ultimate goal of the organization. With academics such as Page, Brin, and Schmidt at the top, I think the theory gains credibility. Anyone? Anyone?

Re:Anyone read "Machine Beauty?"

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this off topic in a discussion about Google's impact on the Internet?

MOD UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is right. /. should be casting a MUCH more critical eye on Google instead of being it's "darling".

The things Google are doing today are so much more evil than ANYTHING MS is doing it's not funny. And yet here on /. they can "Do No Wrong"[tm].

It's insane the free pass that they get here, a place that should be a hell of a lot more critical about companies like Google and Apple and others and yet everything evil they do is COMPLETELY ignored.

Situations like this really put the truth to what /. really is: A MS bashing fan club and little else :(

That was not normal competition.

[Futurepower(R)]

That was not normal competition. Microsoft gave its product away free, and used the distribution of its operating system to tie IE to OS sales, illegally, a U.S. court found.

Re: you're sort of right

[Anonymous Coward]

You are dead on regarding the service suckers. I have a couple of them that will not leave me alone. They keep promising that they will never buy from us again, but they keep coming back. I have told them that we are fine with them going somewhere else and have even given them contact information for our competitors. I suspect our competitors have already just cut them off and refuse to sell to them.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

My basis for the third party toolbars not being fully functional is pretty well summarized at http://googlebar.mozdev.org/pagerank.html, so you can clearly see that my basis is fact, not conspiracy theories. You can also find more factual information about their lack of platform support on their own FAQ, linked in this thread a few posts down.

As it is not evident by the facts, available on their own site, I find it hard to take hearsay about them bringing cross platform support to their applications into account. I will certainly reconsider if they post anything officially and/or actually come up with such applications, however.

And your platform argument comes once again to the reasoning behind making web pages cross-browser and cross-platform. Excluding users is not good business.

Re: yeah they STINK

[BitterAndDrunk]

Thre most notorious, IMO, would be Wal-mart.
They don't start off as a service-sucker but after year 3-4 of your contract with them, the downward price pressure they force transforms them into one.

Normally at that point they're also responsible for a significant portion of your business (chances are you've pissed off or shed a lot of customers that are "lower priority") so pulling out becomes a dangerous proposition.

Look at the history of Wal-mart and Vlasic pickles for a wonderful example of it.

Re:RTFA - Bugmet Not

[ecliptik]

I love Bugmenot.com, gives you all sorts of logins for sites that require you to register.

Login here, enjoy.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

I agree with APIs for open source and open standard applications. Where they start becoming problematic is when closed companies use them to encourage development on top of proprietary applications.
Unfortunately google's desktop search tool is neither open source or an open standard.

I am well aware that I am heavily biased towards open source and/or open standards for basic infrastructure and information handling tools. I suppose the real question, at least to me, is where desktop search falls on the line.

I don't think so

[maxpublic]

arguably one of the most important companies in the world

If you think a glorified search engine and free email provider is "one of the most important companies in the world" then I submit that your hold on reality is tenuous at best.

Time to get out the basement and breathe some fresh air.

Max

google is a company

[z5]

Google is a company and it's purpose is to make money period. Th founders belief will change as they fall in love with thier richie life style.

How important is Google, not very if you don't own a computer, which most of the world does not.

HP and Apple in a garage

[peter303]

HP was founded in a garage. Its still around and on their web site.

Apple Computer also manaufactured their first set of computer boards in Job's garage.

Yahoo was founded in a trailer. About 10% of Stanford was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, so facilities were moved to "temporary" trailers during reconstruction (still on campus).

Google also claims to have been founded in a garage.

P.S. I was in Palo during the Apple and Yahoo foundings so can verify that. I've seen the H.P. garage, since it is a historical site. I cant verify Google's story.

Why the obsession with garages?

[cfsmp3]

Every journalist likes to the success stories beginning from a a garage (apparently the parents of successful children don't need to park). They really need to get the fact straight.

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[wootest]

So what you're saying is that "proprietary applications" should not allow extension of functionality in any way at all? Says who? To what end? How does this benefit the user? How is this not some inane construct of your mind, intended to make non-proprietary alternatives look better?

People are free to make their software open source, but people are also equally free to make their software proprietary. I don't see why the extensibility and functionality of your software should hinge on people's perception of your license and/or philosophy and/or business model.

This binary classification scheme of you frankly gives me the willies.

Our new Google overlords

[geekee]

"...who knows, they may just succeed in assuming the fair and honourable dominion over the world's information they so naively set out to achieve eight years ago in their garage."

I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords.

Google is simply the best

[xiando]

Like them or not, they ARE the best. I always find what i am looking for using Google. They are quick to remove spam-like pages, if those even appear as their excellent technology generally avoid falling for the simple black-hat tricks other search engines fall for. I even have the impression they look at the source code for the most popular sites to check if they actually are relevant and why they are ranking high. Their power is justified by simply being better than the others. And their power is given because they are quite honest, they know they would loose that very quickly if they started doing bad things. (yeah, I love Google..)

Complacence?

[adorai]

A few weeks ago, I did a few Google searches which didn't turn up ANY good results, and in frustration I went to MSN where each #1 hit was perfect. I've switched to MSN for now. If Google is planning on getting lazy they should remember how low the search engine switching costs are (after all, that's how they stole all the users from AltaVista).

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[Lexicon]

To see where I am coming from, examine the view that porting open source applications to windows is a bad thing. An excellent posting on this viewpoint can be found here:

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2004/12/how-to-kill-ope n-source-on-desktop.html

By encouraging people to extend a proprietary platform instead of an open one, you lock them in to that platform and discourage development and usage of open alternatives.

I don't believe that this is applicable for all software like many others do, however. I think there is a line between infrastructure and information applications that must be open and ones that serve special markets and are fair game for the proprietary software market.

As some extreme examples to exhibit the point, imagine if http had been a proprietary protocol, and the company in control of it now decided to charge a fee to use it. On the other side, look at Photoshop, a specialized graphics editing application that is useful and profitable for many, but whose existance as a proprietary application doesn't inhibit innovation in the graphics market.

Re:Garage? Who can afford a Garage?

[drewzhrodague]

Perhaps in a few years, we'll be hearing about great companies being started in a dumpster...

Hay, I started a BUNCH of projects in the dumpster, you insensitive clod!

Wrong

[Luthair]

Amongst 'non-geeks' if you ask them about how they access the net the reply usually involves mangling the OS's name.

No Evil? Don't Bet On It

[Anonymous Coward]

No evil? Don't bet on it. Remember Zurkow's Conjecture: A publicly-held entity over some threshold size will eventually behave egregiously, even if every last person working for it is a saint.

Happy 420 from google

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ourhaystack.com/fun/google420.jpg

But but but but....

[JoaoPinheiro]

You mean the internet existed before google came around?

Re:Don't Be Evil? Don't Make Me Laugh.

[wootest]

Lock-in is a tough nut to crack; there are open standards that nobody support or use, and there are closed standards that everybody support or use. Lock-in depends *primarily* on popularity and implementation, not on the licensing of your program.

I think there already exists adequate laws and regulations to stop things like abusing a monopoly. (The big shadow on this would be stuff like DRM, software patents and "intellectual property", designed, or at least currently utilized, to work to protect companies and not people, often taking away fair use.) I strongly believe that if you just create good software that does what people want and let these people know, people are going to use your stuff, unless your license or terms stand in the way.

My point isn't that people shouldn't be aware of anti-competitive methods and practices, or licensing; they're both something that everyone developing software and quite a few users should have their heads around at least to a small extent. My point is that if you have great software and you make sure to get the word out, people will use it. I believe that any developer, in any 'camp', if you're a fan of those, should focus on this first and foremost. That's what the users do, after all.

Third Most Popular Search Engine != Internet

[uxo]

Google runs a distant third to yahoo.com and msn.com. Check for yourself at alexa.com.

You were saying?

[uxo]

Google a threat? - Google revenue: 3 Billion. Microsoft Revenue: 38 Billion -- gtoomey

A megacorp called IBM used to be complacent about a pimply pipsqueak young upstart called Microsoft (I remember it well).

IBM Revenue: 96 billion.

Re:You were saying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaaahhh, why does everything have to be spelled out? The point is that it is not solely about gross revenue, as the OP suggests. Yes, IBM still does well in certain areas and its gross revenue jones is still bigger than MS's (possibly $38bn less than it could be).

The OP was suggesting that someone with 1/10 MS's gross revenue was not a threat. But MS, whose gross revenue once wouldn't cover an IBM exec's donut budget and about which IBM was quite complacent, ate IBM's lunch in the PC OS arena and then its dinner and kicked it out of the house.

Complacency is the real potential threat.

Who run Bartertown?

[uxo]

Assuming he's pissed at all.

Last time I checked, Bill had a little site called msn.com that gets more traffic than Google (source: alexa.com).

Re:Who run Bartertown?

[Teja]

That's because MSN is a portal, Google is strictly search engine (though that's starting to change after google introduced Gmail, Maps, and such services). Why does Yahoo get more traffic when clearly, Google is the way to go? Because Yahoo offers much more, Yahoo is a complete portal that has been offering mail service for years now, it's music (launch.yahoo.com), probably gets millions of users per day, games service gets thousands of visitors, etc...

Re:Who run Bartertown?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, Bill had a little site called msn.com that gets more traffic than Google (source: alexa.com).

Thats probably from the millions of people that still use IE and whenever they enter a non-existant address, they get automatically redirected to MSN....
Microsoft Anti-Competition Tactic #19835214

Re:RTFA - Bugmet Not

[pizzaman100]

Bugmenot is great, but it doesn't work for Fortune mag. They are now requiring: Name, Address, zip code, and email.

They made one mistake in the Globe & Mail arti

[rfc1394]

The article in The Globe and Mail has the following sentence:

This lack of semantic connection is something being worked upon by the founder of the Web himself (Sir Tim Breners-Lee, at MIT) in a radical re-design of how the Web is structured and an update of the communication protocols that hold it all together.

The man who invented the World Wide Web is "Sir Tim Berners-Lee", not "Sir Tim Breners-Lee".

They clearly spelled his name worng. :)

Yep.

[uxo]

Yeah, you go to Google, what do you see? A blank page with a text box for searching. If I load Yahoo's page I can, within a few seconds, scan the major news headlines, get the local weather, and see if I have any new mail.

I only end up at MSN because that's where you go after you log out of Hotmail. (I REALLY appreciate that new MSN "feature" that prevents you from right-clicking on links to open them in a new tab.)

Re:Yep.

[Anonymous Coward]

(I REALLY appreciate that new MSN "feature" that prevents you from right-clicking on links to open them in a new tab.)

I don't use their services, so i'm not sure what your talking about. Do they use javascript to prevent right click context menus alltogether? If so, can't you just ctrl+left click to open in a new tab (if your using firefox).

Re:RTFA - Bugmet Not

[ecliptik]

just put in the # bugmet not spits out that comes up in Account Number, worked for me.

Shareholders have 1/10 the vote

[kallistiblue]

Google IPO was unique in that the stock was issued in 2 classes.

Class 1 ( not the real name )
The class was held by the original investors and employees of the company.

Class 2
This was the stock that was offered in the Google IPO.

When is comes time for Shareholder to vote:
Class 1 stock votes count 10 times more than Class 2 stock.

That gives Brin and Page voting control of the company because unless they vote against each other, they will always win.

They're gonna have to go some time.

[tetsu96]

Either they'll retire, step down, be ousted by some power play, or flat out die at some point. No signifigantly large company will remain a force against evil for all time.

I have a copy of it

[Patrick Mannion]

Maybe it was another FORTUNE article. All I know, is they talk about the same thing in that. Microsoft is getting scared. But that's good. Boy, I can't wait to see Bill's face, if a Google OS comes out.

Nah

[ScrewMaster]

If nothing else, Gates and Ballmer will have them shot.

Google is good

[mkiwi]

Google has a lot going for it- last quarter they had a little over $1 Billion USD in total revenue.

By contrast, Microsoft had about $11 Billion last quarter

Apple Computer, even with its tiny marketshare, makes as much money in a year as Microsoft does in one quarter, $11 Billion.

I'm not sure google can compete with MS in a direct fashion yet and succeed, however they will be an interesting company to watch over the next few years. If Apple can compete in a niche market and only be four times smaller (by revenue) that Microsoft, google could quite possibly to very well.

Re:Google is good

[radu124]

Maybe they are this good because they don't stuff ads down your throat. I'm sure they could have increased their profit by drowning you in commercials. But instead they make a statement: showing respect to our users is more important than making the highest profit. It's also ensures that people won't start hating them as they hate Microsoft.

Am I the only one who hates Google the company?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they're arrogant SOBs who won't hire anyone over 35 and think they're king(s) of the world. I will be very happy when they are dropped down a few pegs. And those weird weird pics of the two weirdos. So glad they stopped.

Re: Stealing Pictures

[some guy I know]

I run a site (see my sig) which has about 55 different pages on it. As I look at my site statistics, I see that most of my visitors only view one page. Of course this could mean that they don't like it, so they leave. That's okay. But, my number one referrer is actually Google IMAGES. So I guess that a lot of people are coming just to steal a picture, then they leave.

Don't tell me, let me guess; it's this image, right?
Or maybe this one?

The Google OS

[JoseAugusto]

Google x Microsoft: There can be only one.

I recently wrote a prediction on that subject:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - March 3, 2009 UTC - Amidst rampant media speculation, Google Inc. finally announced its own operating system, called GO''s.

Some say this will be Google's final attempt to invert last two year's painful struggle to survive. Google is now a doomed company.

It all started four years ago, on 2005. MSN Search was officially launched on February of that year; but and most important, almost at the same time, a now famous plug-in to Firefox, called Butler, was silently launched without almost no fuss.

But it changed everything. Not a lot of people installed it from start, but it inspired other companies to offer similar tools on their browsers. On 2006, the creators of the Opera browser included a similar tool, not as a plug-in, but already on the product itself, as an option. Using it, the user was able to remove almost all commercial banners, buttons, skyscrapers and inlines from pages considered as UAI. Only some ad-links formats survived. Other soon followed, mostly after the creation the UAI nomenclature.

UAI stand for "Universally Accessible Information" and the definition is "world''s information that should be universally and easily free accessible to anyone in a useful, clear and no intrusive or biased way". The UAI Foundation, created on 2006, was a spin-off of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, but some say Microsoft toss some money in. The fun and ironic part is that the UAI creators say they were inspired by the Google's mission sentence on top of Google corporate info web page. Besides being almost 10 year old, it's still there. The UAI Foundation defends that the UAI contents belong to every one of us and those who order and categorized it provide a public service. More, they say that, in order to maintain this information impartial and fair, there should and will be a World organization responsible for providing tools to organize and it for free.

Microsoft joined the UAI crowd on 2007, with the release of sp1 to Internet Explorer 7. The default settings of the browser installation went much further than the pop-up blocking of IE7 and fully supported UAI, thus blocking all commercial content from pages categorized as UAI. And worst of all, like the spyware lists, updates were available on regular basis on pages that ought to be considered as UAI. There was only one big page that was proud of being on top of the UAI list: the good old dmoz.org open directory project!

After some discussion, all Google and MSN Search, almost all Yahoo pages, and many others, ended up categorized as UAI. No commercial content remained on those pages when using IE7. The results were shown as almost part of the browser itself on a fast loading clear reading uniform text. Not even ad-links survived.

Needless to say, Microsoft and Google went to court. Microsoft made some points arguing Google was the first one to alter the content of any web page on its benefit with the introduction, on late 2005, of the AutoLink Google Toolbar Tags. 2005 was, indeed, a shifting year.

After some long court debates, Microsoft changed the default to optional but it was already too late. Google was already seriously hurt right where it hurts the most and Google revenues dropped by more than 70%. Also, Wall Street already has been punishing the GOOG stock, dumping it since the first rumours of the UAI creation.

Some say IE7 sp1 was a direct response from Microsoft to the GBrowser, launched one year before, on 2006. And more, that the Microsoft move was hard play but it was the only move Microsoft could have done in order to survive Google.

And this time around, it's Google time to, again, invade Microsoft backyard. Let's see who finally wins. There can be only one.