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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.""
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.
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.
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
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
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.
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
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
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.
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.
I tend to find that especially amongst "non-geeks", Google IS the internet. Could they have much more of an impact than that?
There is nothing more practical than a good abstract theory.
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.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
...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.
I am a meat popsicle.
Unless Google pulls a rabbit out of a hat (like a new operating system), I cant see this changing any time soon.
For those of you who can't decide whether Yahoo! or Google is better...
YaGooHooGle!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.
http://tech-hawg.blogspot.com
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.
They have converted slashdot into their press release center, you always know what is going on with google!
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.
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.
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.
So, all Google need to do now, is setup Google Religion, and use that to determine good and evil.
"...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....
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.
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.
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".
Your post has had an amazing impact on my day. It's a whole new paradigm. I will dialogue with you later.
rm -rf
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.
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.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
"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.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's possible you don't remember how painfully time-consuming were searches using AltaVista and Lycos.
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.
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.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
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.
--- The revolution will be digitized! - http://www.binrev.com/ ---
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.
Newsfollow.com
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?
"It's not the despair, I can take the despair, it's the hope that's killing me!"
Google IS the internet
To my 9 yo son, the name of the company is "Google Beta".
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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.
Apparently, if you want to be a successful company, you need to start with two people in a garage...
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
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...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
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.
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).