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Google Hires Vint Cerf
hsuwh writes "Google has hired Internet pioneer Vint Cerf away from MCI as its "Chief Internet Evangelist".
"He is one of the most important people alive today," said [Google CEO Eric] Schmidt, who has been friends with Cerf for more than 20 years. "Vint has put his heart and soul into making the Internet happen. I know he is going to jump right in here and start shoveling out new ideas for Google.""
Or are they merely collecting people and figuring out what to do with them later? From the outside looking in, it sure seems like the latter.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Obviously Google isn't content to simply dominate the internet on this planet, they want to dominate the interplanetary internet too.
Context sensitive ads for Mars rovers anyone?
I saw an interesting Google sponsorship of PBS NOVA Tuesday. In their 15-second infomercial a word typed into the Google screen about some natural phenomena and switched to a video clip of that phenomena. (I dont think Google does that right now, but will any month.)
Botht the Cerf and PBS thing shows Google is moving away from being just a startup and more of a community player.
When I posted about Google buying a lot of dark fibre I never would have thought about these two things put together....
You really have to wonder what they are up to.. Now either what I put in my previous post is correct and they are just trying to minimise their risk by distributing the BGP peers and reducing their risk, and trying to cut out Akamai who they were originally paying a reasonable amount of money to for various hosting things. Or they are about to come out with something over the next couple of years that will put us all in shock. I have no idea what is about to become of this..
Does anyone have any ideas on what they would be doing with one of the pioneers of the internet and a truckload of fibre?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
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The only exaggeration was Gore's, claiming that he took "legislative initiative in creating the Internet." He had a part, he showed leadership and vision, and deserves credit for that. But he implied, while trying to get elected President, that he was responsible for the creation of the Internet, when what he did was recognize its importance and apply tax dollars.
For a while, he was the loudest, if not the only, voice at the Federal level saying that the Internet needed funding. But create the Internet? Get real.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Just like the Yankees, Google is throwing enormous piles of money at (nerd) superstars, hoping that all of that acquired talent will bring them to the top.
Sure, that has (for the most part) worked rather well for the Yankees, but they are also highly criticized for their gluttonous payroll, and dare I say, anticompetetive behavior.
How long will it take Google to earn that same scorn?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy