Slashdot Mirror
The World According to Google
Ant writes "BBC News has an interesting article and a streaming video documentary on Google. It has interviews with Google staff and people who dislike the company. From the article: 'In the 18 months since its stock market flotation, Google has been transformed from a company that prided itself on being simple and effective, into a multi-headed high tech beast which wants to get involved in everything.'"
what's next from Google:
WORLD DOMINATION! (currently in beta)
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
Those who rule the Internet rule the world.
Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
...they're getting involved in everything because they've been good at everything*? When they start failing, I guarantee you they'll stick to what they're good at.
*except Google Earth. I still can't find the Sydney Opera House, no matter what keywords I use.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
http://www.google.com/googlegulp/
Google gulp beta! 4 great flavors
This is a cool video about the subject, what would happen if Google and Amazon merged.
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
Windows? I haven't used that since 1999. Fix the Slashdot Problems
Hmmmm, turns up 2,840,000,000 hits
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
Has Microsoft been around so long and done so much damage to our notion of the underlying motivations and competences of computer companies?
Who says large computer companies can't be both competent and not evil sleazebags.
Here's the URL for the Real Video stream for those who don't want to watch in some horrible little JavaScript window:
The Money programme investigates the internet search engine Google.
(Works here in the UK at least.)
And so we should leave it in the hands of an organization susceptible to political pressure from the United States of America?
Just throwing that idea out there.
For example: I wanted to register Slashdot.xxx, but someone kicked up a fuss and now that isn't going to happen.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I certainly would not be bugged. I could care less.
On a more positive note, my colleagues and I support Google 100% in its attempt to defy the Department of Justice. Despite Google's supporting Beijing in its attempt to suppress human rights and democracy, the company has taken a courageous stand in supporting human rights in the USA. Google was the last place where I would expect to find a champion of privacy rights.
Go, Google! You are now my preferred search engine.
The thing with Google is that they went to the stock market and received insane amounts of money.
Then the stock has risen to insane levels. To prevent the stock from crashing, they need to materialise and be more than just a bunch of IP. So now they are trying to jump at all markets at the same time and just wait for something that will work. When they have viable bussiness in different markets, they have something to fall back on when something else suddenly fails or temporarely performs badly. Also, investors won't freak out as easily when something goes wrong, which would cause the stock price to collapse.
It's all very interesting to see how things wil evolve!
...am seriously tireed of that supposed joke. How about posting something original?
I like coffee
I like tea
I like it when the girls pee on me!
Google's first and only real responsibility is producing a profit for it's shareholders; "Make money for our shareholders, Don't be Evil.". Making money is not a bad thing, and when you make a good product, money is the tangible reward, that's capitalism in a nutshell.
Google claimed the thrown of search engines, but they know someone might one day build a better search engine technology. It's best not to have all your eggs in one basket. It's the responsibilty to the shareholders to ensure Google doesn't lose big one day.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
I hate Google simply because they are evil. I mean, you wouldn't have to sit there trying to convince the world you weren't if you truly weren't, right? That said, the BBC should post this documentary to Google Video to get the maximum number of eyeballs.
This guy's the limit!
Google was entering every tech market they could (remember, those 10% projects? they're not limited to search) and buying up all sorts of companies even before the IPO. This sounds like the BBC trying to massage unrelated facts to fit a plot they don't particularly.
IOW, they're doing just what others have done. Do something that gets you attention and a load of cash, then proceed to try to spend that cash to do everything! The only question is whether they'll do the spectacular crash and burn that Netscape did, or succeed. Is there a line in Vegas on this?
Glug glug glug....I miss April...glug glug. *cries into drink*
Posterity, my posterior.
"Google has been transformed... into a multi-headed high tech beast which wants to get involved in everything"
And this is where it needs to be really careful, otherwise it will - by definition - start being the next Microsoft. Up until now they haven't done anything that I'd particularly object to, but as soon as they start using their gmail account system like a Microsoft Passport system for all their apps, I'll be outta there.
Google have already stated their world information-dominating objectives, and on its own that's something to be worried about, regardless of which company decides it'd be a nice mantra to have...
Interesting that you posted as an AC.
Of course, if you hold these opinions, the NSA probably already has surveillance on you through your ISP. After all, if you're not with us, you're against us. See you in the carrot patch.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Let me be the first to say that Marissa Mayer is HOT!
Google lives alot off their web-search.
:)
Froogle: oh come on, this is REALLY BAD. Both Pricegrabber AND Pricewatch are better.
Gmail: Storage, yes, OKAY UI yes. The UI isn't that great, there are lots of bugs STILL, Sometimes I can't even access my mail, and others report the same problem. Yahoo Mail has always been there for me, just didnt' give me the massive free storage. It's easy to give out 2.5 gigabytes of free storage though when you DONT LET PEOPLE SIGN UP.
Google Video: I won't even give my own comments on this one, it's been raped by enough other people that its very ammiture I don't need to get into any detail.
Google Web Search: It is awsome, of course. Very fast, and very speedy, *but* it is technical heavy. Yahoo/MSN mix tech/non-tech. Ask Jeeves is way out in left field mainly returning non-technical results. I actually think Yahoo is the better all around web-results engine, but they bloat it down with heavy pages and its not as fast. This still is googles one and only bread and butter
Google Maps is great, but don't rely on them for directions AT ALL. I swear to god, I've gotten lost using their map directinos here in the bay area so many times. The last time ending up in the middle of no where surrounded by f*cking fields trying to get to a resturant for a lunch meeting, I switched back to reliable MAP QUEST (who btw have been updating their site to provide more "local" style searches and AJAX'ish interface enhancements). By the way, when Google got me completely lost, I was low on gas, my cell phone dead and not a house in sight. After driving around on fumes, so pissed off, I found a UPS truck and chased him down. When he pulled over for a delivery I jumped out and asked him for help. GO UPS! Heh.
Alot of Google's other products are low-profile and not used much relatively speaking, which brings me to the main point, I hope for the sake of the Google Share holders, that Google isn't going off on the deepend with the "throw a thousand darts and see what hits" approach. It's easy to get caught up in yourself, especially when your stock is soaring.
Then again, who knows, maybe Google will "get it right", and be the world power 5, 10, 20 years from now. Every department outside web-search @ google smells an awful like dot-com 2000/2001 to me.
It'll be interesting though to watch!
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Ah, Going public. The excitement of Stock Options and being traded on the stock exchange. Everyone thinks paydays will get bigger and the company with thrive and grow.
In reality, what happens is that you are know answerable to the will of mysterious stock holders. You start learning a new phrases and vocabularly like, "shareholder equity", "IPO", "Sarbanes-Oxley", "vesting period", "we must make decisions that increase shareholder value", and "the purpose of stock isn't to make employees rich."
Soon after the IPO, raises and bonuses shrink. Healthcare gets slashed and perks vanish away. Why? Because executives who are now accountable to shareholders rank their company vs. competitors and create a scorecard. Suppose the shareholders were to find out that your CEO was paying better bonuses to employees than the industry standard. He might have to answer for that on an earnings conference call or meeting with the mysterious shareholders. Executives however always want raises, bonuses, perks, and cheap stock no matter what kind of job they do. Just ask the idiot running GM into the ground. He should be well compensated no matter how poorly the company performs.
I think Google thought they could go public and still maintain control of the company, but it looks like they are careening out of control. The absolute best thing that could happen is for Google's stock to crash, then have Google buy all the outstanding shares and convert back to a private company.
There are still some really great privately held technology companies like SAS where life is good for employees. Am I bitter? Sure, I went through the whole IPO process and watched as executives were rolling in cash while they sold stock for which they had paid a mere $.01 per/share. Meanwhile, I had to hang onto my stock and stock options for a vesting period while the price plummeted and they all left to go find another company to rape and pillage. Does anyone know of a situation where going public was actually good for a company and it's employees?
Very watchable. Only a couple of minutes of brainless conspiracy theory between 21:00 and 23:00 or thereabouts.
Otherwise objective, concise, informative (except that we all knew it all already, of course) and clear : an all-round view of Google today, and of the challenges in the works.
It occurs to me that stuff like this that appears at Slashdot and elsewhere on a regular basis, it's just exactly like all the entertainment industry dish that goes on out there. It seems that geeks are really no different than all the other hoi polloi out there, their soap operas just have different characters...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
On a more positive note, my colleagues and I support Google 100% in its attempt to defy the Department of Justice. Despite Google's supporting Beijing in its attempt to suppress human rights and democracy, the company has taken a courageous stand in supporting human rights in the USA. Google was the last place where I would expect to find a champion of privacy rights.
Repeat after me: Google Doesnt Give a Fuck. You said it yourself. They didn't make a stand in Beijing. Why do you think they made a stand here? NOT for the privacy of their users! They obviously don't care about user privacy, or they would stand up for ALL of their users. They are doing whatever is (1) cheapest (2) best for stock prices (3) drives up market share. They decided this stance was the best idea to accomplish this end.
They used those three ideals in Beijing, and they used those three ideals here. Its easy to see if you throw your personal biases aside.
I watched the programme on Friday evening. For all you non-Brits (or young Brits), you may like to know that this series has been running on the BBC for many years. The episodes are always good on what you would expect from the title - money, the business world in general. However, it seems to me that business journalists just don't 'get' the internet, and the later part of the program seemed to reflect this. There was a section that went out of the way to highlight what appeared to br one womans unease about the privacy problems caused by Google's ability to store the results of a users searches - with no mention of the fact that in most cases all Gooogle will have is an IP address, or even that using Google (or even the Internet) isn't compulsory.
The price of Wikipedia is eternal vigilance
Serious business
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Life under Googlonian rule... doesn't sound so bad.
Join Today! (also in Beta)
(Not my site and its kind of slow, so be gentle, and mind the typos.)
The space unintentionally left unblank.
Well, okay, so Google is trying to involve itself in everything internet related, but they still rely on the principle of being "simple and effective." They are trying to do everything, but they're doing everything RIGHT. They're making it EASY. They're making it FREE. I dont care if they do take over the world, I would love to live in a world owned by them.
I kill harmless processes for sport
Google is a corporation, like any other. People like to see it as still like it's underdog roots, but that fantasy was over long ago, and while they may be the knight that slays the Big Bad Microsoft, they will do so for money and, yes, domination, not because it's "good" not "evil". Google promotes the "do good, not evil" thing because it appeals to their audience, not because it has any particular relevance in their overall philosophy and business plan. I predict that one day; we will see Google start to leverage their power in ways that the Google Sheep have a hard time imagining now. This type of thought always results in banishment to "flamebait" reeducation commune.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've noticed a lot of people make certain comments about Google's web search that others can't reproduce.
I'd like to ask you to try running a Google search with cookies erased and blocked and compare.
Platform matters as well.
For example, on my machine, a search for "wine" returns WineHQ first and www.wineandco.com second.
It knows I'm more likely to be interested in WINE vs the drink, and in french results versus english.
Platform affects this as well. And probably browser.
On a Windows 2000 machine with Internet Explorer, wine.com is the first hit.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Everything else Google has done since then has fewer of those properties. That's the problem. Their excessive market cap forces them to "grow" into less profitable markets. That's the real problem.
Google should have taken on debt and gone private. They didn't need to raise money; they just needed to buy out the VCs. Then they could have stayed in their winning niche of "honest, non-obnoxious search".
There was a section that went out of the way to highlight what appeared to br one womans unease about the privacy problems caused by Google's ability to store the results of a users searches - with no mention of the fact that in most cases all Gooogle will have is an IP address, or even that using Google isn't compulsory.
All hail /bin, not to forget the page files as well!
Yes and then we can gain access to root and find the garbage file to execute the Da Vinci code and hold the world hostage!
$50.00???? WTF????
$180.00??? WTF????
So, this guy has a listing of 100-some patends filed by or for Google on a cd, and he's charging 50 bucks? He's charging another $180 for the book (PDF download, only)? Has he sold a single copy? Has anyone read this? And if anyone has read this (sure as hell ain't me), does he say anything that we /.ers haven't already said?
Seriously, WTF
and people who dislike the company
I didn't STFV so... what does Steve "Developers!" Ballmer say?
--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
I think people are quick to call anything a documentary these days, this is opinionated hidden agenda drivel. Someone always enjoys to hate the successful.
Google labs existed long before Google became a behemoth and they were always striving to corner every market (even ones that didn't exist yet); google talk, google desktop, the google cache blade, gmail, google news, picasa, etc. Most of these technologies were released before or were already in the works before they hit it big with wall street. And, they've been hiring bright minds since day one, this is nothing new. Also, they purchased the leading usenet (dejanews) company before they became a behemoth.
This company always had their eyes on the prize, and although unspoken, it was always understood their solutions would be free and minimalist. Too minimalist sometimes, google talk for example could use a more cluttered interface and some actual features. However, their focus was on using open source and widely available technologies (jabber, instead of inventing YET another) and keeping their product as simple as possible (see k.i.s.s.) as they always do.
Google is the most noble and innovative companies to exist today, they fight for human privacy, and they're always willing to push the bar and defy the status quo. The reason you have more space in most popular webmails, along with simpler faster loading interfaces with fewer or no banners is because of Google being a force of nature. The same is true of other websites, where companies have cut back on the amount of flash ads or banners that they used, following Google's lead. But, no one does it like Google.
how about microsoft?
Dare I say, better than All your base? No, probably not....
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
There was a section that went out of the way to highlight what appeared to br one womans unease about the privacy problems caused by Google's ability to store the results of a users searches - with no mention of the fact that in most cases all Gooogle will have is an IP address, or even that using Google isn't compulsory.
Two points.
First, I'd like to say that any search engine (or website, or whatever) is likely to do this. I recognize that it's kind of spooky to consider what kind of a profile someone like Google could build up on you, given how pervasive Google is -- which is why I wholeheartedly support Google giving the finger to the feds in general when it comes to their users' privacy. This may be a problem, but it's a search engine problem, not a Google problem.
Frankly, I think that we need tougher restrictions present on law enforcement obtaining search engine data. There are obviously practical problems inherent in defining what a "search engine" is, but hear me out. Traditionally, law enforcement could maybe get a warrant to start tapping a phone or search a house (and, incidently, they have to notify people that they *searched* the house, if they do so). I believe that LE can request phone records (though I don't know how far back, and in any event, this is at least somewhat limited information).
On the other hand, search engine data contains an entire history of what people have done on their computer for maybe years. This is absolutely unprecedented. It can be a snapshot spanning *years*. I think that there is too much incentive to grab data for some other claimed purpose and then abuse it -- it would clearly be very useful for political reasons.
I also worry about the chilling effects on thought -- it is as objectionable to me as feds being able to obtain library reading lists (worse, secretly). I want people to be able to read and educate themselves on things without worrying about whether or not that reading might be used against them at some time in the future -- if a lawyer wants to read about communist ideology, I don't think that that should eventually be used to prohibit him from becoming a Supreme Court Justice, for example.
I could see restrictions where LE cannot request data older than $N years, and possibly must go through a more substantial review process than a typical tap or search warrant (in which a judge determines that seizing search engine records is not only *useful* to an investigation, but that there is no other, less invasive, way to perform the request). Furthermore, I think that there should be a requirement to notify the person whose data was seized (in much the same way that house searches currently require notification). This provides some disincentive for "fishing trips".
Second, the woman being concerned was on BBC -- I'm guessing that she's European. European data privacy generally differs from US data privacy in that in the US, the government is often more limited in the personal data that they can obtain, but in Europe, corporations are often more limited in how they can handle personal data. Her concerns were probably about what Google (or someone buying the information from Google, or someone buying the information from them) could do, not with the government.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I'm glad to see they mentioned click fraud. However Google seems to claim they're doing something about it. Personaly I think they have a policy of turning a blind eye to click fraud. I know of someone who was charged $100,000 for false google-ad clicks. They noticed a huge surge of clicks but no new business. After asking Google about click fraud they were informed that they'd have to prove it and submit the proof to Google in order to get a refund. So, they had to hire a 3rd party to monitor the clicks and send in reports. I'm sure Google has the ability to notice click fraud...especially when it's just one IP address clicking thousands of times, but I guess they like the revenue it generates when nobody complains. What kind of company puts the onus on their customers to make sure the transaction they're facilitating runs properly? Seems like a law suit waiting to happen.
How the fuck is this off topic?
What is going on with the mod system?
Going public has nothing to do with the emaployees. It has everything to do with the owners. Companies go public so that the owners can make a mint. You, as a lowly employee, are quite honestly, irrelevant. Employees aren't entitled to any ownership at all, unless the owners see fit to give them some ownership.
I don't respond to AC's.
This ABC News video (Flash for a streaming video required) shows the behind the scenes of Google's headquarter. Of course the host is jealous by all this [grin].
Seen on Digg and posted on my AQFL Web site.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
www.godhatesfags.com
Case in point.
Google has to do something in order to grow, and searching won't sustain them forever. While they're fabulous for finding random websites, I've noticed that I use Wikipedia now if I want to find information about something, since I know there'll always be something useful there. I'm not talking about vital stuff, but if I'm curious about a band, or a model, or an animal or who Winston Churchill was, I no longer resort to Google.
It's also my opinion that it's a good thing Google is doing this. They have the resources to produce some awesome stuff now, and that's what they seem to be trying. Perhaps I'm also slightly charmed by the idea of collecting the world's greatest engineers in one spot.
Mind you, I'm not too fond of all the stuff they're putting out at the moment, but they're bound to strike genius eventually.
Good point, but the employees are the ones that create "shareholder value." My gripe is that life was good before the IPO. Maybe the owner knew he had to attract and retain talent to look good for the IPO. Keep in mind that a corporate owner who has a bunch of knuckle-heads working for him probably won't generate much revenue.
Respond to a troll with another troll - fighting fire with fire!! Nice work, overly critical guy.
XML causes global warming.
I am generally more of a moderate (A moderate who hasn't posted to slashdot in about 3 years and no longer has the email account at which he can retrieve his password) and I have noticed a trend where the republicans accuse, in a specific and calculated way, democrats of the behavior that the republicans are engaging in.
They accuse the democrats of the politics of destruction
They accuse the democrats of arguing through emotion rather than reason
They accuse the democrats of not caring about our basic rights
They accuse the democrats of engaging in judicial activism.
However they have mastered the politics of destruction through arguing by emotion to install an executive that does not care about our basic rights... and the republican majority in legislature is allowing judicial activists of the conservative mold, who hold extremely dangerous opinions about the power of the executive to take control of the supreme court.
It is astounding that verbally accusing the democrats of one thing is more persuasive than an actual history of republicans *actually doing it*.
To the republican party, and especially the executive of the US; There are FOUR lights!
"Everything else Google has done since then has fewer of those properties. "
I don't know about that, their 'Video' approach seems pretty good choices to me, depending on how it procedes. They could end up as 'the place' to go for a nights viewing if they play their hand right and thats big money worldwide.
"Then they could have stayed in their winning niche of "honest, non-obnoxious search"
You work in a bank right? a clerk? A quantity surveyor? I don't think its in the nature of people who set up businesses to play it safe and woudn't it be a boring world if they did? I just don't see what they have to lose, none of the things they've done require big capital investment except for the datacentres.
Well said, If I still had my points I'd mod you up.
Microsoft has big guns, but they're slow to target. As long as you're not where they're targeting by the time they get around to firing, you're going to be OK.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
You, sir, are as blind as those you argue against. Do you truly believe that liberals are "all emotion instead of logic and reasoning" and conservatives are purely rational beings who operate on a higher level of discourse? Sure, Ann Coulter is right about one thing, that some people, a lot of people, completely suck at arguing/debating/discussing. But she's missing something extremely important. It's the same on both "sides!" To state that one side or the other holds a monopoly on the utterly pathetic political discourse these days is either incredibly dishonest or incredibly myopic.
It's sad. It's really sad.
Maybe the BBC, historically one of the world's great information delivery organizations, has an interest in casting Google in a negative light? Microsoft isn't the only company that sees Google as a threat, after all.
I saw that on Digg, it was a neat video. :)
Google's reliance on ad revenue taints its noble intent. Sooner or later they will realize they are in the business of consumerism and let unscrupulous advertisers and products slide. They will become another big media company that's looking for new ways to make a buck from advertisers.
Look at eBay. All they had to to list items. Now how much money do they make on gray market goods? Even outright fraud? So much they only make the most feeble attempts to police auctions. At this point it may even be too difficult to police them at all.
Will Google get into the business of censoring their advertisements? Stamping out fraud? As business reaches greater penetration I doubt they even can. Google makes money off ads. And unless they can find another way to make money they will become another enabler of consumerism.
Those of you already steeped in Kool-Aid probably don't see what's so bad about this at all. But for me I don't like what the future holds from Google.
Google may appear to have changed into a "multi threaded technology beast" who is interested in "everything". However, this is really just a matter of technical luddites not having the vision to understand what google is.
Google is in the business of high volume computation. They make computing power, and they make it cheaper than anyone else and they have more of it than anyone else(with the possible exception of the NSA). This has always been their business, they just continue to leverage their low low computation and storage prices into different markets.
The cost of a modern computer is somewhere around $1000. Google's cost to do the same amount of computation could be as low as $50 to $100. This allows them to make their services much better than anyone else.
I think that Page and Brin must have had this in mind all along. Search was just the easiest place to start. If you look at all of Google's new offerings in the light of ubiquitous, redundant computing, you notice they're all about the same.
As someone else mentioned, he who controls the internet controls the world. Google is doing exactly that. They have the vision and the talent, and now the capital, the move us all into the future. A true competitor will probably not come about until the next major technology shift. Any bets on what that will be? Bio/Nano?
A company starts with one core competency.
As it grows, it learns and develops services on top of its core competency.
They they grow and develop more core competencies according to their skill. Google went (maybe still are to some extent) on a hiring spree for smart and skilled engineers. Doesn't it make sense they would have the intelligence to expand to other areas? If an engineer or a company only stays with one core competency, that's the quickest way to a dead-end career path.
Google is a star performer, and as long as they continue to show the morals evidenced by their resistance to the recent government harrassment, they are welcome.
People are just afraid of the maxim: power corrupts. When will Google start bending down a slippery slope of profits over integrity? It seems to be the American way, so why shouldn't we expect Google to do it? If they don't, aren't they somewhat "un-American" -- i.e. they aren't just one more "Yankee trader"?
In psychology, it is well known that people's opinion of someone can influence their behavior -- usually with the person gravitating toward expectations. I wonder if the same is true for companies. (*sigh*)
-l
In Debian Linux I got wine.com as the first hit. I've not heard of this feature before,I am new to Linux, can anyone verify it?
DogShit, don't try to think. It just makes you look stupid(er).
With cookies wiped using Mozilla 1.7.12 under Gentoo Linux I get wine.com as first hit as well.
:)
I qualified the cookie bit with OS/Browser since it seemed to me that I got more linux specific results when using Mozilla under Linux.
So in this case it seems the key factor is probably their cookie info.
You might want to just keep an eye out and see if what is returned changes subtly for you later.
Like the parent, you may just assume google is biased, when it is actually trying to sniff out your biases.
Also, it seems to affect more the ordering of results. I still get more or less the same search.
Still.
134,000,000 results with cookies intact.
157,000,000 results without cookies.
So obviously things are a little different.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I'm sorry, but after having watched the "documentary", I was slightly shocked. How is searching for your kid's condition on the Internet relevant to the success of Google? I mean sure, there's the obvious connection that is supposedly formed in anyone's mind upon seeing/hearing this: nobody could help her, she searched Google, she found help there -> Google is a life saver. That page that she found might as well have been a hypochondriac club website in which semi-professional people are paranoid about a new mole on their skin. How can any sound-thinking human being associate Google to rescuing that girl from blindness after being told the facts? Something isn't right here. I mean is it just me or is BBC trying too hard to put Google in a good light? And it's not just the little girl example, the ones following are even more preposterous: a detective using Google as a means of finding information about people? Sure, a lot of people leave traces of their identities on different websites, but Google just searches, the websites are already there. Google itself only aggregates the info, so again, this is sort of blurry. Even considering how easy it is to steal someone's identity using the web today if you're skilled enough, that still is not enough to prove that the Internet is somehow relevant for finding the guy your wife's cheating you with.
Just get the facts and judge them for yourselves. You think Google is going to turn into its antagonistical self and consume every soul on the planet and that Larry and Serghey are The Antichrist? This is just media hype, time to wake up and smell the monopoly.
The benefits at MS are some of the best in the industry. Not only do we get medical insurance with small deductables and extensive coverage, but we get access to discounts on all kinds of services. For example, if you live in WA, you get big discounts at restaurants (the list is extensive), stores and events (museums, movie tickets, etc...) My favorite is MS' policy of matching dollar-for-dollar your donations to non-profits, so I am able to make sizable donations to causes I support but only put up 1/2 of the money.
I wasn't even talking about Democrats and Republicans; I was referring to the loony Ultra-Left that has taken over Slashdot moderation. If you bash the right, you get modded up; bash the left like I did, get modded down. It's sheepish groupthink.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I just pointed out the 100% true fact that liberals can't argue anything. They won't argue; they'll call you names like "Nazi" while claiming to be tolerant. They can't accept when facts are put in their face and will just call Bush a "liar" again to distract the issue. This is the group of people who throws Oreo cookies at a black Republican and thinks that it's a meaningful, intellectual statement.
Conservative people don't take to the streets and wear Nazi gear while holding picket signs. Liberals are just really insane people, way out of the mainstream but in bed with the mainstream press which is the only reason we ever hear from them. It's the reason they keep losing elections. They think they're hip, enlightened people because they're liberal and "against the grain," when they're really just trendy counterculturalists. Whatever.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I strongly suspect that we're simply hitting different data centers which have slightly different indexes/searches OR are using different regional sites. For me WineHQ has always been the first hit on Google without fail, mostly due to the pages massive pagerank. It's a simple abberation in their search results which they may one day fix manually (I guess most people who search for Wine don't care about Windows emulators) as it's so high profile, but I wouldn't read too much into their algorithms by it.
I'm rather doubtful that platform matters when doing Google searches. Are you aware that Google has several different data centres around the world that do not always return exactly the same results? Also Google *does* show different results depending on whether you are using a localised Google or not, what preferences you have set (e.g. only return English pages) or whether you are using a themed Google (e.g. Google Linux).
You never know though. Do you have any solid repeatable data (e.g. using proxies and ensuring your searches are going to the same data centre) to prove that the platform does affect results?
Oh yeah... before the IPO, the owner(s) have to have all of their top talent in place. I'd imagine that the underwriters are scrutinizing the team pretty thoroughly. After the IPO, well, the former owners have already made the bulk of what they're going to make. Unless you're a Google or some other abberration, then really the IPO is the goal for most company owners.
Plus, how many employees can you name that work for all of the companies that you own any stock in? Generally, public investors will look at the CEO, *maybe* the VP's, and that's it. Once it's public, then it's all about what kind of finacial results the CEO can return. The owners (shareholders) often don't care how he does it, or who the rest of the employees are, so long as those results are good.
I don't respond to AC's.
No, it's quite balanced and that's just the way the media is done in the UK, maybe you expect your media to be nothing but a thinly vailed advert for the latest pointless crap or pander to whomever owns the network!
The start of the programme is quite kind, it's a story of a little girl who would have lost her sight if it wasn't for Google providing useful results.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. Sorry you had a bad experience with a bad company, and now you're bitter.
"but as soon as they start using their gmail account system like a Microsoft Passport system for all their apps, I'll be outta there."
They're already doing that - see Google Accounts.
Offtopic? How is this offtopic? The article is about the history Google. The parent is about figuring out the future of Google. C'mon moderators.
No actually, it's a shit video, and it gets posted on here in response to any article about Google. Please stop posting it. It's not funny, interesting, in any way worth watching, or even well made.
This picture says it all...
When I start to see (confirmed) stories that Google is adopting the business practices of Microsoft, then it will be a sad day, but so far, Google have been a magnificent example of the way business should be run. I say: good luck to them.
It would seem to me that Google are currently the target of "doubters" who are in stage 2-3 of the Google-wars, which are following along the OpenSource-wars, and based on the principle of all warfare:
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
As was pointed out in this comment in yesterday's "Subpoena Resistance Hurts Google Stock" thread, the Google executives were very aware of this. For their IPO, they set up dual-shares such that public shareholders have practically no say over how the company gets run.
Link: Google Says to Investors: Don't Think of Flipping (a New York Times article, stating "Wall Street loves Google, but the feeling isn't mutual.")
Great timing for this latest round of Google bashing.v s_google/
It turns out the "other guys" are whimps and puds:
'MS, AOL and Yahoo! caved to Feds' fishing expedition'.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/21/gonzales_
Say what you like, but looks like Google is the only one with any goddammed balls to stand up to the intrusiveness of the US Feds.
I am totally with you 100%. Although this is not the proper forum/subject to discuss this particular topic(hence the AC), I am with you completely. These men(cowards/cretins/greedy fools) have ruined this country. I didn't even know it was possible to really hurt us as much as Bush and friends have but they did. Slowly they have/are eroded(ing) our once beloved nation into a police state where folks are becoming afraid to read certain things, say certain things... It only seems to be getting worse.
God help us all.
Google is one of the best run and best managed companies in America. When you are the best, one or two things may go wrong from time to time.
You also may take some heat when you are the best. But Google seems to stand firm even during the bad weather. Excellent Job Google.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
All of that is true, but have you been able to retain your soul?
I strongly suspect you're wrong. ;)
These results were repeatable by me on the same computer, same path outwards to google.
Just one was using Mozilla 1.7.12 with no cookies stored (my test browser) and the other was using Epiphany where I have made many previous searches in Google before.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
And to emphasise, the UA sniffing was just a guess. The cookie thing is more certain though. And even if only cookie based, the point I was making re: parent still holds. Too many people assume they see the same google results as others.
Like one commentator on NPR who noted that google thought he was the most important steven in the world. When I ran the same query as he did, he wasn't even on the first page.
It never occurred to him, perhaps, that Google knew who he was, and that that skewed the results.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
it irritates me when people use foreign language without understanding it (more so than when misusing their native language); I don't know Greek language, but I believe hoi is some form of the word the and so "... all the other hoi polloi ..." is a horrid redundancy
GrimRCAre they pissed people arent using Ask Jeeves or something?
I dislike evil multinational corporations as much as the next person, but Google has to be one of the least intrusive, evil companies around.
Google also has a history of backing up their 'Do no evil' motto with actions, instead of PR motivated charity stunts most corporations perform. If there is any doubt, I suggest looking to Googles recent stand against Justice Departement requests to turn over users' private search records. This not only stands out in my mind as sticking to 'do no evil' principles, but also because they were the only search company to deny the Justice Departments Big-Brother request for private information.
I guess its cool to hate all big companies regardless of their actions, especially if it makes good copy.
Google claimed the thrown of search engines...
.... jeesh
Throne.
The word is throne college boy.
Thrown
Standing up for ideals with the Chinese Government would mean not operating in China. Standing up for ideals with the US Government did not mean no longer operating in the US.
... the fact of the matter is we should be concerned that Google has logs going back that far - industry practice doesn't make it right, for a company that considers itself to be morally superior - and a company that has a ticker in its corporate headquarters showing what people are currently searching for online. Use Google if you want, but they are far from the angel of justice people portray them to be.
Ah, but I thought our company motto was "Do No Evil", not "Do No Evil So Long As It Doesnt Affect Our Pocketbook"
What's a soul?
Had they followed your advice, Larry Page and Sergey Brin would not be multibillionaires as they currently are.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
People seem to think that Google is "Careening out of control" with new products and services.
But what do you expect to happen when you let each and every employee devote 20% of thier time to whatever project interests them? Is Google supposed to sweep the output from this under the run and simply ignore it? Then what would be the point?
What you see is a company that acts like an umbrella for a huge amount of efforts that are essentially startups with a lot of resources behind them.
As Google has grown quite a bit in terms of manpower I expect we'll see a lot more in the future. But it does not mean Google has lost focus - it simply obscures for the rest of us what the core focus is and what are simply projects that are allowed to be toyed with externally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. I really can't remember the last time I heard a republican make a good, intellectual argument. If you could point out one for me, I would be glad.
2. Bush did lie about the purpouse of the war. It is obvious now that there were no WMDs, and there is strong evidence suggesting that Bush knew it. The fact of the matter is, it is more than convenient that the large corperations, which the government has a long history of being in bed with, got all the profit, AND that it drummed up (for a certain amount of time) a conforming-patriotic mood in the country - the best mood for a presidential reelection.
2. A meaningful, intellectual statement doesn't have to be lengthy, or to involve words at all. Case in point: Since a rabbi claimed that having a woman lead a bet knesset is the equivalent of having an orange on the seder plate, many reform-minded Jews have put an orange on the seder plate, to show their support of women.
3. What is the issue? The war in Iraq, in which it is impossible to win? Torture of detainees, which will eventually give more psychological power to terrorist organisations? The education system, in which schools get punished financially for teaching about contraceptives?
My new blog
Google's recent direction has been interesting - their early expansion was about extending the context of search and using what people were looking for and talking about as intelligence, so Groups, News, Images, blogger.com and even Froogle made sense - the user got the service and Google got the click and did what they did with it. I think it's reasonable to assume that hasn't been a successful model for a few reasons. For example, there has little or no visible investment in Web 2.0 services like Flickr and del.icio.us, which are both prime examples of applications of the old model in that any commercial intelligence comes from measuring views and clicks and their context, so unless they're pitching a bid for last.fm at the moment (and the way that music based search results are being arranged suggests not) it's also reasonable to assume that search isn't being developed as a revenue earner. What has happened since the float, with things like Maps and Earth, is that the click has become a sponsored one, and, just like it was in the heady days of the dotcom boom, advertising is the revenue earner, except that this time, Google have the power to make it happen. One possibility for the buyout of dMark is audio enabled AdWords, soon to be followed by video AdWords once the bandwidth is generally available - combine that with Google Video and there's a platform for generating ad supported content, or television as we used to call it. The intelligence hasn't paid its way, and the company has had to look about a little frantically to find a new way to make money, but this is a direction that should please the shareholders and isn't particularily evil.
you have to have the last word; don't you? ... don't you?
GrimRC
I'm still convinced that either one of us is logged in to Googles accounts system via Gmail or somesuch, or we're hitting different data centers.
"knew who he was" was exaggeration.
I meant that he had probably searched for, then clicked on, his site a few dozen times, and googe figured out what he was looking for.
But whatever. this subject is dead n buried.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Pity, I liked Google :-/
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating