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Google Planning To Serve "High Quality News" Passively
krou writes "The Wrap has an interesting interview with Eric Schmidt on Google's new plan for news. Google is apparently planning on rolling out 'high-quality news' to users who are not actively searching for news. It's expected to launch in approximately six months' time, and the first two news organizations to be involved will be The New York Times and The Washington Post. 'Under this latest iteration of advanced search, users will be automatically served the kind of news that interests them just by calling up Google's page. The latest algorithms apply ever more sophisticated filtering — based on search words, user choices, purchases, a whole host of cues — to determine what the reader is looking for without knowing they're looking for it. And on this basis, Google believes it will be able to sell premium ads against premium content.' Although Schmidt said that companies like the New York Times won't get any of this ad revenue, he commented that it will push stories to users who want them, drive up traffic to those stories, and in turn bring higher advertising rates for those stories."
As VentureBeat points out, Google hasn't officially confirmed any of this, and with no ad revenue going to the other companies, it only partially addresses complaints that Google is profiting unfairly from the work of news publications.
They get you what they think you want after you ask for it. That's a critical difference between what Google does now and the proposed new system.
Grammar aside, this is downright scary:
If I'm not actively searching for news it's probably because I'm not interested in news at that particular moment, whether they are high quality, sponsored or not.
It seems Google is actively trying to find exciting new ways to become annoying.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
What is a person and their interests? At what point does Google create a prison for a person by creating a profile that represents your interests you can't break free of? What does it say about "I" if "I" can be quantified? Does "I" ever need to break free of their profile because in reality, we all filter on an implicit profile within ourselves and it never changes. After all, the profile is about opt-out of information as much as opt-in. So, when your profile prevents information from reaching you because it is filtered out, the bars of the prison are realized. In the end, does this make you stupider?
For instance, let's say I am a person that believes that the dark ages were good and the world is flat. Will information to the contrary ever come my way if I am identified as a backward person? How would I ever become enlightened to opposing view points if I am always presented with affirming information on my world perspective.