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Google Puts the Brakes On Saving the World

Posted by kdawson on from the taking-a-little-longer dept.

An anonymous reader sends along a sharp and snarky article that takes Google to task for taking longer than expected to award $10M in its competition to find and fund world-bettering ideas. The submitter comments, "After using its tenth birthday as occasion to solicit philanthropic ideas from Web users through its Project 10^100, Google appears to have backed off from its commitment to provide $10 million in funding to the winner. While the company was supposed to reveal the Project 10^100 winner in February, Google has since delayed the vote once and now suspended it indefinitely, due to the overwhelming response — Google says it received 150,000 entries. A Google spokeswoman wouldn't commit to a new date, saying only it would be delayed 'for a while longer.' She further apologized for the company's 'over optimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received.'"

10 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Hype by JCSoRocks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It doesn't really sound like they're copping out. It just sounds more like 150,000 projects is a whole lot more than they expected to get. They didn't plan on dedicating the resources necessary to get through that many submissions in a reasonable amount of time. Now they're delaying it... or you know, just assume that Google is horribly evil. Whichever.

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    1. Re:Hype by SCPRedMage · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If you want to be even more evil, tweak it so you're feeding obese people from overpopulated countries to starving people to get rid of three major problems with one stone!

      Except that eating people with obscenely high fat content can NOT be healthy...

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
  2. Personally, I'm not crying foul by Cormophyte · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a lot of money, and a lot of submissions. It takes a long time to judge based on how much "good" the proposal can accomplish.

  3. The Bird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only one who is amazed at the amount of times someone sticks the boot into Google for doing something constructive?

    When was the last time Microsoft (or any other large company) did anything like this? NEVER?? You'd be right.

    So some smart ass anonymous coward takes it on themself to bag Google because Google couldn't predict the number of entries they would receive for something that had NEVER been done before.

    AC

    1. Re:The Bird by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Am I the only one who is amazed at the amount of times someone sticks the boot into Google for doing something constructive?

      When was the last time Microsoft (or any other large company) did anything like this? NEVER?? You'd be right.

      Well, yesterday Bill Gates (who I think we can still equate with MS) gave away $8.1 million for medical research based on unconventional submissions (and open to the public). So the answer to your question isn't "never." It's "yesterday, and very very often." That's remarkably similar to what Google is trying to do here for the first time, but the main difference is that Bill Gates has given away something like $30 BILLION by now and he actually succeeded in finding a way to sort through submissions and get the money to the people who had ideas. If he stops now and Google hands out their prize tomorrow, and then they continue at this pace, they'll catch up to him in the year 32009. Yeah, Google is amazing and MS hates everyone.

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      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  4. Headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmm . . . I looked at the headline and thought, "Oh Noes, G00gle iz teh 33-vil!"

    Then I read the summary. Actually, with 150,000 entries, it looks perfectly legitimate that they are delaying or suspending the vote. I thought, "Hmm, which editor would write a misleading, sensationalistic headline like that?"

    Well, I guessed correctly: The same genius that comes up with such diamonds as "Bill Would Declare Your Blog a Weapon". Is anyone surprised?

  5. Re:Pay for submission by aschran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think you underestimate the difference between "free" and "not free." Making it cost even $0.01 would probably reduce the submissions significantly.

  6. Re:Pay for submission by cybernanga · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your plans would mean that ideas from people in poorer countries, where they don't have $5 to $10 just lying around, are not worth bothering about?

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  7. Re:Pay for submission by sortius_nod · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So being forced into poverty by countries/corporations that are exploiting you is failure?

    Gotta love these right wing nutjobs.

  8. The Google Way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why don't they just identify one of the entries as a Beta Winner? Then they can prolong the actual decision indefinitely.