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Google Puts the Brakes On Saving the World
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.'"
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.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
This phenomenon recently happened at work. We are a non-profit attached to the State education system. We have less than 125 employees, but most of us get paid okay (for a non-profit) and have great benefits (because of the government association). However, it's not exactly Google or Microsoft; certainly not the sexiest place to work. Usually it takes weeks to get enough resumes when a new job is posted. But the HR folks did not account for rabid nature of current job seekers. They posted a new job opening on Craigslist and within three days had 15000 applicants. They eventually had to pull the opening while they waded through all the resumes...
It was really quite crippling for them.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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?
I think you underestimate the difference between "free" and "not free." Making it cost even $0.01 would probably reduce the submissions significantly.
I hope they pick my idea: hold a competition to provide $9 million to someone with the best idea on how to help the world.
My webcomic
Not to be an apologist, just stating facts...
Interestingly, Bill Gates solicited submissions similar to the ones the Google contest was intended to solicit, back in the mid 1990s, prior to completing his book "The Road Ahead". This was right around the time he founded "the William H. Gates Foundation", which was later renamed to "the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation
He did this with an initial $94 million stock gift.
Now, while he's technically not identical to Microsoft... he's probably close enough.
-- Terry
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.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)