Google's Impact on the Internet 351
Kierkegaard writes "The Globe & Mail and Fortune Magazine both wrote a piece on Google, arguably one of the most important companies in the world, and its influence and impact on the Internet. In particular, they mention the effects of Google's recent new services, like Blogger and Maps, as well as their take on how Google threatens the Microsoft Corporation. "If Sergey and Larry stick to their corporate mantra -- Don't be evil -- and are able to stem degeneration into the typically corrupt corporate ethos, who knows, they may just succeed in assuming the fair and honourable dominion over the world's information they so naively set out to achieve eight years ago in their garage.""
Isn't is kinda scary? (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, much as I hate to criticise one of Slashdot's fatted calves, and much as I recognise how innovative Google is, and what a keen grasp they clearly have of how to design user interfaces for the web, Google are answerable to shareholders, not some higher moral sense, much as we all would like to think that they are.
I recently wrote a blog entry [locut.us] on this subject, and suggested that it should be possible to create a decentralised, cooperative P2P web search network that could do what Google does, but without any centralised reliance on a service, but rather a decentralised reliance on other people. Click the link for more detail about how this could be achieved in a scalable way.
What about the not-so-good things? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not trying to be trollish, just curious if anybody has any perspective other than the very good experiences most of us have had with Google.
-Jesse
I'd love to be on the inside of this machine (Score:3, Interesting)
Give them a few years and their database of profiles will be awsome.. I just hope their not working in concert with any covert u.s. government institutions.
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2005/04/15
As an avid reader of Slashdot, I think we all can find a bit of evil in this..
YaGooHooGle! (Score:2, Interesting)
For those of you who can't decide whether Yahoo! or Google is better...
YaGooHooGle! [yagoohoogle.com]Re:Isn't is kinda scary? (Score:2, Interesting)
If Google gets lazy, someone else will be willing to take over.
Google is way overestimated. (Score:3, Interesting)
Google has had very little real impact on the "Internet". For those of us who used it before Google, before the web, P2P, bittorrent, and the hordes of stupid people who populate it, the internet is about the same.
I think that if Google has had any effect it is largely negative. Google Groups has done more harm then good, Usenet used to be a place you could go for real information. Now it is nothing but complete crap.
As for searching, Altavista was acceptable before google was on the scenes. Google really offers nothing new. They simple consolidate what can be found elsewhere by any savvy user.
Don't get me wrong. I think they are a great company and I use their products every day but I also think they are just another internet company and eventually they will be replaced. Companies like these (Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves) tend to have a boom followed by a period of dwindling interest as it finds its niche. Google is just another niche company that happens to be in the boom stage at the moment.
Re:Isn't is kinda scary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Google may be a verb, but it doesn't control the WWW or what can and cannot be found on it.
If Google tried to censor or in any way hamper what could and could not be found on the web, there will be others who take over, and Google knows this. They'd lose ad revenue, consequently, and that's the end of them. That is why they have extended support to the open-source community, and stuck to their "Do no evil" policy.
It's in their best personal, moral and business interest.
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Isn't is kinda scary? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google micropayment system? (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyway, I am looking for the time when it will be possible to search for a song or movie or tv show and then be able "buy this song" or whatever. I guess they have to work out the DRM issue since the ipod and other mp3 players dont support an open DRM standard.
Ah
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp
Re:Google = "The Internet" (Score:2, Interesting)
But I'd say they feel that IE is the Internet more than anything else. We recommand and install Firefox for all our clients, and I've heard remarks ranging from "Oh, other people make IE now, too?" to "Oh, IE is the best, that's why it comes with Windows." Oh, 95% of these clients are spyware removal, infected to the point that you can't even get into Windows or if you can it's completely unuseable.
Innovation vs Popularization (Score:5, Interesting)
What it comes down to me is the fact that Google seems to actually care about pushing new ideas and new technologies. Microsoft has always been about giving the user as little as possible until someone else innovates, and then sinking cash into bringing it to the popular market.
Microsoft's impact on the Internet exists because most people are browsing from a Microsoft platform. If Google can introduce a platform to browse to all their services easily (Google branded Knoppix, perhaps) they might just remove the element of: "I'll use Microsoft Internet services because it must work smoothly with my OS".
Re:Perhaps... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Google important? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sergey and Brin take their job very serious. Organizing and delivering a whole world's information/thoughts/opinions is a HUGE responsibility, yet they've carried it and with dignity. I see little if any abuses of the power they hold. How many other companies could do what google does and resist the temptation to abuse their audience or subject them to slanted views/opinions or worse.
Google's only agenda is to get you where you want to be.
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, that is sad, because I can see it quite similar to other companies monopolistic practices. Of course, I know there are other web page search engines but being google the most used, I guess people want advertise there, and Google knowing it, can ignore their advertisers claims...
I hope that does not go bad to goole, as I can think some other company (MS, Y!, AV, etc) could get a better "Ad revenew scheme" that really attracts advertisers (here, I think M$ has a better posibility to do that as they have lot$ of ca$h to $pend)
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't is kinda scary? (Score:2, Interesting)
*holy crap. Is it that long already? I feel old.
Social processes corrupt organizations. (Score:3, Interesting)
From the Globe and Mail article: "If Sergey and Larry stick to their corporate mantra - Don't be evil - and are able to stem degeneration into the typically corrupt corporate ethos,
I find that interesting. I have come to the same conclusion, that there are social processes that cause organizations to become corrupt. I doubt that the leadership of Google has much theoretical understanding of those processes, so I worry that Google will eventually lose its ability to be successful.
Don't bother reading the Fortune Magazine "article". It is the typical Fortune Magazine hack job. In my opinion, Fortune Magazine's business plan is just to tell rich people what they want to hear. Also, the article is an advertisement to give money to the magazine, not the full article.
The Fortune Magazine article is called "Gates vs. Google". However, Microsoft has never been successful competing in areas where the company does not have a virtual monopoly due to proprietary file formats like those in NTFS and Microsoft Word.
In my opinion, Microsoft so lacks the ability to compete honestly that the company tries to steal [google.com] what it cannot create. Microsoft is more a troublemaker than a competitor.
Re:They All Become Evil, Eventually... (Score:5, Interesting)
The philosophy behind "maximize shareholder value" is one that I have never been able to understand. A corporation will certainly want its stock to maintain some value - otherwise they will not be able get new capital through issuing new stock - but in the end it's not the stockholders that keep the company in business. It's the customers who keep the company in business. (And in the case of Google, the "customers" I'm referring to aren't the people giving Google money, they're the people using Google to search - although in Google's case some concessions must be made to advertisers.) A company that has customers who are happy with its products will probably maintain or increase the value of its stock (not to mention customer loyalty and word-of-mouth's affect on profit margins). A company that is increasing the value of its stock artificially (by stock buy-backs, for example), is probably not a company that is keeping its customers happy.
I'm not trying to say companies that are trying to maximize shareholder value are evil. I'm trying to say that I think the belief that maximizing shareholder value is a good business practice is misguided, as it's something that will happen naturally if the company is being run properly.
I know I'm probably talking out my ass and will be flamed for it, but that's the way I feel.
--Ender
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that's hardly the end of the world but it's depresing nonetheless.
Re: you're sort of right (Score:2, Interesting)
Additionally, the stockholders are the owners. They're the ones who have money invested and want a return on that investment.
I'll agree 100% that Wall Street dances and finagling with the stock in artificial manners isn't in the best interests of either the stockholders or the company, but the goal of a company at the end of the day is to earn the owners money.
After all, if you start a pizza joint and hemmorage money for 6 months, chances are you're going to sell at a loss and stop doing the thing.
OK that's all well and good so let's discuss keeping customers happy.
Keeping customers happy is a well and noble goal except there's two things to consider:
Who's the customer you're trying to keep happy?
What's the impact on other customers?
From an Operations standpoint you see these two decisions made on a daily basis. If Company X fulfills order A for their high priority customer, it borks orders B and C for their lower volume customers who ordered first.
What's the right call? Do you piss off two low volume customers to appease your big guy, or do you tell the big guy that it's just the way the business works and you'll have to wait?
Additionally, you have what's often termed "service suckers". These account for between 5-10% of a company's customers typically. They're never happy and often cost money over the long haul to keep happy. The biggest nightmare for an Operations Director is the high volume service sucker. It's normally a better move to just drop the offending customer and refuse to do business with them. But that pisses off the stockholders who only see the next quarter gross profit loss and don't tie the extraneous balance sheet items back to the specific customer.
So while it's a noble idea to keep the customers happy as a driver to stockholder value, there's a balance to be struck between the costs of customer service and the revenue those customers provide to the firm.
Ultimately the CEO, CIO, and CFO have to meet with the Board of Directors (normally elected by said shareholders) and explain what their plan is and how it impacts the bottom line, thus increasing the wealth of the stockholders who have voted the Board in to do just that.
Bah I rambled. The point I'm trying to make is that maximizing stock holder value is a valid measurement simply because as the owner of the firm, they're ultimately concerned about the bottom line. The goal of the Board, however, is to appoint a CEO who has the vision to know what needs to be done over the next 5 years to maintain consistent earnings. Ultimately this does come back to the customer, and will be a driver in companies that are sustainable.
Don't forget that they sold out recently (Score:2, Interesting)
As soon as the company went public, it changed. "Don't be evil" immediately took a backseat to "make money" on the day that happened. It is inevitable. Look at the "innovations" that google had come out with in the past year or so since going public.
They have gmail, which sounds like a great idea, but they do scan the content of the emails to put ads there. They claim no humans see the messages, and we have no proof otherwise, but it is a dangerous idea.
So far, this is all fact. Now my fear is definately theory bordering on conspiracy and I admit that. The sad fact is that all of this is possible and it shouldn't be this close.
They have admitted to the New York Times back in November of 2002 that , "Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked.". Combine that with gmail and you get a database full of privacy violation. But that is just the start.
In the same New York Times article, when asked if they have ever turned any of this information over to anyone, they denied comment and refused to answer. The fact is that if they didn't log all of this data, and make these intrusive privacy policies, they wouldn't be putting our privacy at risk like this.
What about blogger? Do you think they log that also? Of course they do. They log the people who visit and what they read. They log who says what in their blogs. Then there is Picasa, for pictures on your hard drive. Don't even THINK about what they could find out from that desktop search tool that scours your entire hard drive for all of your files. Maybe it doesn't report everything now, but how long before they do? It may just be flipping a switch in the software to "phone home" with the information on the next update. By the time anyone knows, it is too late. the thought police are coming!
Now many many sites track similar information. Google is by no means the only one guilty of this type of tracking. But because of the large number of their "innovations" they have to potential to tie it all together and create a file on each and every user they have by data mining that information. They most assuredly have profiles on all of us and that should scare you to death. What have you used google for?
Yes, I am playing the "what if" game. But the fact is that it is dangerously close. The same holds true for Microsoft. I just don't have the same level of trust for google that I once had. As soon as they sold out to stickholders, I immediately worried that it would only be a matter of time before this huge database of profiles would be sold to the highest bidder (if it is not already). It is just getting too close to my privacy for my comfort which is why I am very careful about how I use Google and all of their wonderful "innovations".
I think everyone should do the same.
source: "Postcards from planet Google" [nytimes.com] November 28, 2002.
source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer [pbs.org] November 29, 2002.
source: google-watch.org [google-watch.org]
source: Binary Revolution Radio [binrev.com] episodes 87,86,70,43,42,41.
Google's creating a rich container wih Firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
An enhanced version of Firefox freely downloadable from Google for all operating systems would be their own platform which, besides being able to view standard web pages, would enable then to distribute richer applications in a brand (Firefox) that has mindshare and user buy in.
Think! Mac applications are cool because of the contained environment that is OS X (except Apple did not create enough of their own native applications). Microsoft is successfull with their applications because they built a container that is at least perfect for them -- Windows. The same will apply to Google with what I am convinced will be the enhanced browser environment based on Firefox.
Why is Linux not gaining on the desktop? Because there is no "perfect Linux desktop container". The properties of such a container is that it should be standardized, easy to accept new client programs, have easy to use services and a well known API that is well documented and defined so that programmers can easily write to it.
Instead we have a bunch of fragmented containers (KDE, Gnome, lots of lesser known desktop environments) that are incomplete and immature. Heck, its a pain the ass sometimes to get simple brain-dead stuff such as printing and mounting a drive working. So you have projects like OpenOffice having to write their own container!!! And Miguel (bless his heart) making a version of Microsoft's .NET container (Mono) for Linux that is still incomplete and sits with an incomplete container -- Gnome, which is sitting on top of an incomplete desktop container -- Linux.
I know this is a rant, but my shop recently switched back to Windows from Linux desktops (about 40 people), why? Because the new CEO (and me too), were sick and tired of people trying to get things to work together properly. We were sick of not having an Exchange replacement (don't get me started on the open source once now "available"). And new hires and our clients were just plain used to using the dominant containers out there (windows/mac).
So Google is moving in the direction of best of all worlds. They are creating their own perfect container for their applications, that can run on imperfect operating systems. Genius! I don't even have to wish them luck, because its a great idea which has to work -- unless they get Evil.
Re:Google important? (Score:3, Interesting)
Google became popular pretty quick and gets a lot of PR, but search HAS been around forever and the question in my mind is whether or not there have been other engines that were pushed out of the 'not being evil' market by them in the past. I'd guess yes, but they were already destined to die off for other reasons.
What's interesting about the level of 'google love' around here is that it is counter to the standard approach to any large company... Is this massively effective PR combined with a fit for compatibility, or is the compatibility manufactured? Google strikes me as a company run by very smart people, and having the nerds on your side when you run a large piece of the computer world seems like one of the more 'duh' ideas in history....
Re:What about the not-so-good things? (Score:1, Interesting)
I have decided to reject the Google job offer. For a company that has managed to attract some of the cream of Computing (even Rob Pike has joined and Bill Joy has said he's thinking about it), and which prides itself on its laid-back work environment, this is probably a remarkable decision. However, after dealing with them for many months over the "hiring process", their carefully cultivated "do no evil" media image is just that, an elaborate front on what is a pretty ruthless company, which displays good old American IT capitalism at its worst...
Why do I think that? When I initially applied for the job, I applied under the impression I was going to work in Zurich in their new Zurich office (which they announced with great fanfare (http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/ 05/going-out-of-our-way-to-find-right.html), on the open-source Linux kernel (thus feeding work back into the community with myself receiving credit). After a long interview process, which in a drip-drip fashion changed all these initial assumptions, I find myself being offered a job which requires relocation to America, is unlikely to allow publication of any work I produce there, and which requires myself to stop all work on my open source projects, even though that work would be performed in my spare time! If I knew that to be the case when I applied, I would not have bothered, and I suspect they trap a lot of people into accepting the job in the same way.
The European computer scientist friendly image they obtained by their announcement of the Zurich office is a case in point. In their blog and press releases they make great play that they're a caring company, opening up a European office for all the poor Europeans who don't want to relocate to America. I applied due to this, and during the interview process the goal-posts changed from a job in Zurich, to a job in Zurich with an initial three months in California, to an initial three months in Zurich and then one year in California (a neat inversion, someone there must know psychology), to an email last night when they've now said an initial one month in America, two months in Zurich, and then back to America. Once I'm over in California for the initial month, I can easily envisage they will change their mind and forget about the two months in Zurich (after all three major relocations in the space of three months is hardly easy on myself).
Even though I will be working on the Linux kernel, I am beginning to suspect I will never feed anything back to the open source community. For a company which have built up such an adoring fanbase they are actually incredibly secretive. From extensive web searches (using Google how ironic ) they prove to have published no source code and have fed nothing back to the Linux kernel (apart from one or two line fixes which is in their interest, as it saves them from re-patching the code in new kernel releases). They have in actuality released nothing, code or academic papers, which gives any clue to their internal architecture or the extensive IP they must have built up.
The demand that I stop work on my open source projects is totally unreasonable. [Description of the wide usage of his Open Source project deleted]. I don't think stopping all work on [it] is a good swap for a job where I won't be allowed to publish anything.
Re:If Sergey and Larry stick (?!?!) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Google a threat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Google isn't all powerful yet for a diffrent reason, they simply haven't had enough time at the top yet, yahoo, hotbot and all other search engines initially provided increadibly accurate results but were later spammed out of existance and are only now returning to functionality.
Google will likely face the same fate, the attacks on blogs has been one symptom the attack on googles adwords may be the next.
"Don't be evil" out of the window (Score:2, Interesting)
Never mind that Froogles.com has a granted trademark that predates Google's use of froogle.com by two years.
There goes "don't be evil". But that was to be expected (as a shareholder, I would expect nothing else).
Dan.
Google is the G in Freemasonry under the triangle (Score:1, Interesting)
In the end, they are the New World Order, it already happened and you missed it
Check the dates gmail.com and google.com were registered? Oh whats that? gmail was registered BEFORE google? I wonder why
Complacence? (Score:2, Interesting)