Re: Neat summary of Google strategy

From: "Mary E Tyler"
>> dej,
>>
>> I won't go into why I have a low opinion of Google, but 
>> what
>> I think increasingly significant is the number and 
>> strength
>> of criticisms. The issue of taking other people's content
>> without permission or payment has also been remarked on 
>> over
>> the Huffington Post
>> http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=136968 .

>
> However, I think that "copying content" and "aggregating 
> links" are
> two very different things. Google isn't copying your 
> content. They are
> linking to content, aggregating those links. That's what 
> the net is
> all about, thinks linking to other things. The fact that 
> they can make
> money on it speaks as much about the value of the 
> aggregation as the
> value of the individual original content. Alone, a single 
> article may
> be worth nearly nothing, cobbled together with other 
> articles, it may
> be worth a few pennies, particularly in the way that 
> Google allows you
> to make up your own news feeds from disparate sources 
> tailored just to
> you. THAT has value too, beyond the value of the original 
> content. I
> don't have a problem with Google making money aggregating 
> links.
>
> Somewhere (on my FaceBook account, I think) I recently 
> posted an
> opinion piece that said that the newspaper companies are 
> complaining
> about Google when it's really Craigslist that's eating 
> their lunch
> (dinner and midnight snack too). That what's making 
> newspapers not
> profitable is not Google's aggregating their links and 
> putting
> advertising next to those links taking pennies out of 
> their pockets,
> but rather Craigslist taking classified advertising--a 
> very lucrative
> category--draining the lifeblood from their necks. Make of 
> that what
> you will.
>
> I have a moderate opinion of Google. I think that many 
> Googles really
> do mean well. And I've personally built a goodly part of 
> my career on
> the free software Google has offered. Enterprise level 
> analytics used
> to START at $200/mo, placing them out of reach of the vast 
> majority of
> small sites. Google Analytics brought high end metrics to 
> the masses
> for free. Obviously, Google gets something out of that 
> which makes it
> worthwhile (they charge large customers and aggregate 
> information from
> small sites with permission) but it still doesn't change 
> the fact that
> they gave something to millions which was simply not 
> affordable
> before. I'm sure that there are analytics companies out 
> there howling
> because GA is eating their lunch in the small end market 
> of people who
> used to scrape pennies and buy analytics service and now 
> use GA for
> free. In the balance of a huge good for millions of 
> consumers vs a big
> bad for a small number of companies, I think I'm on the 
> side of
> consumers.
>
> No one ever said it was easy competing with an 800 lb 
> gorilla.
>
> dej

dej,

I lost the will to stay in newspapers when the power of 
advertising seriously compromised journalisistc independence 
and the accuracy of news and opinion pieces. So your 
analysis is probably right on the challenges for papers as 
they struggle back to subscription income.

I am impressed by your positive comments on Google, and 
certainly accept that it started out with good approaches 
and has many useful offerings. Unfortunately, like any 
monopolist, it forgets to discuss its ideas with people, or 
check the effects of its actions.

And I do see a difference between the advances that 
substitute a job with electronic or industrial power 
[disturbing as that can be], and actions that take the 
fruits of efforts of others without their permission. This 
is clouded by the nature of the net, but again there is a 
division of material offered freely for use in an open 
source way - and without clear limitation - and actual 
copyright material.

And this seems to be summed up by Google's belief in opt-out 
(as a dictatorial outfit) rather than opt-in (which belongs 
to belief in democracy and respect for others and their 
rights). I don't object to them being an 800lb gorilla, but 
real gorilla's are peaceful and friendly.

Joseph Harris




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