Like most people, I love Google. I love it so much I don't even realize how much I love it. My homepage is set to google.com, my primary email account is through gmail, and I rely on Google reader for all my website information gathering needs. I don't even fully understand what Google Voice is yet, but I'm pretty sure it sounds awesome.
Google's impact lies not only in its innovative technology, but in the name brand recognition it now enjoys. Like Xerox before it, Google is now a verb. When branching out into new technology themselves many people, myself included, will choose a Google version (email server, e-bookstore) over others. The fact that they have been so user-centric is very appealing, when so many websites are, as co-founder Sergey Brin points out, covered in advertising and exploding with pop-ups.
Google's impact lies not only in its innovative technology, but in the name brand recognition it now enjoys. Like Xerox before it, Google is now a verb. When branching out into new technology themselves many people, myself included, will choose a Google version (email server, e-bookstore) over others. The fact that they have been so user-centric is very appealing, when so many websites are, as co-founder Sergey Brin points out, covered in advertising and exploding with pop-ups.
My first unease at Google's was the targeted advertising that appears next to emails, generated by an algorithm based on what I write. Sergey Brin dismissed thus qualm as "sort of Big-Brother-type fears." Well, Sergey, the thought of my information being gathered, however 'anonymously' you think it is (which isn't really possible, in the end), seriously creeps me out, and there is absolutely an element of Big Brother in it. (BTW, did you know that if you put enough really offensive material in an email, Google won't place any ads next to it, because it can't find any ad content to match?)
I don't know what anyone else thinks, but being targeted by advertising based on what I choose to put on the web (a la a social networking site) seems much more above board than being targeted based on what I buy or enter into a search engine or write in an email.
Google does seem well on its way to a monopoly, but it seems it may never actually become one, especially since they are intensely scrutinized by government agencies the world over. And thank god for that. The farther Google expands, the more it seems they will have to stifle innovation from the new technology companies and creators that must be out there.
I don't know what anyone else thinks, but being targeted by advertising based on what I choose to put on the web (a la a social networking site) seems much more above board than being targeted based on what I buy or enter into a search engine or write in an email.
Google does seem well on its way to a monopoly, but it seems it may never actually become one, especially since they are intensely scrutinized by government agencies the world over. And thank god for that. The farther Google expands, the more it seems they will have to stifle innovation from the new technology companies and creators that must be out there.
I need to research more about Google, but I don't see them as stifflers of innovation. I'd say they're more prone to seek out new innovation, but it out and present it to a wider public.
ReplyDeleteI agree though.. The information gathering does seem big brotherish (in a capitalistic sort of way).