That’s the title of a very interesting article (WSJ, March 29, 2004) about how Google is managed. One of my favorite parts: “…decisions are made in front of people. We don’t like people to go off and make a decision. We try to make decisions in as large a group as possible by as few people as possible.”
Plans are still in the early stages for the (Google) IPO, which could value the company at more than $15 billion.
“The whole “do not be evil” thing, and sort of a democratic approach to how information should be distributed and available for us. We’re all about giving anyone a voice, and Google’s all about finding out what’s important on the Web by what people link to and what people say.”
— Evan Williams (C|Net’s News.com)
Google has invented another great tool: Google News Alerts, which are e-mailed to you when news articles appear online that match the topics you specify. Email news alerts aren’t new but what makes Google’s so powerful is that Google News trolls 4,500 news sources continuously throughout the day — and you can set the alert to send you links to related articles as soon as Google News find them. So if you’re writing about the debate over the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop, for example, you can set an alert to send you an e-mail as soon as any of 4,500 news sites posts an article containing the words “gay and bishop.”
Nelson Minor is a software engineer for Google and he gave a fascinating presentation to kick off this two day conference. Starting with the Google mission statement:
* Work on things that matter
* Affect everyone in the world
* Solve problems with algorithms
* Hire bright people and give them lots of freedom
* Don’t be afraid to try new things (According to Minor, Google News was the idea of one guy who said, “Hey, wouldn’t this be cool?”)
Average search time on Google: 1/5 of a second. He even explained how Google works…in a way that even I could sort of understand.
My last couple of posts got me thinking. I put my name on a no-call list so telemarketers would stop trying to sell me stuff I didn’t ask for; I set up my new Google toolbar to block pop-up ads; I’ve never seen a commercial on anything I watch with my Tivo; same for my 100 XM Radio channels.
I understand the content-for-attention value proposition of “free” media. But the fact remains that most people will skip the commercials if they can. Is that stealing? Have I broken some unspoken agreement when skip past the commercials? I don’t think that’s the important question for advertisers (and the people that sell the advertising). How effective is a commercial (TV, radio, print, online) if it’s only being seen/heard/read because there was no easy way to avoid it?
The growing glut of SPAM and telemarketing calls has made me think about this more. These people are universally hated. And they know it. But they are willing to endure this because they’ve calculated that some tiny percent of the calls/emails DO work. We never thought about this with “old” media because it was so one-way. All radio and TV have commercials so if you want to watch Perry Mason, you’ll by-god watch the commercials. Does it really do any good for me to see/hear your commercial if I have a bad feeling about your company/product at the end of those 30/60 seconds? I supect the answer is –in some twisted way– yes. Yes, it does.
According to CyberJournalist, Google News beat out BBC News Online, MSNBC.com, Poynter’s Romenesko and allAfrica.com to win 2003 Webby Award for best news site. I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall at AP headquarters. I spent a few (pre-Web) years trying to develop and market an “alternative (to AP) wire service.” All of the news and information was “out there.” And there was no shortage of radio stations (our target market) hungry for the information. The challenge was connecting all the dots. We had a big old expensive satellite channel to move the information one way and we busted our hump to “aggragate” (I always liked that word) the information. But people just didn’t want to pay for information. At least, not very much. Fast forward a few years and damned near every newspaper in the world is putting some or all of their stuff online.
The big record labels tell me that although I paid for my copy of the Metallica CD, I can’t rip the songs to a CD and give it to a friend. While they might win this one, keeping me from sending a copy of today’s big news story to five friends (who each send it to five friends).
I always thought the most important part of the Associated Press wasn’t it’s reporters and editors but the “connectedness” of all those newspapers. A way for them to share the news they gathered. Can we agree that has changed forever?
In the December 20, 2002 edition of JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization) David Weinberger shares a “Scary Google Trick”: 1) Go to google.com 2) Type in your phone number, in quotation marks 3) When it finds your name and address, click on
“Maps” 4) You are here. I’m not sure why that’s scary but it is. A little.
Nick Denton is helping spread the the rumor that “Google has been advised to keep the location of its servers secret. The rationale: the Internet search engine now counts as strategic infrastructure, and could be a terrorist target.” I have NO trouble buying that.
No big surprise, really. Almost everybody uses Google. But I was pleased to learn that even Miss America uses the same search engine I do. Katie Harman –Miss America 2002– was in town today promoting breast cancer awareness. I was on hand to record a public service announcement for one of our network advertisers. Miss America thought she was scheduled to record a TV PSA and seemed relieved to learn it was “just radio.” I mean, hell, she could have come down in her jammies with no make-up to do a radio spot. But she was as charming as you would expect Miss America to be.
According to the official Web site (“The World’s Leading Provider of Scholarships for Women”), 75 women have worn the Miss America crown in the Organization’s 82-year history (they explain the disparity). And it’s a tough gig. Katie told us she logs 20,000 miles a month, changing location every 18-36 hours. I asked if she takes a notebook computer with her on the road and she does. And she says she spends a lot of time online (she likes WebMD a lot).
Miss Harmon is 21 years old and hopes to “obtain an M.A. in Bioethics and ultimately work in health care management.” We did a little media thing and she answered some questions put by local reporters. All pretty serious, cancer-related stuff… so I kept quiet, except for the Google question. Here are the questions I really wanted to ask:
* During the Miss America Contest, did you call each other by your first names or by state?
* Do you keep in touch with the losers?
* How many squat-jumps can you do?
* Do you know where your senior ring is?
* When you go home for the holidays, do you get a lot of shit from your family? “Hey, Miss America! Get up here and clean up your room!” “Yo, Miss America! Bring me a ham sandwich.”
But I got caught up in the protocol of the thing. I mean, Jesus, she just voiced a PSA on breast cancer. I did suggest it would be funny if, at her next news conference, she waited until all the photogs got their cameras set up and then said, “Guys, I really don’t like having my picture taken.”