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    • Yes, I’m under the impression that we can do something as well, but that it goes more along the lines as the old saying “you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or you can teach a man to...

      3 months ago by Moo2400

      in Foreign Aid to Africa? Just Say No

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      4 months ago by James Wang

      in Foreign Aid to Africa? Just Say No

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      4 months ago by Moo2400

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Google Being Evil: Knol and Beyond

Started by James Wang · 11 months ago

The Buzz

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on the blogosphere about Google’s recently launched service, Knol.

Basically, Knol is meant to be a Wikipedia-like site where users post articles. The difference is that these articles feature authors (who have a persistent identity on the site) prominently—thus encouraging ... Continue reading »

3 comments

  • ETK

    10 months ago

    After reading your views on the release of Knol, I'm wondering more and more about why the public treats Google the way it does. If Google has expanded into a company with many, many services, some of which may be able to restrict free speech, then why isn't there an outcry about Google remotely similar to the ones regarding Microsoft? Why isn't there a stronger voice from other companies and people regarding what Google is doing--and has the potential to do?

    Anyone have thoughts on this?
    reply
  • James Wang

    10 months ago

    That's a pretty good point. There's a New York Times article that discusses roughly the same thing:

    "Google’s growing reach into the content business could create conflicts similar to those faced by Microsoft in its dual role as a provider of an operating system that others run their software applications on and a maker of applications..."

    Overall, though, Microsoft started as the "culture" of the big corporate company. Google began, in a sense, as part of the entrepreneurial Silicon Valley counterculture (even if it was in Mountain View and not near Palo Alto). It'll take longer for Google's goodwill with the public to erode, especially with many of its subsidiaries (YouTube, Knol, etc.) not displaying Google's logo.

    I think, at the moment, this outrage and worry will stay confined to media companies, bloggers, and organizations like Wikipedia. The general public doesn't really know enough about Google's moves at the moment to really judge and realize its consolidation of web properties.
    reply
  • Martin

    10 months ago

    I would say a similar "underdog" role is filled by Apple in the Operating System market, whose products "just work" and similarly combat Microsoft's awful image with a sense of designer cool, all the while being arguably more restrictive than Microsoft. It doesn't have the market share that Google has, but I'm trying to keep it OS only. Look at the iPhone and App store, for instance. Apple doesn't license its Operating System for a reason: it sells a product, not software (a generality, but exceptions like iTunes for Windows fall within the realm of marketing and practicality). You know that they would run OS X like the iPhone OS if they thought they could get away with it. Do you see public outcry against it? Sure, a few people defect from Apple's BSD distro to another, or more commonly to GNU/Linux if they really have a problem with restriction. What percent of consumers care enough to switch to a less convenient solution (GNU/Linux) from OS X or Windows? Roughly 0.7-1.7%? A good portion of whom haven't switched from anything but HP-UX?

    So 2007 was the first year there were more people in the States that cared more about complete freedom than convenience than people who are ignorant enough to still use Windows 98. The odds for this country's freedoms look dismal.

    I have to think we're not the country of freedom fighters we romanticize. It takes a lot to get us to bite back, and by then it takes a lot to dig us out of the hole. I mean, last time it took the French. They have ONE aircraft carrier, guys. Is that who we're gonna call?
    reply

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