On Dec 23, 2007 8:15 AM, Nancy Cochran <nancy.cochran_at_earthlink.net> wrote:
...
>
> I believe that Google succeeds for two reasons: (1) they are either very
> good or very lucky in choosing their advertising model and (2) they protect
> users from the process o knowing exactly how they produce their product.
It is delusional to assert Google's success is due to advertising
(they were a runaway success as a search service before "adWords") or
due to some type of subterfuge or sleight-of-hand. They are a success
because they understand the problems they are seeking to address,
bring innovative solutions to bear and, recognising the inefficient
humbug of traditional IT infrastructure, rewrote the model of large
scale computing.
This lecture gives an insight into how things work at Google -
experimental, pragmatic, daring, innovative and focused:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8DcBF-qo4
Google have no monopoly on ideas or expertise. They started in a dorm
room a little over 10 years ago. They have done nothing that library
and information professionals couldn't have done if they had a similar
passion and skill in finding practical ways of actualising
Ranganathan's 5 laws for the internet age: substitute "information"
for "books" in his laws, the "internet" for "library".
If the library profession seeks to remain relevant, it should be
embracing their achievements and adopting their methods to create
viable and open non-commercial alternatives and complementary systems,
not disparaging or even worse, underestimating their achievements by
comparing them to lucky sausage manufactures with a skillful PR
department.
That at core, these methods are antithetical to the traditions of
handcrafting sparse, frequently idiosyncratic and expensive metadata
is no doubt confronting to some in the profession. But fortunately,
many others see the big picture and endless opportunities.
Kent Fitch
Received on Sat Dec 22 2007 - 20:29:19 EST