Alex says about Google:
Their business goal is to get the best results for their users.
To which I respond, not really in disagreement:
Google's business goal is to continue making more money and to remain viable
and competitive as an enterprise. To the extent that "better" results for
their users conforms to this goal, then that's what Google wants to achieve.
(Although Google may be thinking in terms of "better enough to keep the user
coming back" rather than thinking of "better and better in the abstract)
They do, however (as is the case with any for-profit institution) have to
look out for what is desired by the people who pay their bills, and when
there is a conflict of some sort between an abstract "better for the user"
and "better for our advertisers" (for example), they may need to opt for
"better for our advertisers." Decisions about things like display order,
display formatting, relevance ranking, etc. may be influenced by such
business concerns.
--- Which amounts to a targeted definition of what constitutes "better."
Because Google is a profitable enterprise, with way more resources than most
libraries or library consortia can lay claim to, striving for what is
"better enough to keep the user coming back and still satisfy our
advertisers" can result in an impressively powerful and useful tool that
others would do well to learn from.
It would be naïve, though, to assume that Google either is, or can afford to
be perceiving of or seeking some abstract concept of "better" for its own
sake.
The Library of Congress Working Group on the future of Bibliographic Control
had a representative from Google among its members. It may be worth
pondering that he noted that the continued work of the library community in
providing subject analysis and metadata was a valuable resource for Google,
which made Google's searches yield "better" results for the user than would
be the case without the library-supplied data .... and which meant that
Google didn't have to try to make plans to supply that data itself.
Janet Swan Hill, Professor
Associate Director for Technical Services
University of Colorado Libraries, CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
janet.hill_at_colorado.edu
*****
"The thing about democracy, beloveds is that it is not neat, orderly, or
quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion." Molly Ivins
Their business goal is to get the best results for their users.
Received on Wed Apr 28 2010 - 11:27:53 EDT