Am 07.12.2010 09:20, schrieb Weinheimer Jim:
>
> Once again, I find myself returning to Ross Atkinson's "Controlled
> Zone". I am not finding fault with Google (in fact, I have found that
> Google is so beloved by many students that when I discuss these
> matters in my information literacy workshops, the response is real
> anger), but I point out that Google is only a tool, like a hammer or
> a drill. And like any tool, it has strengths and weaknesses. Since
> Google is such a major tool, and it changes constantly, it is
> important to reconsider its (continually changing) strengths along
> with its (continually changing) weaknesses.
>
In all of this, Google as such is taken for granted. Yet it is a
complete novelty in the history of civilization, a momentous one, in
existence for a mere 10 years. By now, who doesn't yet depend on it
for their activities and their businesses? Is there any risk analysis,
for Google the company but also for their users? Does anyone have a
Plan B for the case of a Google blackout?
Now, of course, that won't happen, they are just too clever. And in
cases of large power blackouts, or internet failures, a Google blackout
becomes just one collateral in a much bigger disaster.
But what if they change their business model - which is also being
taken for granted? What if suddenly they start charging a penny
per search, a dime, or a dollar? Even a penny would mean billions, so
there will have been discussions about it in the boardroom. Many options
are thinkable, like keeping the basic service free but showing only
every other result, or everything but the first page. How would
something like that change the world? Maybe not much, but has anyone
outside the boardroom analyzed scenarios with different business models?
Or a Google-free one? Or is Bing prepared to shoulder the load?
Well, all I want to say is that right now, everyone seems to behave and
think like a free Google search service were an inexhaustible resource
of this planet.
On top of all that, just yesterday, Google established themselves as
booksellers, and with 3 million titles the biggest supplier on earth.
As a corollary, library catalogs can only lose another bit of their
significance. "All your books in one place", says the YouTube
announcement.
B.Eversberg
Received on Tue Dec 07 2010 - 04:21:26 EST