A great response by VC Chris Dixon to Google’s ridiculous post on the company openness:
Google makes 99% of their revenue by selling text ads for things like plane tickets, dvd players and malpractice lawyers. Many of these ads are syndicated to non-Google properties. But the anchor that gives Google their best “inventory” is the main search engine at Google.com. And the secret sauce behind Google.com is the algorithm for ranking search results. If Google is really committed to openness, it is this algorithm that they need to open source.
That is just stupid. you wouldn’t expect coke or Pepsi to give up their recipes or McDonalds or KFC either. Google is still a company. knowing how their search engine ranks sites make not a single bit of difference to anyone except people who want to cheat and get their lame ass sites viewed first.
Cherman,
Can you please post your “how to get rich off Internet SPAM” book here? OR ARE YOU AGAINST FREEDOM?
L-A-M-E.
Ironically, Google could open source everything they had including the search engine algorithm and it wouldn’t make a wit of difference in market share.
It is how Google thinks about information that leads to kind of search results and features they have.
If you don’t like it, don’t use Google. Bing is every bit as good. Any of the modern engines will give you 99.9% the same results. If you’re just looking up a hotel in Iowa, or trying to find the lyrics to that new Britney song, it don’t matter a damn bit which search engine you use. I have no idea why folks are so ‘suckered’ into Google. It works, but so do all the others. I don’t care about the statistical ends, maybe Google can return 10.236 million hits on “pop music” and Yahoo returns 10.137…so f**king what. They’re all practically the same. Google is giving me the creeps in the same with Microsoft did in the mid 90s…they want to own everything, all data, all sources. Google is my OS, my browser, my search engine, my commerce engine, my banking system, my phone, my toilet paper by the time this is done. Enough.
Dixon seems to think commitment requires 100% dedication.
(Quote)Google makes 99% of their revenue by selling text ads for things like plane tickets, dvd players and malpractice lawyers.(unquote)
So a mere 1% of Googles revenue consists of selling consumers browsing habit data to thinktanks,advertisers,pollsters and the DHLS.
WTF?
Do They really expect Us to believe this bullshit?
If Google makes their money by selling ad space, then what makes companies want to sell ads on Google?
Could it be how consumers like the results that Google gives? What affects Google’s result, could it be their ranking system?
If every search engine could rank like Google, then why buy advertising space from them? May be Yahoo could rank exactly like Google (by using Google’s ranking system) but sell cheaper ad space.
Instead of comapnies trying to figure out how Google ranks them or any other search engine, it will be which search engine has the cheaper ad space.
I believe that the airport in Denver was shut down because of the balloon. I would guess that a lot of people missed their connecting flights, either coming or going.
Whoops, wrong post.
#4 I think Google gives you free email, Google docs, and a lot of other goodies for a reason. They also kept the search engine out front. Yahoo made a major mistake by putting to much junk out front hiding the search option. People use Yahoo for other things but the search engine wasn’t what was out front.
Hmmm…
Laughable. Dixon is a jerk.
I would have to say that if Google opened up their secrets to search then Google would be no more. I agree with those that feel Google’s search engine secrets are much like a secret recipe as with COKE or Pepsi. Much as Linux is a open source OS but Red Hat is Red Hat or Ubuntu is Ubuntu. They may use a open source for basic ingredient. But they create much more to make it unique.
After Uncle Dave’s comical climate change pot stir ploy and this asinine nonsense, Bob Dole sees no point in bothering with this blog for awhile.
What are you smoking? How would this be good for anyone? The only people interested in getting their hands on Googles search algorithms are those who want their sites to appear at the top of every search.
Do you really want to be given a thousand links to boner pills whenever you search for anything.
“Open Source” is not a magic wand that makes everything better. If it was, Microsoft would have been out of business 10 years ago.
Google thinks everyone *else’s* intellectual property is free!
Google “photoshop crack”, you’ll get hundreds of links to illegal downloads. Same goes for the software my company makes. Google could easily block this kind of crap, but their philosophy is “everything is free, except our stuff”. Total hypocrisy.
@dg
http://www.google.com/dmca.html
Knock yourself out.
# 18 You don’t want Google searching/indexing your web site? All you got to do is tell them and it won’t be indexed. You won’t get a single hit. The indexing engine does check for a no trespassing message. If it is there…
Of course for some reason people don’t actually seem to want to do that. They may grip about bad old Google abusing them by indexing their web site and even sue but when it comes to something simple like telling Google not to index the site…you sure aren’t going to catch many site managers doing that.
No…
Thanks to this, we get Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Blogger, and other FREE services.
It’s a mixed picture with Google’s openness, isn’t it?
While certainly not completely open, they are still a lot better than Microsoft! I appreciate the general openness of their free apps and services. Remember how restrictive free email services where before Gmail?
Even so, I am fully expecting Google to go evil.
If you are Chinese, they already have.
The fact that Google would collude with the anti-freedom and anti-democracy efforts of the Chinese government tells me that Google will abandon their principles for lucre.
http://tinyurl.com/yg3ompf
Yeah, Google. Give it ALL AWAY! Cherman sez.
#22 — Google has not gone evil by following the rules of the Chinese government. Do you think a business should try to strong arm a government? For example; Google tells China that Google will not provide their product to the Chinese people until the Chinese government changes its policy on censorship.
Google is providing a product to the international market which means they have to deal with the rules of those governments.
If Google was a non-profit company, things might be different.
Google is not an evil company. There are a for profit company.
>> # 24 bac said, on December 24th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
> #22 — Google has not gone evil by following the rules of the Chinese government.
They most certainly have, IMHO.
Google is supplying the Chinese government with the tools to oppress their own people. That’s evil.
IBM did the same for the Nazis.
The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.