d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"We accept you one of us, Google Gobble Google Gobble"

My apologies to Freaks, Tod Browning’s 1932 film. Appearances to the contrary Google is not now and will not eat the lunch of all other media. Unless the legal safeguards against monopolies disappear and the current patriarchs of the media oligopoly panic and act too hastily. For instance, I don’t think Google wants to create content. Let’s be clear, if nothing else the network and by this I mean the world wide web as a whole, is designed to provide the population with robust web surfing not streaming HD video. There is a paucity of bandwidth for that application. But it won’t always be thus. Engineers and visionaries are working on the solution. Additional fiber to the home, Internet 2, robust wireless, whatever, I don’t have that answer I just know that it will come.

“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Functionally Google’s needs to catalogue the web and provide relevant snippets of content in response to user queries, then connect us to that content should we so desire. Google has taken aim at the future with their Library Project which they describe like a digital card catalog, which shows users information about the book plus a few snippets – a few sentences of their search term in context. The Library Project's stated aim is simple: “make it easier for people to find relevant books – specifically books they wouldn't find any other way such as those that are out of print – while carefully respecting authors' and publishers' copyrights.” Google’s “ultimate goal is to work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers.”

I suspect that at least part of Google’s purchase of Youtube was motivated by a vision of the future where video is archived and made available online. Although it can’t robustly be done yet, it is envisioned that the “dark matter” of these video archives will eventually be searchable in much the same way that textual information is today. It is easier to see that given the current litigious climate with suits already filed that could potentially limit Google’s ability to carry out their mission that they seek to protect their future. It certainly took a bit of chutzpa to foment the Viacom suit. I believe that Google anticipated and indeed instigated this case. I believe that they need definitive case law on the subject and sought a way to create a challenge with a major player. They’ve done well so far and I can’t imagine that they will settle. They need a decisive outcome on the books to lay a strong foundation for their anticipated future. So in the end all this talk of negotiating strategy and settlement is simply speculative Pollyanna thinking on the part of the pundits and lawyers, who are not as smart as Google.

Since they will take it anyway, will Big Media accept Google and begrudge the upstart a seat at their table? The answer may lie in Browning’s masterpiece which seeks to answer the question, can a full grown woman truly love a MIDGET?

Next:
Please don’t put television on my cell phone. I want television to stay on my television.

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