Why Google Worship is a BAD Call in 2008
Who needs Aristotle, Socrates, Plato…when Google offers “Our Philosophy.” Heck, who needs Moses’ Ten Commandments, as Jeff Jarvis continues his ludicrous public cry to join him in worshipping God Google, really.
Google concurs: “To fully understand Google, it’s helpful to understand all the ways in which the company has helped to redefine how individuals, businesses and technologists view the Internet.”
On the eve of the New Year, when learned men and women generally reflect on how, as individuals, we can help make the world a better place, Jeff Buzz Machine Jarvis doubles down on his inane campaign to negate thousands of years of spiritual yearning with an ode to a ruthless, $200 billion market cap corporation with the unholy mission of obtaining and controlling all the “information” in the world as its own private, for-profit property, aka Google.
What is REALLY scary, is that Jarvis is undoubtedly evangelizing his personal, one-corporation G worship to the nation’s future journalists as an instructor at the City University of New York, and MY tax dollars are helping fund the irrational, and dangerous, Google exuberance!
How IS Google God? Google has encapsulated all its Googley “ways” in a “Ten Things Google has found to be true” handy cheat sheet.
I repost them below (in italics), along with my Insider Chatter translation (in bold) of how Google is REALLY redefining how individuals, businesses and technologists are impacted by the Internet, Google’s Internet.
1) “Focus on the user and all else will follow”
There is NO escape: We follow the user all over the World Wide Web, and into the cloud.
2) “It’s best to do one thing really, really well”
It’s better to do dozens of things ad hoc, keeping our Googley fingers crossed that some will work out OK.
3) “Fast is better than slow”
We control YOUR data: Caching content owned by everyone else within Google’s server farms keeps US in control.
4) “Democracy on the Web works.”
Here’s the (Back)Rub: Google Democracy is for sale to the highest, non-transparent bidder.
5) “You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer”
We know where you live, work, play…what you think, dream…
6) “You can make money without doing evil”
A little evil is good for the bottom line, a lot of evil makes us GOD.
7) “There’s always more information out there.”
Resistance is futile, we WILL control the world’s information, all of it.
8) “The need for information crosses all borders.”
Who needs the United Nations! YouTube is the only electorate that matters.
9) “You can be serious without a suit”
It won’t be any fun to watch GOOG on the way down, but there is always the free lunch.
10) “Great just isn’t good enough”
Thanks to our Fuzzy Logic, Google is always great! Just Google-It, or ask Jeff Jarvis!
Jarvis’s new found G religion apparently worships dominant corporate market share which crushes all competition, oversized corprorate profit margins garnered at the expense of millions of businesses worldwide and defacto corporate control of the World Wide Web.
Fortunately for the sane Internet world, however, Jarvis’ spiritually misguided G yearnings may soon haunt him. While Jarvis revels in rattling off Google’s mighty corporate dominance stats, keen Wall Street analysts have a keen eye on the one-trick, rich pony that is GOOG.
YouTube may hope to move the elections, but it is NOT moving GOOG. Tech bloggers may swoon over Google Apps, but corporations are shunning it. Google Checkout may succeed in garnering free PR media puff pieces, but Google can’t buy its way to success…
Google Gears, Open Social, Android…so little, so late.
BUT, the biggest, baddest Google problem of all is the GOOG cash machine itself, Google.com. Read all about it in: Google Knol: The End of Google.com, NOT Wikipedia
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