EZebis

I was astounded to read a post on GoRumors yesterday which outraged me ‘Google To Patent Online Promotions Via Status Messages’ by Anand Srinivasan:

Websites asking new users to “spread the word” by logging into their email accounts is not exactly new. Of late, it is not very uncommon to see the same thing happen with social networks. However, ‘The Mechanical Zoo’, the parent company of Aardvark – the social search engine that was recently acquired by Google has applied for a patent on the idea of viral ad campaigns via status messages.

I had been an early adopter of aardvark the service that had applied for this patent last year before its sale to Google.  I immediately deactivated my account with them in my outrage.  Google does not own the Internet, neither do any of the other big boys.    Movements like this are an attempt prompted out of greed  to take control of the web.  What we are left with when this sort of control moves in, is  a lifeless attempt to sell & advertise as Google does with Google Ads.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton

another take

“Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat” John Lehman

Aaron Wall over at SEO Book also had a thought provoking article,  Paid Content: the New Paid Link which also got me going.  Here is a quote below:

Google’s fear of links is *so out of hand* that an SEO simply mentioning that a person can get a link from their own profile page on a social site is enough to have Matt Cutts go out of his way to push the social media site to remove the opportunity. If you put a lot of work building up a social profile Google doesn’t want you to benefit from that work, but it is fine if that network does:
Google is willing to truth police SEOs. Will they do the same for media outlets publishing backfill “content”?
How will Google be able to filter out the Demand Media content without filtering out the rest of the media sites?
Does Google care if the quality & diversity of the search results is diminished, even if/when most searchers will not be savvy enough to recognize it? I guess it depends on who has the last word on the issues inside Google, because most garbitrage content is wrapped in AdSense ads.

I was horrified to hear about how Google has allowed Mahalo to exist because it is ‘too big to fail’ or they have some power that others don’t?  How Mahalo is contributing to the Internet, I don’t really know?  Of course I have been trying to get my Mahalo account deleted for weeks since hearing about this, hopefully now that has been accomplished.  (I won’t support misuse of power however & wherever it shows up!)  Google has changed youtube recently, much to its detriment unfortunately.  The rating system has disappeared & now it is harder to find good videos as they all blend into whatever order Google decides you are gonna find them.  I often use funny videos in my posts on my other blog AstraMatch Blog and yesterday had to search through other means to find funny youtube videos for the theme I wanted.  I gave up trying to search on youtube because the videos that Google wanted me to check out were their top priorities for only they know why (money probably had something to do with it?)  They were not funny, need I say more?  From what I learn from Aaron’s blog & other reputable SEO blogs the rules that Google implement don’t appear to be helping Search but only help Google to sell what they want to sell.  You only have to see Google Ads to understand how boring & how much lack of imagination is required for what they want to sell.  I tried using it once on my other blog for a week or so a long time ago but just couldn’t tolerate the lack of aesthetics that is required when tolerating Google Ads.  Never again!

‘Do no evil’ is probably the wrong motto, maybe they should go back to what the company started from & rephrase it to ‘Best Search’.  Startups are required to define what they do in a few words what they do.  The lack of clarity in the motto of ‘Do no evil’ which can be bent any which way to suit whoever is bending leaves it with very little meaning.  I would prefer if Google started to authentically ‘Do Great Search’ and deliver what they promise rather than all the bullshit that appears to be happening with search now.

I was stunned when Google Buzz was released & we found ourselves automagically linked to people who we may have emailed through Gmail without any opt in?????  At the time I heard the story of a woman who had been connected to an ex partner who had been stalking her which was the worst case scenario.  Geez what were they thinking????  I guess it was that experience of absolute power & the inflation & the lack of connection with the effect that these actions can have on other people?   Google is only one company on the net but it is a huge dinosaur & therefore could be a role model to newer, smaller companies.   Instead they appear to be losing the point of why they are doing business & what their business is about.

What do you think?

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