Too Much of a Google Thing
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Written By Reprise Media | February 3, 2006 | Share This
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Google is so huge right now it can barely stand up and turn around without attracting media attention. So we’re not exactly sure it’s a surprise that Google is now in the news because some folks are sick of seeing it in the news.
Naturally, there’ve been the requisite beginning-of-the-end stories reacting to the hammering Google’s stock took this week, and the end-of-innocence posts by folks disillusioned by Google’s China flap. And while some bloggers aren’t shy about letting Google have it, the chord struck by most straight news sites is something akin to the gee-whiz tone in this Sacramento Bee story: “Now some of the luster is gone. It turns out Google isn’t perfect.”
If that treatment screams ‘kid gloves’ to you, then Geoff Martin of Canada.com is swinging haymakers. Unleashing disdain for what he calls Google’s new “half-baked” services (see: Google Video), rumors about Google’s acquisitions and partnerships, and the proliferation of media puff pieces on the search giant, Martin pines for the days before Google “started to see dollar signs,” back when it was a plain ol’ search engine. Although he forsees (and decries) Google’s transformation into a “giant, greedy, money-grubbing company,” he faults tech journalists for a “steadily increasing media lovefest that was dutifully enveloping Google with rainbows and puppy dogs,” then takes them to task for beating up Google’s competition:
“The media fell hopelessly in love with Google, and heaped universal, undying praise upon them while doing them a second favor by heaping scorn on their rivals Yahoo and Microsoft.”
While not everyone is so bluntly negative, it seems like being sick of Google is a bug that’s making the rounds all over. Reuters says CBS has it; the network barely started offering Survivor through Google Video before deciding to sell the show directly from its own website. Even the US Department of Justice seems to have it; according to News.com, the judge in Google’s search info subpoena case moved the hearing back another two weeks to March 13.
Seeing Google in such straits almost makes us want to give the big galut a hug (to go with those rainbows and puppy dogs)…say, someone on Digg found a flash-based browser site using Google Maps (and MSN Virtual Earth) satellite pictures. Cool.
Topics: Search: News |
Yes, we read much about Google in media than MSN and Yahoo.
But i think Google is offering more than them as i like there mail service gmail more than hotmail and yahoo. Same is the case with search results.
So its big services make it big!