Quick Hits about Business, Politics and the Google Truth In Between
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | October 5, 2006 | Share This
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Which One of These is Not Like The Other
The Hub, Wal-Mart’s attempt at social networking, is dead after just three months online. The Hub encouraged teens to create pages and “Wal-Mart Wish Lists” in the hope of winning “some fab prizes”. What’s more, the Hub featured an extensive set of filters and alerts so parents could spy on their kids’ activities. I’m sure you’re shocked to learn that it’s first 30 days online brought in an abysmal 91,000 uniques (compare to Myspace’s 55 million uniques in the same month). Launched as part of a back-to-school promo, the entire project is an embarrassment – and an excellent example of How Not To Build A Social Network.
Russia’s New ICBMs
International Collection of Blackmarket MP3s? According to the U.S., Russia’s failure to shut down a popular music-sharing site, allofmp3.com, is reason enough to keep them out of the World Trade Organization. Says U.S. Trade Rep Susan Schwab (via Reuters), “I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a web site…that is so clearly in violation of everyone’s intellectual property rights.” Seriously? Of all the international trade violations we could have slapped on Russia… we picked Mp3s? Russian businesses accepted over $300 billion in bribes last year, and we picked MP3s?? Russia just voted to impose a full sanction on Georgia, to the point that Georgian school children are being kicked out of their classrooms, and we’re pissed off about illegal file-sharing?
Professor Truth to the Rescue
Google is rapidly developing an arsenal of educational resources to “empower ordinary people with the ability to challenge governments, the media and business.” In the past month, Google has launched full-text book downloads, built a library index via Book Search, rolled out its News Archive, started a UNCF scholarship, released classroom videos from UC Berkeley, co-founded the Literacy Project, and is now on ambitious warpath to create a “Truth Predictor.” In a speech yesterday, Eric Schmidt discussed Google’s designs to create a lie-detector software that would “change politics forever”. Like the anti-plagerism software being deployed in high schools around America, Schmidt’s truth machine would be a political fact-checker for the benefit of voters. It’s a novel idea, but has slightly uneasy implications about the perceived authority of Google, and their algorithm of “truth.”
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