“Colleges have forgotten that their primary tasks are to give students a framework to organize and correlate data on, and to teach them how to think for themselves and find their own information.”

The other night my wife Jennifer and I were walking our normal circuit of 3-5 miles, when we started on the topic of information, and the lack of skills our children exhibit when trying to locate or use it.

I am now the proud father of 7 children, all of them intelligent, good looking, and athletic, dealing with issues most infants, preschool, preteens, teens, and young adults experience. Having a larger sample of children to observe through these developmental phases has shown me that each child differs in the ability to locate, store, and use information. The success or failure of any search is desire. How hard should a person have to search before being satisfied or discouraged with the results? Laughable as it may seem, I feel the Internet is largely to blame for the deterioration of search skills globally.

“What?” you might be asking yourself. Consider for a moment that we now have more information available to us with a few typed phrases and mouse clicks than any other era of history combined, and still more added every millisecond.

Within this vast trove of information lays the problem. The sheer amount of accessible knowledge is making us lazy. Again “What?” Our children and those who didn’t learn how to locate information on their own have been lulled into a state of complacency, driven by the knowledge that Google is there whenever they need it. Being able to Google anything is the primary reason for the increasing ignorance of the world. It follows the path of replacing paper and pencil with a calculator.

I hear snickers. It would be a laughable statement if it wasn’t so sad. Google works against you if your education is based on the foundation of search skills currently taught in public schools. It almost sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Google by itself is a wonderful tool. The technology enables it to parse massive amounts of text, images, videos, and all the relations between them. What could possibly make Google bad? As Adrian Monk would say “Here’s the thing…” Google employs algorithms that score intelligence and personality based upon how you search, and serve results to you accordingly.

My Internet career started as a filler gig to get out of selling tractors and treadmills at Sears. That move has led to over 10 years in Internet Marketing, specifically Natural Search Technology. My job is to understand Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the rest of the search engines. There are thousands of variables applied to any information returned to you by a search engine. Individuals and businesses are constantly trying to break down the algorithms applied to a page, or website. The pursuit of keeping “Spam” out of their searches has made Google the most secretive of the search engines.

Those who understand how Google is applying all the mentioned variables can make considerable amounts of money manipulating websites in order to rank well for a search phrase like “Cars.” In the course of my job I formulated content and linking strategies to give websites a better chance of ranking for a valuable search phrase. The only way to do this is to be ahead of the technology Google is developing to improve their search results.

Google is one of the most prolific filers of patents in the world. If Google were the government they would be Big Brother; some argue they are already. Google is a huge researcher into the role of semantics and how they relate to human behavior and intelligence. Why would they care about those things when all they are is a search engine?

Most things in this world are focused on money and power. Google is no different. G’s entire world is centered around what, when, and how you click at the top and right side columns of their sites. It’s all about the ad clicks, money they make from them, and the power they obtain through capturing user data.

By now you may be scratching your heads wondering how the little ads on Google are the downfall of intelligence around the world. The engineers at Google are incredibly smart. I consider myself fairly bright, but in their respective micro niches they are as blinding as the sun. After analyzing billions of searches every day, for 8 years, Google has come to a stunningly profitable conclusion. Users don’t respond identically to returned search results. Tuning search results to an assumed persona and intelligence level enables Google to satisfy the users, keeping them on the site longer, clicking ads, and feeling intelligent for finding information.

What’s the downside? Search results based on assumed intelligence and personality provide little incentive to delve deeper into the searched subject. By dumbing down search results Google is satisfying individual vanity at the expense of advancing education. Why should Google limit their profit margins just because users are not motivated or smart enough to make sense of the truly valid returns for their search? Although it scares me to see information manipulated to opiate the masses, it makes financial sense. In order for Google to accomplish what they do–and what they want to do, they need to create as much revenue from every user as possible. Google’s goal is to index, evaluate, and make available all the information that has ever been, or will ever be. In order to do this they need continuously flowing enormous sums of money. They obtain this money every time users click on an ad, untold millions of times a year.

Unfortunately, with nearly unlimited funds, and data, it is only a matter of time before elements of a subversive nature begin to coerce and manipulate users on an individual level. It is not beyond the scope of possibility that an individual could be targeted by IP address to receive results, search suggestions, and ads that influence them into a particular thought pattern or action. While some may see G’s ability to contextually match searches, suggestions, and ads to be an invasion of privacy, it takes one thorough reading of their terms of service to understand that by using Google you agree to whatever they decide to do with your information, or contribution. A shorter document that talks about privacy is here on the toolbar.

One interesting point to note in their Terms of Service is located in section 2:

.2 You can accept the Terms by:

(A) clicking to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by Google in the user interface for any Service; or

(B) by actually using the Services. In this case, you understand and agree that Google will treat your use of the Services as acceptance of the Terms from that point onwards.

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.

2.3 Creates a serious moral, legal issue. How do you keep kids in schools from using Google? Until they reach 18 they are legally forbidden to use their services. Is that stopping them from marketing to our children? No. Google’s Terms of Service are merely a veneer of plausible denial to dispel liability should any harm come to your children by accessing information that leads to physical or mental damage, or death.

Nevertheless the only deterrent Google offers regarding underage users is in the TOS which is in small print at the bottom of the page.

The final question is, “How do they know who is searching when and where?” If I were to do a poll on all who are reading this article I would not be surprised to see 8 out of ten hands raised if I asked if you use any of the following:

• Gmail
• Google toolbar
• Youtube
• Craigslist
• and Google itself.

If you are logged in to any of these accounts your data has been diced, mashed, scrutinized and algorithmically applied to every search you do. Even if you are not logged into a service,working on a brand new computer on a wifi network anywhere in the world, Google knows within 6 searches the type of personality you trend toward and your intelligence level. They have held the patents for this technology for years, and have within the last year been employing it as a limited beta test, and implementing it for last 6 months on 90% of all searches results served by Google.

I shudder to think what would happen if Google were to suffer financial collapse by design. Google’s importance to the world is such that our government would not allow it to fail. Who knows the level of manipulation and censorship would be applied “for the greater good” to information sought if bureaucrats got involved.

Information is a double edged sword. On one hand Google can unveil the vast world of information to the truly worthy of mind, on the other are the emperors wandering around naked impressed with the knowledge they are spoon fed.

If all this wasn’t enough Google launched a new program in February of this year called Google Latitude which tracks you and your friends on a live map by using your mobile phones and devices. If George Orwell were alive he would probably shrug and say “I told you so.”

Regards,
Michael Rough

September 29, 2009

Google! Making Information and Ignorance Easy was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder

“The success of Google opened Microsoft’s eyes to the riches available in Web advertising, the chief technologist for the world’s largest software maker said on Tuesday.

“‘It was a wake-up call within Microsoft,’ company chief software architect Ray Ozzie said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference in Las Vegas.

“Google’s success alerted Microsoft to the financial power of advertising and how it might complement revenue from subscriptions for its desktop software, he said…

“Google derives almost all of its $10.6 billion in annual revenue from advertising, while Microsoft’s loss-making Internet arm generated $2.3 billion in sales last year. Microsoft makes most of its money from its dominant Windows operating system and Office software suite.

“‘It is critical for Ray Ozzie to rethink how Microsoft competes in the Web world, because it is a totally different landscape out there, and if Microsoft doesn’t adapt, it will get left behind,’ said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran.”

Advertising vs. Software?

The above article makes it appear as if the battleground is advertising versus software. Reality is different. On Feb. 22, the AP reported, “Google Unveils Web-Based Office Software”:

“Google Inc. will begin selling Corporate America an online suite of software that includes e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, and calendar management, escalating the Internet search leader’s invasion on technological turf traditionally dominated by Microsoft and IBM.

“The expansion, to be unveiled today, threatens to bog down Microsoft Corp.’s efforts to persuade businesses to buy the latest version of its market-leading Office suite that was developed along with its new Vista operating system.

“Google’s software bundle, to be sold for a $50 annual fee per user, also poses a challenge to International Business Machines Corp. and its Lotus suite…

“Google has been offering a free version of its online software suite, called Google Apps, for the past six months. More than 100,000 small businesses and hundreds of universities nationwide are using the free service, Google said.

“The fee-based version, Google Apps Premier Edition, includes five times more e-mail storage — 10 gigabytes per e-mail box — as well as a guarantee that all services will be available 99.9% of the time with around-the-clock technical support. Google also is adding mobile access to e-mail accounts through the BlackBerry devices that tether workers to their offices.

“‘This is a big step for us, but I think it’s a reasonable step,’ Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in an interview Wednesday. ‘Our product is so cheap that it’s sort of no-brainer to try it out.’”

Upgrade Price Wars

Note: This section is technical. Nongeeks should concentrate on the price differentials and skip the rest.

Desktop Linux is looking at “Upgrade Price Wars: Vista vs. Linux”:

“Bottom line time, it will cost you $724 per PC to upgrade to Vista. Or you could pay $170 per PC to get SLED (Linux that comes with business support). That’s a savings of $554 per user desktop.

“Now, you could argue that you can do better with Vista pricing than that, and the like. I won’t argue with you. You can also drop the software costs of everything on the Linux side to zero. How? By firing your MCSE (Microsoft-certified software engineer) IT staffer and replacing him with an NLCE (Novell-certified Linux engineer) professional and switching over to openSUSE 10.1 and using purely open source solutions. When it comes to software and IT costs, there are almost endless variables. One thing, though, is certain: The upfront costs of a Linux desktop are far lower than Vista’s price tag.

“You may feel absolutely sure that your users will find it much harder to move to SLED than to Vista. There, I will argue with you. Take a long, hard look at Vista, then take a look at SLED. Do the same thing, for that matter, with Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org 2.0. If your mind is at all open, I think you’re going to find that users will face pretty much an even learning curve, no matter which operating system you switch to.

“Putting aside all issues of Linux being more secure than Windows, and Vista lacking almost every significant feature it was supposed to include, just looking at the dollars and cents, just looking at getting office work done, SLED, the Linux desktop, is unquestionably the better choice over Vista.”

Vista Security Cracked

If those were not a big enough headache in and of themselves, it seems, “Vista Activation Cracked by Brute Force”:

“It looks like Microsoft’s unhackable OS activation malware has been hacked…

“It is a simple brute force attack, dumb as a rock that just tries keys. It is ugly, takes hours, is far from point and click, but it is said to work…

“The method of attack has got to be quite troubling for MS on many grounds. The crack is a glorified guesser, and with the speed of modern PCs and the number of outstanding keys, the 25-digit serials are within range. The biggest problem for MS? If this gets widespread, and I hope it will, people will start activating legit keys that are owned by other people…

“So what do you do? There is really no differentiating between a legit copy with a manually typed in wrong key and a hack attempt. Sure MS can throttle this by limiting key attempts to one a minute or so on new software, but the older variants are already burnt to disk…

“There is nothing MS can do at this point other than suck it down and prepare for the problems this causes. To make matters worse, MS will have to decide if it is worth it to allow people to take back legit keys that have been hijacked, or tell customers to go away, we have your money already, read your license agreement, and get bent, we owe you nothing.”

I can go on and on about problems with Vista, but I won’t. Every release of Microsoft is the same. New Microsoft releases are plagued with so many problems, yet people keep buying the company’s software anyway. Will it be different this time?

Time to Switch?

Wired takes up that question with an appropriately named article, “Google Apps: Should You Switch?”:

“Google’s new Web-based office software suite, which the company announced Thursday, is a swift kick to the teeth delivered squarely in the direction of Microsoft. Or is it?

“Google Apps Premier Edition is a collection of office tools for businesses — word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail, calendar, and Web page creator — all of which are accessible through a Web browser. Pricing is set at $50 per user per year, less expensive than Microsoft Office, but with much the same functionality. Microsoft has its own Web-based suite of tools in Office Live, but the company’s offering doesn’t match Google’s. And Google isn’t going after Office Live, it’s going after Office…

“Reasons to switch to Google’s Web-based office suite:

• Cost. Compared with the $500 list price for the full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007, Google’s $50 per year price tag is cheap. Telephone, e-mail, and Web support are included in that price, so organizations could see a drop in IT support costs as well…
• Centralized data storage. Documents are available from any Web browser, upping the convenience ante for remote workers. Plus, 10 GB is plenty of room. For most users, that’s more than they’ll ever need
• Security… A bonus: Gmail arguably has the best spam and virus filters of all the Web-based e-mail services…
• 24/7 access to the work space. The beauty of Web-based applications is that they are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. Also, every worker in the company gets the same tool set — like a standard corporate software install without the production and installation costs
• Cut the Microsoft leash. Any company switching to Google Apps will be free of Microsoft’s sluggish upgrade cycle and confusing, restrictive licensing requirements.

“Reasons to stay on the desktop:

• Privacy. This is a big one. Persuading any company, large or small, to store sensitive intellectual property, financial documents, and customer data on a server owned, sheltered, and maintained by Google would take a truckload of trust…
• Regulatory compliance. Certain industries are bound by regulations concerning storage, transfer and privacy of data…
• Google Apps is incomplete. Where’s the PowerPoint killer? Also, anyone who keeps their entire contact list in Outlook is going to be seriously underwhelmed by Gmail’s contact-management features
• Working on the Web is weird. Users who have grown accustomed to the smooth responsiveness of desktop applications will feel like a stranger in Web 2.0 land. Latency issues, Ajax-powered user interfaces and the absence of true drag-and-drop functionality will prove a turnoff for many
• No offline access. Even in today’s ‘always on, always connected’ corporate environment, the tubes occasionally get clogged. Plus, there’s no Wi-Fi on airplanes yet. Web-based applications are useless when the user isn’t connected to the Internet. Also, documents stored at Google can’t be retrieved when Google can’t be reached.”

Wired sums all of this up and concludes, “There are just as many reasons to stick with the status quo.” I disagree. Microsoft is an aging dinosaur. Still, that has not stopped it yet. So let’s look at things in another light. Where is Microsoft’s growth going to come from? India? China? Brazil? Think again. Are those countries going to shell out big bucks for Vista, or go with Linux for free?

The answer should be obvious: Linux. The savings are simply too great. Paying $500 for Office with the programming staff required to support it is eventually just not going to fly, either. Those few who need PowerPoint or special graph features in Excel likely have a genuine need for Office. For everyone else, forget about it.

Still, large mainstream businesses will be reluctant to change until costs force the issue. In that regard, Microsoft is more likely to slowly fade into the sunset over time than succumb to any quick knockout blow. In the meantime, expect Google and Open Office to put increasing pressure on the price Microsoft can get for its software.

At $50 a year, when that includes disaster recovery, backups, remote access, and zero upgrade hassles, Google Apps look increasingly attractive, just as the cost of Microsoft software looks increasingly overpriced.

Dell Considers Linux

On March 7, Reuters reported Dell might offer Linux as alternative to Windows:

“Dell Inc. is considering offering the Linux operating system as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows on its personal computers, a Dell spokesman said on Tuesday.

“The PC maker said it received more than 100,000 customer requests for Linux in a “suggestion box” posted on Dell’s Web site less than three weeks ago.

“‘We are listening to what customers are saying about Linux and taking it into consideration,’ said Dell spokesman David Lord. ‘We are going forward. Let’s say, Certainly stay tuned.’”

If you thought price does not matter (100,000 customers in three days), think otherwise. Even though Open Office and Google Apps are not as good as Microsoft Office, for many people (perhaps most) Open Office or Google Apps will be good enough.

Copyright Issues

Has Microsoft has seen the writing on the wall when it comes to software sales? Perhaps. They are now attempting — too little, too late (as well as too big, and too cumbersome) — to challenge Google over ad revenue. With that in mind, please consider Microsoft’s attack on Google regarding copyright issues:

“Microsoft on Tuesday launches a fierce attack on Google over its ‘cavalier’ approach to copyright, accusing the Internet company of exploiting books, music, films and television programmes without permission.

“Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, will say in a speech in New York that while authors and publishers find it hard to cover costs, ‘companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the back of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising and initial public offerings.’

“Mr Rubin’s remarks, presaged in an article in Tuesday’s Financial Times, come as Google faces criticism and legal pressure from media companies over services allowing users to search online for books, films, television programmes and news. Viacom, the US media group, instructed YouTube, which Google owns, to remove 100,000 clips of copyright material.”

The Financial Times is writing about the rights and wrongs of Google content:

“Google now faces a backlash from publishers that make the professional ‘content’ – from films to television programmes and books – on which it relies. They argue that Google is playing fast and loose with the intellectual property of others in order to attract users to its services…

“It must be fun for Microsoft, accustomed to defending its own dominance of personal computer software, to have a David-like dig at the Internet’s Goliath…. Companies, especially powerful ones, cannot get away with riding roughshod over the wishes of smaller enterprises just because it suits them. Microsoft has discovered that painfully over the years. Now it is Google’s turn.”

Attempting to portray itself as David in a battle with Goliath (as Microsoft is attempting to do) seems laughable. Besides, exactly when did Microsoft learn it could not ride roughshod over smaller players?

Regardless of what Microsoft wants you to believe, this battle has nothing to do with copyright issues, or David vs. Goliath either. This yapping shows that Microsoft is increasingly concerned about its business model. And with attacks on that business model from Linux, Open Office, Google, and Apple, Microsoft should be concerned. This is what happens to aging dinosaurs when evolution passes them by.

Regards,
Mike Shedlock ~ “Mish”

March 7, 2007

Google, Microsoft and Evolution was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder