Comments on: Google’s Destruction, Step #1: Populate Search Results With Google Pages

By: geert lovink

geert lovink — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:53:26 +0000

hi, the next step then will be to call for people to remove google as their default home page in their browser. perhaps it is time to call for a funky contest: what do you think is the best alternative to http://www.google.com? another topic, of course, is how people could get off gmail in a decent way.

ciao, geert

By: Mark Evans » Blog Archive » Goog-pedia or Just Another Google App (JAGA)?

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:33:47 +0000

[...] on knol and Google’s expansion in other markets, Ars Technica is a must-read. I also like Deep Jive Interests‘ take on how Google is treading on dangerous group with [...]

By: ryanol

ryanol — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:21:07 +0000

I don’t really see this as a big deal, Yahoo has their directory to fall back on, Wikipedia is essentially big enough to become a SE if they ever want to. Jason C. is trying his end run with mahalo.

IMHO this is simply a way to democratize and scale the Mahalo business model.

Everybody is trying to get into le web trois why shouldn’t google get in the pool.

By: Fiat Lux » Google Knols - This Is Going To Be Ugly

Fiat Lux » Google Knols - This Is Going To Be Ugly — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:29:57 +0000

[...] without the massive can of worms that is the conflict of interest issue here (although I think Tony is spot-on in his take in that aspect), I think this has the potential to be very, very [...]

By: lux

lux — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:31:56 +0000

Well said, Tony. No matter what Google says, if the new Knols start out with high SERPs people are automatically going to suspect Google of gaming their algorithms.

Google caught on because people liked and trusted their search results. If they start losing credibility on that, their whole applecart starts looking shaky.

By: Tony Hung

Tony Hung — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:31:01 +0000

Well, Richard, its hard to really know what PageRank *is* any more … so people could argue its kind of broken anyway.

As for the trust issue, that’s, perhaps the trickiest thing Google has to manage with Knols. None of its other ventures / experiments have come this close to diddling with its main source of revenue.

Taken another way, its almost shakespearean about how Google could ruin itself with its newest “beta”.

By: Richard Ball

Richard Ball — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:26:50 +0000

I had a similar reaction when I heard about this announcement. It’s bad news for Google. It means either (or both):

1) The PageRank-based algorithm is broken
2) No one will trust Google anymore

Neither’s a good scenario.