Quaero
Ok, so I was supposed to being posting on Fridays, but others have posted on Friday, so I think it's ok that I'm posting a bit late.
Anyway, the subject of my post is the French and their fear of American hegemony via Google, yes, Google. In a short little article I found in the Journal Exchange of the WSJ from January 18, 2007, there is an article that originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph from Jan 14; it's a little blurb about a book entitled "Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge" by Jean-Noel Jeanneney (wow is that French). Jeanneney argues that Google's claim of "universalizing knowledge" is false, because it is an English-speaking run company, and thus it will be organizationally biased towards English literature in its digitalizing of the world's libraries.
He postulates that knowledge cannot be independent of its organization. For instance, "Google might digitalize books in a way that provides language advertisers could link to, rather than the clearest possible copies." Ok . . . so he is saying that hyperlinks are inherently indicative of American hegemony. Yes, and the world is flat and France is the center of the universe. This is just silly. Google is an international for-profit business, ie, they are going to do whatever makes the most money. What makes the most money for Google is having the fastest, best operating search engine in the world. (In fact, I'm waiting for the day that Google revolutionizes online legal research). As we good Hillsdalians understand, what this means is that, provided that France is a worthy market, Google will adapt to make its searching and digitalizing of French and other non-English literature as effective as it can to meet the needs of the French market.
Now, if France is not a worthy market, well then maybe it needs to wake up and join the 21st century, possibly dropping the 35 hour work week and un-socializing its economy. We will see what the new PM can do with that.
Mr. Jeanneney concludes that "[o]nly a government project can overcome such biases and deliver truly universal knowledge." Yes big brother, yes. Seriously, did anyone else laugh when they read that? As we know and as history has shown over and over, only the free market defeats institutional bias, which may be why Mr. J needs a government project, after all, I doubt he is too willing to let go of his anglophobia.
The little blurb concludes by noting that Germany has recently pulled out of a joint venture attempting to create the "Google-killer" named "Quaero. " The dispute that caused the crumble was over how many media the search engine should search. Of course Google would never collapse over such a dispute. With the free market behind it, Google says "search them, all of them."
Anyway, the subject of my post is the French and their fear of American hegemony via Google, yes, Google. In a short little article I found in the Journal Exchange of the WSJ from January 18, 2007, there is an article that originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph from Jan 14; it's a little blurb about a book entitled "Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge" by Jean-Noel Jeanneney (wow is that French). Jeanneney argues that Google's claim of "universalizing knowledge" is false, because it is an English-speaking run company, and thus it will be organizationally biased towards English literature in its digitalizing of the world's libraries.
He postulates that knowledge cannot be independent of its organization. For instance, "Google might digitalize books in a way that provides language advertisers could link to, rather than the clearest possible copies." Ok . . . so he is saying that hyperlinks are inherently indicative of American hegemony. Yes, and the world is flat and France is the center of the universe. This is just silly. Google is an international for-profit business, ie, they are going to do whatever makes the most money. What makes the most money for Google is having the fastest, best operating search engine in the world. (In fact, I'm waiting for the day that Google revolutionizes online legal research). As we good Hillsdalians understand, what this means is that, provided that France is a worthy market, Google will adapt to make its searching and digitalizing of French and other non-English literature as effective as it can to meet the needs of the French market.
Now, if France is not a worthy market, well then maybe it needs to wake up and join the 21st century, possibly dropping the 35 hour work week and un-socializing its economy. We will see what the new PM can do with that.
Mr. Jeanneney concludes that "[o]nly a government project can overcome such biases and deliver truly universal knowledge." Yes big brother, yes. Seriously, did anyone else laugh when they read that? As we know and as history has shown over and over, only the free market defeats institutional bias, which may be why Mr. J needs a government project, after all, I doubt he is too willing to let go of his anglophobia.
The little blurb concludes by noting that Germany has recently pulled out of a joint venture attempting to create the "Google-killer" named "Quaero. " The dispute that caused the crumble was over how many media the search engine should search. Of course Google would never collapse over such a dispute. With the free market behind it, Google says "search them, all of them."
