Google: ad agency?

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Google's doing an amazing transition from search engine to classified ad agency. I keep landing up at sites that use a Google ad bar these days.

When Microsoft comes screaming down at Google with their new MSN Search, they'll discover Google's now in the relevant information business rather than the search business.

jessyleen — Jul 29, 2003 7:59:37 AM — # ↩

no more google hound
y'mean... I need to find another job title ... ??
bluesmoon — Jul 29, 2003 9:47:02 AM — # ↩

Microsoft has always been playing catch up. The thing is, they've never taken too long to get there, and then they just smother the competition with marketing and FUD.

Don't see how this would work with Google though, it's already too much of a household name... heck, I wouldn't be surprised if it were added as a verb to the next edition of the OED
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 29, 2003 10:56:45 AM — # ↩
  
  Google's doing all they can to avoid becoming a verb. Once that happens, they lose their trademark, and then you'll have Microsoft Google in the next version of Windows.
  
  Right now, Google has bigger problems than Microsoft: making PageRank effective against bloggers, and making their search engine context sensitive (if I search for "apple", how does Google know whether I'm interested in the fruit or the company?).
  - bluesmoon — Jul 29, 2003 12:47:27 PM — # ↩
    
    Drat! Does that mean I can't just search for Jeremy any more?
    
    Maybe they could make use of this project sponsored by the Pentagon. I can just imagine going down to google and it automagically shows me ~~pictures of carrie-ann-moss... oops :D~~ the latest on intelligent information retrieval.
  - bluesmoon — Jul 29, 2003 12:57:24 PM — # ↩
    
    actually, maybe they could just use the same things that advertisers use to figure out which ads best suit you. Google's already on enough websites, so they should be able to collect sufficient stats.
  - satyap — Jul 29, 2003 5:06:47 PM — # ↩
    
    It shouldn't. If you want apple computers, that's what you should type. If some 6 year old wnats information on apples, it's going to type 'apple'. Someone's more likely to already know about the fruit if they want to search for the company, so they'll add context words to rule out fruits. people who know fruits won't necessarily know about the company. So 'apple' alone should rank the fruit higher.
    
    My original response was going to be "If people don't provide enough context, fuck 'em." It may still stand.
    - grecianurn — Jul 30, 2003 9:20:09 AM — # ↩
      
      Lol @ calling a kid an 'it'.
      
      I call babies 'it', but I think that's forgivable.
      - bluesmoon — Jul 30, 2003 1:03:56 PM — # ↩
        
        I call them little people.
        
        Sometimes people think I'm crazy.
      - satyap — Jul 30, 2003 5:21:54 PM — # ↩
        
        Politically correct loonies will lambast me for saying 'he' or 'she' and 'he or she' sounds awkward. The logical pronoun to use is 'it'.
        
        Bugger off if you don't agree. I'm in a bad mood.
        
        satyap — Jul 30, 2003 5:22:57 PM — # ↩
        
        Okay, 'bugger off' was a little strong.
        
        But if you don't agree, don't give me grief over it.
        
        Kiran Jonnalagadda — Jul 30, 2003 5:27:04 PM — # ↩
        
        "it" seems rather disrespectful. I've seen "they" and "them" being used more commonly, despite the use case being in singular.
        
        bluesmoon — Jul 31, 2003 5:17:45 AM — # ↩
        
        So what we really want is a gender neutral, respectful, age specific(?), third person singular pronoun.
        
        achitnis — Jul 31, 2003 10:33:55 AM — # ↩
        
        I just play it safe - I say "she" or "s/he". The former has never caused me any grief, but the latter has some neutral overtones that some people may not appreciate.
        
        Essentially, I simply refer to the female of the species, or "he++" as some ladies like to think of it ;-)
        
        bluesmoon — Jul 31, 2003 10:50:29 AM — # ↩
        
        hmm, are we still talking about Microsoft playing catch up with Google?
        
        achitnis — Jul 31, 2003 10:54:31 AM — # ↩
        
        Nope. If we are talking about *Microsoft*, "it" is perfectly acceptable. :-)
        
        satyap — Jul 31, 2003 11:02:54 AM — # ↩
        
        Age-specific?
        
        I'll just start using the appropriate Hindi word instead.
        
        "If some 6 year old wnats information on apples, woh 'apple' will type."
        
        bluesmoon — Jul 31, 2003 11:10:03 AM — # ↩
        
        WHAT??? is stuff I delete still visible?
        I'm pretty sure I typed and backspaced over that woh stuff. :D
        
        satyap — Jul 31, 2003 1:06:19 PM — # ↩
        
        Hu?
        
        Inquiry: the tag "q"?
        
        bluesmoon — Jul 31, 2003 4:22:20 PM — # ↩
        
        <q> is the HTML tag for quoting text, similar to <blockquote> that is used to quote a block of text. Unfortunately, most people use the latter to add indentation to a block.
        
        mannu — Aug 4, 2003 12:00:08 PM — # ↩
        
        A Case for a Generic Pronoun
        Look here.
        I agree that 'he' should be used where there's ambiguity, but in the 'everyone' case I simply use 'they/them'. For the 'kid' example above, I think 'it' and 'he' are both correct.
        
        Finally, taking a pragmatic view, I think it's all okay as long as you can get the idea across.
        
        Check out Jack Lynch's Grammar and Style Notes.
  - mannu — Aug 4, 2003 11:46:00 AM — # ↩
    
    Speaking of Google's problems, check out this Googleholes article on Slate.