GOOGLE

In this blog I’m going to describe a little bit about how google is affecting the world today. It started off as just a search engine, but today it is much much more than that. Google is not only a search engine but a online resource for books, news, and even google earth, which you can type in any address on earth and it will give you satellite pictures of it. Google even came out with google chrome, which is a web browser which rivals other web browsers.
Some of google’s effects other than the United states, rather abroad are kind of big considering it is just a website. The Chinese government actually got into it with google. After many complaints from the government about its citizens looking up “restricted material” google has finally decided to put up a censored version of its search engine. The new site is called google.cn and it follows what the Chinese government wants its people to see. This site will censor out hundreds of key words that are sensitive to the Chinese government including independence for Taiwan and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. It also bans subjects such as pornography and other taboo subjects. Google says it would be more beneficial to make a censored version of the site for China than to just cut them off from the site.
Google also affects traditional media in many ways. One of the biggest effects google has had on traditional media is the acquisition of youtube. Youtube is the biggest online video viewing website. Google bought youtube in 2006 for 1.6 billion dollars. Youtube has a huge effect on media and pop culture. There are television shows dedicated to youtube videos. This purchase by google shows for one how powerful they are by dropping 1.6 billion for another website, and how intertwined with the media they are. Google also rakes in millions per year on online advertising. By buying the AdMob advertising company google just strengthened their dominance on the internet advertising market.
A big way that google is affecting computing is the fact that they created their own internet browser. The browser is called google chrome. Chrome rivals that of Microsoft and apples web browsers. It is currently the fourth most widely used web browser on the market, not bad for just starting out as a search engine. It seems like google will soon have control of most anything that has to do with computers and media at this pace.
Google not only affects pop culture and the media today, it also effects more serious subjects like government and law. One of googles newest, controversial features is google books. Google books is a link off of google that allows the user to look at any non published, and man published books online. This has caused a lot of controversy for many reasons. One critic even said that google has a monopoly on knowledge. I don’t know if I would go that far but there are some reasons for that accusation. Google has digitized millions of books so far, many of which you couldn’t find anywhere in any library because they are not published anymore. So there are two sides to this argument, the real problem comes when google is putting millions of published books online. In the long run this might help many people, but it could also do a lot of damage to book companies like barns and noble and also libraries and universities. Google has also been criticized for their copy right infringements on these books, which is where government and law come into the picture. The Authors Guild, the publishing industry and Google entered into a settlement agreement October 2008. Google agreed to pay a total of $125 million to rightsholders of books they had scanned, to cover court costs, and to create a Book Rights Registry. The settlement has to be approved by the court. The reaction to this conclusion has been different depending on who you ask. The Harvard library actually pulled out of the project unless a better agreement could be found, they were one of the original helpers of google book. As part of the $125 million settlement signed in October 2008, Google created a Google Book Settlement web site that went active on February 11, 2009. This site allows authors and other rights holders of the books to receive $60 per full book, or $5 to $15 for partial work. In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to twenty percent of each book in preview mode. Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book. Authors and copyright holders will get a percentage of all advertising profits associated with their books.
All of this reading up on google has made me realize one thing, and that is google is one of the fastest growing and smartly run websites and overall business is out there and just watch them in the future because they have only just started.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Book_Search
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome
money.cnn.com/2006/10/09/.../googleyoutube.../index.htm
www.maximumpc.com/.../google_buys_mobile_advertising_company_admob_750_million
earth.google.com
news.cnet.com/Googles...books/2100-1025_3-5907506.html

So in the news today it said that Comcast bought out NBC. Comcast bought 51% of NBC shares from the previous owner GE. GE still retains 49% but they are not the majority owners. Some people are claiming this is the dumbest business agreement since Time Warner bought AOL in 2001. Comcast is defending saying that this can really be a good thing. Comcast, who owns E entertainment, says that Universal movies could reach cable television much faster, television shows will come to cellphones and computers much faster.
Other reports claim that Comcast buying out NBC will show the end of free Hulu, which is a website that allows users to watch there favorite shows after they have aired, for free on the Internet whenever they please. If this goes anything like the Time Warner and AOL incident it might not be good.
In my opinion i think that this is probably a good thing. From what Comcast is saying, and i don't think they would blatantly lie, i don't think that they will be taking free Hulu away, and if movies come out and are shown on T.V. much quicker, i don't have any problems with that. And as of now i don't own a cellphone that can watch T.V. on it, but i would assume i will sometime in the future, and if this acquisition by Comcast helps that, I'm all for it. I hope that this doesnt end up like the AOL situation, but only time will tell.

BBC report

I thought that Tom Nichols presentation on the BBC was very interesting. I had no idea that the BBC actually had interesting things on it. I know that wasn't the main focus of the presentation but that is what interested me the most. I always thought that the BBC was Englands version of the PBS. In my opinion that is very boring. He informed us that up until recently that was true but there are now shows that entertain more than educate now. You would never see a show like the one Tom showed us on PBS. He did indicate that the viewing of BBC is going down and will continue to go down because viewers are now watching with computers and satellite companies instead to get more entertainment out of their T.V. watching. Tom told us that the government claims they will be keeping track of who is watching T.V. over the Internet or satellite, but he also said he thinks that is a bluff because he doesn't know how they would be able to do that.
The entire history of the BBC wasn't exactly interesting to me, but when i think about what i learned about how television works in England and how that differs from how the United States runs their T.V. stations it got me a little more interested in the industry. I think its very cool how they moniter what people watch and that effects what is broad casted. I also thought it was interesting that Tom said we will not be living by scheduled T.V. programs in the near future, because its all going online and you can watch it on your time, when you want. I am already seeing this happen with hulu and other sites of that nature. I wont be surprised at all when that day comes now.