What is Digg?80 Comments
- possiblyneil, on 08/18/2008, -4/+44I don't know about anyone else but I think it is much better than anything Microsoft has to offer.
- FurtThePirate, on 08/18/2008, -2/+39At the bottom of the page "Ads By Google"
- iambrianyoung, on 08/18/2008, -0/+22What I miss in stories like this is how once you remove Google from the picture you still have no online privacy.
- turion64, on 08/18/2008, -2/+15After everything Google has offered in terms of services and functionality, as well as small apps such as Gmail, Maps, Earth, etc, to call them a "Greedy Goliath" just isn't fair.
- pathouston22, on 08/18/2008, -1/+13I work for a small business, we've spent about $200,000 on Google adwords in the past year. We revenue a couple million a year with 100-200% growth.
If it wasn't for Google, we would be nothing. - angryfirelord, on 08/18/2008, -1/+12Hmm, kinda. Capitalism and socialism cover such a wide variety of political stances that it's hard to pin them down onto two sides. Do you like capitalism today, where the government is in the pockets of big businesses? Or do you like Marxism where the government owns everything and doesn't care about you? (like in the Soviet Union) Either way, there has to be some form of checks and balances for companies and governments. While I believe the free market is the most efficient, some things are better left to public services, such as the fire department. & of course, limited government is always nice too.
As for Google, I haven't really noticed anything bad from them yet. Considering how many free services they offer and how much they give back (like Google Summer of Code), I'd say they're still the good guys. However, that doesn't mean we still shouldn't keep an eye on them just in case they get a bit more shady. - loggia, on 08/18/2008, -5/+16Do No Evil very quickly became Do Whatever.
- theOster, on 08/18/2008, -1/+11agreed - and i strongly recommend watching their keynote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk1HvP7NO5w
they openly say "we want the world to use google so we can make tons of money. but with that money, we like to promote open architecture, free (and useful) utilities, and foster innovation."
ok, so i paraphrased, but its that philosophy that makes me a google fanboy - PiRATE7, on 08/18/2008, -4/+13Google is amazing. Works great and is very good to its employees, all while making a good bit of money.
- xpose, on 08/18/2008, -0/+8The truth is that if your website gains google trust, then your traffic numbers explode. If you combine the search engine traffic from all the others it doesn't even come close.
- inactive, on 08/18/2008, -7/+14Capitalism > Socialism - I think Google is pretty good at it. Capitalism but not obnoxiously greedy.
- Paulish, on 08/18/2008, -1/+7How are spam blogs so evil? It is not like you HAVE to go to them. If you accidentally click, its really easy to navigate away.
- DariusMonsef, on 08/18/2008, -3/+9Google overall is a great company... but Adwords / Adsense are ***** evil. Google could do amazing things like killing all the spam blogs, not allowing them to monetize and cutting the amount of junk on the web... but these two products make Google billions of dollars and if they killed all the junk, they'd kill their bottom line.
- rmejia, on 08/18/2008, -2/+8How friendly are they with DIGG, what ever happened to them buying DIGG?
- id000001, on 08/18/2008, -2/+8Hotmail isn't made by Microsoft. Microsoft bought them
Windows Live came out, what, 5 years too late, and still isn't as good. - ncc74656m, on 08/18/2008, -1/+7Big friendly giant! And besides, would you dare to argue with said BFG?
- Dumbledorito, on 08/18/2008, -1/+7I can tell you that many small businesses and bloggers/writers/artists owe their livings in part to Google ads. Spam blogs would be porn redirects or something else anyway, and frankly, I'd rather have the Google-dump site than one with underage russian girls and malware attempts trying to seize my browser.
- Dumbledorito, on 08/18/2008, -2/+7What some (myself included) fear is that someday the "philosopher kings" that own and run Google may not always be there, and neither will their philosophy. I'd hope that they themselves might take steps to prevent someone from hucking their "don't be evil" mission statement in the recycle bin, but one never can tell what an institution's future holds.
I mean, Ford used to make good cars. IBM used to make computers. Philips used to be (until it recently was sold to a Chinese cheap-o company) a decent maker of electronics, etc. - connieLingus, on 08/18/2008, -6/+11why do people always like to hate-on success?
no one forces people to use google, or to run microsoft crappy software, but they do...whatever
...and with competitors like Cuil, its pretty surprising that google is so popular. - thailand1972, on 08/18/2008, -0/+5There's more to it than that. MFA (Made For Adsense) websites are created with screen-scraped content (stolen from other blogs) just to make them look legit. They don't even need your ad clicks - there are click networks out there just randomly clicking them. This hurts advertisers. The best thing that can happen is advertisers use Ad Placements more and more (specify which websites they want their advert on) rather than just subscribe to "The Network".
- Ithy, on 08/18/2008, -2/+6404
Did you seriously just burn The Guardian's server? - jeremyduffy, on 08/18/2008, -2/+6Greedy. Duh.
Why else would they drop their search retention period from 24 months to 18 as if they're doing us a huge favor? They shouldn't store your search result for any longer than it takes to serve them up to you. They can get all their statistical data without recording your personal information at all. - TheMachine1, on 08/18/2008, -7/+11Greed is good its a necessary part of evolution and nearly any kind of progress.
The problem with greed is it often encourages other unethical behavior( cheating , stealing, abuse, fraud, manipulation of the system, etc). - web2pointYo, on 08/18/2008, -0/+4Wasn't Greedy Goliath the Ubuntu release before Hardy Haron? ;)
- stealthc, on 08/18/2008, -0/+4Government being in the pockets of big businesses IS NOT CAPITALISM.
- toxicityj, on 08/18/2008, -0/+3it's not surprising* let me fix that for ya.
- Oreium, on 08/18/2008, -0/+3Social Democracy > Capitalist Federal Republic
- Kikokun, on 08/18/2008, -1/+4they bowed to China's censorship demands:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0126/p01s02-wogi.htm ...
not really "evil", but goes to show that they're far from righteous. - Dyssolve, on 08/18/2008, -1/+4Because if it's been around long enough to take for granted, it's a "right", not a service.
- inactive, on 08/18/2008, -2/+4Google is great
Economic globalization is inevitable, the UN is gaining ground, more and more people are born everyday. The dangers of a NWO are very real and do exist, but are an inevitable part of human civilization. If Google is part of that process, more power to them. They've been nothing but relatively perfect. However, there is room for improvement. - Dumbledorito, on 08/18/2008, -2/+4What good is the desire to make money if it trumps the desire to provide good service and/or decent products? If you become Wal-Mart at the cost of a nation's economy, was it worth it?
- weech, on 08/19/2008, -0/+2wow..doesnt take much to sell you does it?
you must be voting for mccain. - inactive, on 08/18/2008, -1/+3As long as we get money from it.
- urbandistrict, on 08/18/2008, -1/+3I choose Friendly Giant.
- zadadka, on 08/18/2008, -3/+5If it 'aint' broke, don't fix it.
That should suffice. - stealthc, on 08/18/2008, -0/+2As long as they didn't use coercion to get where they are, then they are just like Microsoft: Friendly Giant.
- Rudegar, on 08/18/2008, -2/+4 I for one welcome our new Google overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Digg personalities, we can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground search caves.
- connieLingus, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1oh yeah i forgot that i had to explicitly set the sarcasm flag.
- weech, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1that's about what you should expect from a company whose mission statement is 'do no evil'
should tell you something about an organization who constantly needs to remind themselves of a mantra to not be douche. - SSUK, on 08/18/2008, -1/+2Take Google away and another company will be at the forefront of collecting and storing our personal information.
- theOster, on 08/18/2008, -1/+2exactly, ssuk. and if you simply dont want anyone to have your info, get off the grid and move to the mountains. its a fact in todays electronic world that your info is out there.
- weech, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1it's a bit hypocritical to ask a rhetorical question about hating on success and in the same breath bash microsoft isnt it? MS's success was cool and fashionable in the late 80s and 90s, then they 'became evil'
i think google is fine, there are certain products i like and dislike, just like with MS. yes, some day your precious google will also turn evil, just like any other company that gets too big and too 'out of touch'
but dont worry, by that time there'll be some new startup whose bandwagon you can hop on and rage against the machine with with your fellow fanboys. - toxicityj, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1of course. you had me scared for a minute. don't do that to me again, okay?
- inactive, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1"why do people always like to hate-on success"
Sigh. That's like the question "Why do they hate us for our Freedom?" - pointless and idiotic.
NO-ONE hates a company purely because they're successful. It's what that success MEANS that is the problem. I hear the same stupidity from Tesco defenders in the UK angry that people "hate success", when it's clear they have no understanding of, or apparent willingness to even consider, the issues that success has generated.
Read the article again, carefully consider the points it raises, then come back to us. Even if you personally don't agree with them you have to allow for the fact that others have perfectly valid reasons for concern. - inactive, on 08/18/2008, -0/+1you're kidding you can't mean that
it was sarcasm i am sure - Dumbledorito, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Good thing we have all of those non-greedy people at Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, Northrop-Grumman, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and just about any other company that ***** with markets and doesn't care what effects their policies have on the greater economy.
- inactive, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1Not really Evil?
There's room for debate on that, I feel. - KlogereEndGrim, on 08/18/2008, -2/+3Most recent example of google breaking it's do-no-evil policy:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_kills_Anonymous_A ...
And
http://digg.com/world_news/Google_murders_second_A ...
And they seem to have had a crush on Scientology for a while: http://www.xenu.net/news/20020320-google.txt
I can't believe google sides with this ***** internet-hating, copyright-loving cult. - ZGambit, on 08/19/2008, -0/+1SPAM was there before Google...
Adwords / Adsense isn't evil...
Firstly Google does consumer targeting better then any1... like seriously all those paid search keywords allow people to find what they want... especially if your intending to buy a product by simply typing in what u are looking for.
With the Banner SPAM ads in regards to those a lot of company's put pressure on Google to try avoid this from happening. Google allows targeting through blogs and has been very cooperative to self respecting companies to avoid this from happening.
I should also mention there are other companies in this world who can buy Google activity and resell it. So Google may not be the only evil.. if u still believe it is - kaod, on 08/18/2008, -0/+1fantastic summary. gave me alot more then the usual "google reads your e-mail!!" article. well written.
dugg. -
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