Google Critics

Authored by Michael Pate on November 24th, 2003 at 12:29 PM

Do you hate Google yet? At first glance, the question seems absurd. What’s to hate about an Internet site where you can go and find out about practically anything, free of charge? - Hiawatha Bray

Oy I was afraid when I spoke with Hiawatha Bray that he’d get it wrong. The one direct quote is accurate, I did say what he quotes me as saying. But when he paraphrases he puts words in my mouth that I don’t agree with. I’m not scared Google is going to “crush” UserLand. What an ugly word. I think their approach is more likely to hurt Google itself than anyone else. - Dave Winer

One of the things about these issues for me is that I don’t have an iron in the fire. I like Google, I use Google, and I neither compete with nor get compensation from Google. So my only interest is seeing them have continued success.

Dave thinks that adding Blogger to the Google Bar was an unfair move. I think that Blogger is a great entry-level way to get into doing a weblog. But once people are serious, they usually find that there are much better alternatives and once they are convinced they enjoy blogging, they will be more willing to pay to do it.

Dave also brings up the point about journalists who paraphrase quotes. A friend of mine was featured in an article in our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. She was directly quoted twice and neither were things she actually said. In that case, they were minor enough that it didn’t matter, but it is becoming an increasing problem.