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Is Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Going to Decide What News We Watch?


Monday, April 12th, 2010

In a headline of 'GOOGLE FRANKENSTEIN,' the Drudge Report noted that Google "CEO and Obama political activist Eric Schmidt" said this weekend that via technology used at the company he will help users decide what news they will watch.

Citing Politico, Drudge said Schmidt told the American Society of News Editors he was talking to that he doesn't want to be a "stranger" when searching for news on the Internet.

There was a somewhat confusion of views offered by Schmidt, as on one hand he talked about using previous viewing habits as the criteria used by technology to offered related news, but on the other hand said he would want news that would offer alternative views which would help challenge his thinking.

Drudge said about that idea:

"An odd suggestion from the CEO of a company long accused of offering little to no conservative-leaning links on its news page, while aggressively promoting left-leaning hubs."

Schmidt's dubious reasoning is in relationship to advertising, where he thinks targeted news stories would offer more customized advertisements for readers based on their news-reading habits.

That's not convincing in any way to me, as how could he tell if the people reading the news they were interested in were single, parents or grandparents, whose interest in advertisements could span a wide range based on their particular season of life they were in.

This is one of those times when you have to ask yourself what the difference between Google and China is, as at least China does their perceived censorship right out in the open, while Google seems to use smoke and mirrors in their quest to control the news people will watch.

Will they become the Googlestein of the news on the Internet. Time will tell, and we'll have to watch them closely. Google needs to stick to what they do best, which is provide accurate search results for those looking for specific topics and answers.

To start playing with news results is a sure way to enrage millions of users of their search engine, and drive away many of their users.



Article by Gary B

The views expressed are the subjective opinion of the article's author and not of FinancialAdvisory.com



Tags: google , google search , news

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