VITAMEDIAS
Google Days
Google's new site shows strong editorial judgment
[Google] uses a proprietary system called PageRank that evaluates each Web page based on the number of times that other pages link to it - and what kind of pages - along with other factors. Thus, the theory went, the more times a page was cited on the Internet, the more useful it was considered to be. [...]
This approach has been criticized because it makes successful sites even more successful and tends to keep new sites from gaining a foothold. [...]
Now Google has essentially turned PageRank loose on the news, and it is amazing. [...]
It's tempting to say that Google's robot news page spells the end for human editors, except for one thing: Google relies on humans to make the judgments that it then assembles automatically. Just as the Google search engine piggybacks on the collective judgments of already-existing Web pages, the Google news site piggybacks on the collective news judgments of real people at 4,000 news sites. If human editors didn't make those judgments first, Google wouldn't be able to assemble them.
Google Degraded? Geeks Aghast
The inevitable backlash finally appears to have hit the world's most popular search engine.
In recent years, Web addicts have praised Google as everything from ultimate card catalog to panopticon of the Internet.
But critics posting to weblogs and search engine discussion sites claim that, for the first time since its launch in 1998, Google results have been degraded rather than improved by the latest tweak to its proprietary scoring algorithm for Web pages, known as PageRank.
Information for Sale: My Experience With Google Answers
The Google Answers system prides itself on having talented workers and yet at the same time encourages — though does not force — them to frequently work for a fraction of the price that degreed, experienced experts could earn for the same work. While determining the free market value of this sort of information retrieval and presentation — most of which is available online, for free — is tricky, my experience working for Google Answers made me feel more often like I was being paid to do Google searches that the questioners didn't have the time or the skill to do, rather than using my research background and abilities to turn facts into actual knowledge.
Google may charge for internet search
Engine of change: Not content with being just about the most popular online company, Google is set to branch out in an attempt to ramp up its revenues prior to going public
Google Dance Begun: What is the Google dance? It occurs when Google is launching a new database, first on www2.google.com or www3.google.com and then eventually on the main site.