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- Sphinn It!
Went Hot: December 17, 2007 - 10:24 pm
Posted By: scottclark 567 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://sethgodin.typepad.com)
Category: Google Other
It turns out to be good news, he says, as it legitimizes the original idea and reduces the friction of growth.
5 Comments
Comments
I think he's wrong. This is competition for Wikipedia and for Squidoo as well, I guess.
For me it's Google becoming a publisher by encouraging the crowdsourcing process. Undoubtedly they'll find a way of making money out of this. That 'Do No Evil' badge is wearing pretty thin. I preferred them when they were a pure search engine.
I've often given Seth a wide latitude for ideas because I've played through on many of his concepts with great results. But it has to make people toss and turn a bit when Google "imitates" you.
"Well, the worst strategy is whining--about copyright laws and fair trade and how hard you've worked to get to where you are." - Seth's own words definitely apply here.
At first glance it might seem that Google's Knol could make Squidoo "less scarce" and therefore "less valuable" ... but Squidoo has an opportunity to INCREASE its scarcity even with Google nearby if it expands on its main advantages - independence, honesty, transparency, and a 10 foot pole approach to anything Google.
Google cannot be transparent in the perceptions of users. Every time we see a Knol result rise in the SERPS, people will to "I told you so's" and Google will lose trust - whether or not it is a result of the (non transparent) Google Algos. We cannot see the machinery, but we can see the potential profit-making motive. We go with what we know.
But like in Astrophysics, the laws change when you get to a certain size, speed, and density. Is Google beyond these rules of scarcity? What is up and what is down when you're talking Google? It's quite disorienting.
You know, most of the links on the page were to Seth's own content. Does that tell you somthing? Thanks for bringing this one forward Scott.
Google will do what they usually do, no? They will give far better treatment to their own properties. Seth is wrong ( dare I say! - lol) Google will use Squidoo as squishing material for their own crap. Watc has Squidoo gets futher penalized for spam with every update ( how predictable eh?) and watch Google's Knoll rise from nothing to dominate.