Google get it right

Apologies to anyone who clicked on the Google link in the last post and found it looking just fine and dandy.

I promise you that in the wee small hours of the morning it was banjaxed. I suppose that's why only us nightshifters and a few uber-geeks will have seen it. Notice the distinction i make here.

Google kerfuffle

The latest update is that Google plan to appeal the Belgian ruling.

However, in all the excitment they seem to have left the 'l' out of their name on the seach engine today...tsk tsk.

Trialbyshorthand's second use of King Canute cliche

I’m completely gobsmacked by the decision of Belgian newspaper Copiepresse to sue Google for the heinous crime of displaying links to their news stories.

While the £2.4m fine dished out by the Belgian courts may not make a huge dent in Google’s seemingly bottomless coffers, the insistence on applying outmoded copyright laws seems like a cheap trick to make a quick buck.

All over the world, media owners are fretting over how to make money in the era of shared content. But the answer certainly does not lie in taking on an internet giant like Google.

Whether you like it or not, Google exercises hegemony over the internet, acting – in the US at least - as gateway to roughly 43% of everything viewed online. To many people (some ageing family members included), Google is practically synonymous with using the internet.

Surely it does not make sense to alienate such a key player in the new media universe, simply to score a couple of million on a technicality?

Google insists that its search services are actually boosting readership of newspapers’ websites (and presumably advertising revenue) and I know from personal experience that savvy editors are constantly looking at ways to increase the chance of a favourable Googlewhack. The way forward for any print journal is partnership, not opposition.

The question remains: does the editor of Copiepresse really think the best way to lead his newspaper through this period of flux in the media is to stand, Canute-like, bidding the waves of progress be still?