Google's brain just died

I've always understood that 'you send people away to bring them back' so if you have a strong point then it is better to put that out on your blog with links back to the sources piece. Nothing to prevent comments on the original but linking should fulfill that purpose - at one level - and confer authority to the originator.

Lots of ways of looking at GOOG. Going into the news biz is not a good sign but then some think it's a dead duck anyway so we just have to wait and see how this works.

Surprised there's not been an uproar over Murdoch's most recent acquisition...or I've missed it.

Yes, you're right, although I guess what I'm also groping towards is that if the bloggers with actual first-hand experience of a story can all comment in one place - right next to where many people will see the story itself - then there's more of a chance of a 360 degree picture emerging. More so, anyway, than if they all run off to their own blogs and comment on it there, which means the average reader only gets one other side of the story. Smart web users can probably track this themselves. But as you point out, a LOT of people watch Fox News, suggesting smarts are in short supply.

Perhaps slightly more troubling is the Micros**tification of Google - on which far more learned and experience commentators have pontificated, I'm sure. But I am unnerved by the total agglomeration of power in just one organisation's hands... Better than Murdoch? Almost certainly. A good thing? Hmmm...

Er... so what? Newspapers have incorporated right to reply for, oh, a couple of hundred years. It's just less immediate and convenient for both the "spinners" and the readers to have to do it through the letters page, and the letters editor has to make decisions about whose feedback to include largely based on space restrictions.

I don't think much of most PR companies, and I agree with you whole-heartedly about the global menace of marketing. But this idea also gives individuals quoted out of context or inaccurately an opportunity to record their dissent. Besides, most people will spot "spin" at a thousand paces - and I would guess no-one will bother to check the comments on 90% of pieces anyway.

Finally, with so much of the media actually controlled by corporations, this could actually undermine the spinning that goes on. After all, an individual probably has no power to pressurise the media outlet to tell their story, but the mega-corp can bombard the press with threats and bribes. So quite often, it's the story itself that's the spin, not any potential comment made by an involved party afterwards.

Thanks Richard and I bow to your many years of having been closer to the coal face of editor/publisher 'issues' than I.

This Google thingy is restrictive, controlled R2R where the 'outsider' doesn't get to present a different POV. Very different IMO.

I don't believe most people do spot spin @ 1K paces. If that was true then why do non-Fox News regular viewers not suck up their crap to anything like the same extent that regular Fox News people do (political opinions aside)?

Regardless, you're making a very good case for independent blogs where some semblance of reality is the desired outcome. At least that's what I read in your comments.