Google Tosses Another Olive Branch
December 3, 2009
In my research, Google typically offers a pretty good deal and if people take advantage of that deal, fine. If not, the Google moves forward. The challenge in my opinion is to figure out if what Google offers is a good deal. Viewed from Google’s perspective, the benefits (one assumes) are obvious. Viewed from the outsiders’ perspective, the deal may be a bad one or just not recognized as a deal. Google does not have a master of ceremony, to ask, “Door Number 1?”
“Google Offers Publishers Limit on Free News Access” (this is an ephemeral Yahoo link so it may go dead without warning, gentle reader) may be a deal or it may not. I can’t say. The idea is that the Google will provide a control panel so a news outfit can jiggle some settings. Sure, this sounds trivial, and it is. But the news outfit has to know how to find the control panel, take the time to jiggle some settings, and then remember that the jiggling constitutes some willful interaction with the Google.
Let’s think about this.
First, the Google is * trying * to accommodate news outfits who ignored Google for 11 years and now want to use if not control the Google playground equipment. That’s fine. A bit late and somewhat unusual in the knock down, drag out American business world. But Google, if the story cited is accurate, is taking a step.
Second, the deal requires that the news outfits know that a deal is offered. Google does not connect the dots as we point out in the six part video series “How to Make Money with Google”. Googlers connect dots without thought. Googlers assume that when it offers a deal, others can exert sufficient mental energy to see dots and connect them. I recall the risks of using the word “assume”. (Ass-of-you-and-me, according to my grade school teacher in Brazil.)
Third, “control” has lots of implications. These may not be a big deal today but down the road “control” may gather some meaning as Google drives its Hummer forward.
Will news outfits play “Deal or No Deal” or will publishers take Door Number 3? Stay tuned.
Stephen Arnold, December 3, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Government Printing Office. I was not paid to write this fine essay with its references to Monty Hall and Milorad Mandi? Manda, host of the Serbian version of Deal or No Deal.
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