Google’s new literacy program
p2pnet.net News:- Google has come up with a brilliant new branding ploy disguised as a way to combat global illiteracy.
“Google Inc. unveiled on Wednesday a Web site dedicated to literacy, pulling together its books, video, mapping and blogging services to help teachers and educational organizations share reading resources,” effuses Reuters.
The scheme was launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair and, “While the service seeks to combine a rich set of resources to combat global illiteracy, it also helps bolster the educational credentials at a company with a market value of around $120 billion,” says the story.
That is not, of course, the only thing it bolsters.
“Google’s business was born out of a desire to help people find information,” Nikesh Arora, vice president of Google’s European operations, is quoted as saying. “We hope this site will serve as a bridge to even greater communication and access to important information about literacy problems”
NeitherArora nor Reuters mention the fact Google was, together Microsoft and Yahoo, named in Britain’s Committee on Foreign Affairs Seventh Report for actively working with China to police the Net.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, “admitted that Google’s actions had compromised its principles,” says the report.
Meanwhile, “The project, at google.com/literacy and google.de/literacy, also serves as a fresh way for Google to expand and differentiate its fledgling video service, which is playing catch-up against popular sites such as YouTube,” says Reuters.
“Google has asked literacy groups around the world to upload video segments explaining and demonstrating their successful teaching programs. Among the first few hundred to be posted is a same-language subtitle project from India that uses Bollywood films to teach reading.”
The service also uses Google’s mapping technology to help literacy organizations find each other, and provides links to reading resources, says the story.
“It’s a good example of the ease with which Google can bring together the different parts of its empire in the service of a single goal,” says Ars Technica.
“When Google made its moves into video and blog hosting, many wondered whether the company was not stretching itself too thin; what did video clips have to do with a search engine, anyway? While Google’s master plan for using all these resources is still not clear, sites like the Literacy Project show that ‘though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’.”
There always is.
Also See:
Reuters – Google launches literacy project, October 4, 2006
Seventh Report – China Net censors named, August 14, 2006
compromised its principles – Google’s China censor probed, June 19, 2006
Ars Technica – Google launches Literacy Project, October 4, 2006
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October 5th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
it shoudl be called screwgle