Google Power – read on
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Canada’s privacy commissioner is being credited with a win over social advertising company Fa$ebook.
How much of victory it really is remains to be seen and in the meanwhile, another online advertising megalith, Google, is steadily forging ahead with one ’service’ after another designed to snare even more users, all to the ultimate benefit of companies it advertises for, and with.
And this time around, it’s telling us what, and who, to read.
“Google Reader has re-launched their Power Readers section, complete with suggested reading lists from journalists, tech bloggers, foodies, and more,” says Lifehacker editor Adam Pash.
“The Google Power Readers page rounds up suggested reading lists from all sorts of writers and active web folks,” he says.
Web folks, eh? How folksy. 
“The aim is to showcase Google Reader’s new bundles feature for sharing a handful of feeds in one fell swoop,” says Pash, also noting in the interest of “full disclosure,” the, “folks at Google were nice enough to ask me to provide a small reading list for the Power Readers’ tech and web section; I’d recommend browsing some of the reading lists from other folks there for a look at some really good tech reading …”
So, folks, on its site, “Explore and subscribe to their favorite sites in Google Reader, where keeping up with news and blogs is as easy as checking your email,” says Gargle, asking, “Want to know what journalists, foodies, and tech bloggers read? [WTF is a foodie?]
Who’s it telling you to read for the moment?
Thomas Friedman, New York Times; Paul Krugman, New York Times; Nicholas Kristof, New York Times; Dexter Filkins, New York Times; and, Charles Blow, Yup, New York Times.
Oh, and Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post; Michelle Malkin, Hot Air; Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos; John Dickerson, Slate; and Patrick Ruffini, The Next Right.
Were that not enough, leave us not forget a further Gargle instructional offering, Authors@Google.
“The Authors@Google program brings authors of all stripes to Google for informal talks centering on their recently published books,” says Gargoyle, adding:
“Through the program, we invite authors to our Mountain View headquarters as well as our New York, Santa Monica, Cambridge, Ann Arbor, and other offices, where Googlers are treated to readings of everything from serious literature and political analysis to pioneering science fiction and moving personal memoirs …”
Says The Register’s Andrew Orlowski »»»
Google is a company whose sprawling media influence is under increasing scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the US and the EU. It’s defence is that it’s an algorithm company – it doesn’t editorialise. But it just has, and the results are revealing.
The tech pundits Google chooses are safe, flavourless, humourless, and uniformly Google-friendly – it’s a list of Google’s trusted pals, really. If you locked them in a room with some drugs, by the end of the evening you’d have heard no new original insight or wit – and the drugs would be untouched. For example, Chris “Long Tail” Anderson tops the list. Do you need to know more?
Power Readers is fascinating, because the message Google is conveying is that the world is no more interesting than a Google search. The writers are dull, and link to each other in a closed feedback loop.
There you go. The Google folks collection.
And all in the name of advertising.
No need to stay tuned.
credited with a win – Facebook privacy promises: what are they worth?, August 28, 2009
Lifehacker – Google Power Readers Suggest a Few Great Reading Lists, August 25, 2009
The Register – Official: Google wants to tell you what to think, August 27, 2009
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