I've been blogging for years and on lots of platforms, so I've noticed a little about how things go for those platforms. They are born on the power of meeting an unmet need and presented usually free but sometimes for a nominal fee. A need is met, the creative entity finds a way to make it profitable and everybody is happy... for a while. The platform managers get bloated or too busy or whatever, but they fail to continue development along the user needs.
MySpace had fantastic success, made oodles and oodles of money but the user was allowed to grab so much addon code and install it to the page that the page would fail to load or freeze your computer.
Along comes FaceBook which prevented the addon code but provided fresh ways to meet the users' desires to socialize in deeper and greater or more convenient ways. So, MySpace pages were abandoned enmasse and people moved to FaceBook who made oodles and oodles of money. Ah, but FaceBook recognized and addressed (inadequately) a problem. We all protect ourselves from strangers and we don't allow everyone to look at our private information. But the issue FB failed to address adequately was the necessity to protect ourselves from people we do associate with. We have to protect ourselves from our friends and casual acquaintances, even our parents. So when Mom requests (demands) little Bobby and Sally friend her on their FaceBook page, she now has the ability and the right to obsess about every friend and comment on their page. If that weren't bad enough, I have heard tragic tales of monetary woe when prospective workers applying for high value jobs find they were denied the job due to a routine web search where the employer learned of their anti-social personal habits or one-time experimentation with (insert your favorite sin here) ________ and/or political and religious affiliations.
So, here comes the Google. (Look up the definition of the word. You'll see how appropriately I've worded that statement.) I hold a huge grudge against the G-team. They have repeatedly injected their political views into my personal life and (in typical Liberal fashion) stomped all over conservative, Christian, and Republican rights to free speech via their search engine page optimization interjections as well as ad sales and monitoring. That said, I'm observing a distasteful fact of life. A large section of my idealogical enemy is again and ever more being rewarded for a great job with oodles and oodles of money and worse, lots of political influence. I don't begrudge the adequate reward for a job well done nor do I begrudge the success of a giant servicing the needs of so many. Only that reward and influence will be employed to destroy more of the idealism which provided the enviornment for their success and my equal opportunity to do the same. So when I give the Google kudos, you've got to know that I do so reluctantly.
Google+ has addressed the "dangerous laisons" issue in a very effective way and the migration from FaceBook and other platforms has begun. Mom get's to read from the family wall but not the friends or work walls. The boss doesn't get access to my partyshots or my friends' comments about my sexual habits. My social circle doesn't get to introduce themselves to my workmates ala careless drunken stupor. That's a huge advantage and more accurately reflects our security of our secrets in the real world.
I'm going into a rant now about how the tech industry is fraught with Liberal idealists so you should tune out now if you are a closed minded biggot of the Liberal slant. First one I have to point a finger at is Constitutionalists. You who believe in the vision of the founders of the United States have largely failed to pass that vision on to your progeny and to proselytize for your ideals. Don't think the Tea Party is a sign of your great success. Mostly those people just want taxes and spending reduced to something resembling reasonable. That has nothing to do with remembering and valuing the founders' ideals. You have allowed this form of government to be renamed from a republic to a democracy. The founders were recorded as describing democracies as unstable and violent and a casual perusal of history reveals the truth of that observation.
The second one I have to point my finger at is the industry of higher education. You have simply capitulated to the nuts in your midst until nuts were controlling and openly recruiting worse nuts for the work of education. If you fought the takeover, you failed. More likely, you saw difficulty approach and you shrank from it. Extremist visionaries rule the college campus in America and the students who enter that arena for the purpose of education are far more likely to come away indoctrinated a radical Liberal than educated for greater contribution to society's overall health. So students of computer science and graphic arts endure such an environment until they can claim their diploma/certification which, depending on the students' dedication, could take years. Years spent marinating in the echo chamber of Liberal professors confirming one another's ever more radical socialist ideas. How else do we find Che, Castro, Mao, Lennin worship, ie. statist murderer worship on campus?
The third one I have to point a finger at is the industry of mass media. You have the same issue as the tech people, you were educated and marinated in liberal idealist advocacy rather than journalistic moral practice and its ideals. Who remains to report the abuses of the advocates since you have become advocates yourselves? The blogs are stepping up, but a vast number of the TV, radio, and newspaper consumers don't yet have access to the blogs. President Obama was quite literally covered from bad press by the main stream press until the blogs and cabble shows made you look like idiots. How else does it require a blogger to point out the Communist flag in an Obama campaign office, or the radical and numerous abuses of ACORN and Obama's ties to the organization, or the radical craziness of Obama's pastor as well as his church's theology, or the radical staatements Obama made on NPR radio in an earlier interview, or the radical affiliations with America hating criminals in powerful positions like Bill Ayers. On and on it goes,meanwhile so-called reporters were digging through the trashcans in a muddy alley in backwater Alaska and interviewing the local librarian for any breath of a scandal on a former mayor. Oh, and what was the scandal that killed Palin candidacy? She was too inexperienced as a governor compared to Obama as a 2 year junior senator. Talk about straining out the conservative gnats and swallowing the liberal camels. I can tell you, I wanted a black president to put the race thing under our feet once and for all, but this was just too much to pay even for that wonderful opportunity. A radical, extreme liberal idealogue, is using his position to give United States' economic autonomy, energy independence, to Hugo Chavez (a growing despot) by freezing any American offshore drilling but giving permissions AND FUNDING to drill the Gulf to Venuzuela. There are a thousand other things he's been doing to destroy Amerca's superiority internationally in markets, in political influence, in military might (in the midst of two active war theaters) and future development of our very culture. Oh hey, but policy is just too boring for our consumers and our readers are more concerned with sex scandals and experts' opinions on the dangers of smoking again and again. You are foxes guarding the hen-house.
Finally, the tech industry (much of it being in positions of influence and impunity) reveals its hand and sets about deciding what the search engine user and information consumer will find? Let this little Davy tell Googliath a prophecy. Since you set about deciding what people think about, talk about, and draw conclusions for them -- you will one day find yourselves cast into the pigs, also known as being Dan Rathered.
references
"cast into pigs" Oh forget it, its Christianese and if the joke has to be explained, the humor is lost. Since finding a Christian on a Google campus would by like finding a flying squirrel, (You know they're there, but very rare and extraodinarily cautious about exposing their presence in your midst) call a church and read it to them before asking how the "pigs" reference fits or why its supposed to be funny if you really have to know. Hint: its in reference to the company identity and not about pigs at all. I'm running the risk of nobody getting it if the Christian readers haven't looked up the definition of Google like you were told.
"Dan Rather" use your own search engine if you missed this one.
I'm hoping even you can pick up on the David and Goliath analogy.
Judge Right
