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| Wednesday, March 13, 2002 |
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How much worse? You're about to get an idea. 
| | Here's how the system works: Indies pay for the right to exclusively represent radio stations. The up-front fee is roughly between $100,000 and $400,000, depending on the size of the market. Once that deal is signed, the indie sends out weekly invoices to record companies for every song added to that station's playlist. |
What's the opposite of a bomb?
| | Whatever it is, you're looking at one here. |
Who's bombing whom?
| | As most of us know, "bombing" of Google is little if anything like real bombing. Mostly it's a fun group joke thing. It is not big deal. Instead the piece gives us this: |
| | Before now Google's method of ranking webpages was thought to make it largely immune to the tactics that many businesses use to improve their position in web searches. |
| | Some fear it is only a matter of time before businesses start using the bombing tactic to influence their standing in search results. |
| | Yet there is no evidence that any company larger than a few guys looking for a good time has the wit or the commuity of like-minded goofs to mount a self-aggrandizing Google bombing of themselves. |
| | As the piece does accurately report, if corporations are getting bombed, it's not by themselves or their friends. Look up Unisys on Google, and then down the front page of search results at the Burn All GIFs link. How do you think it got there, hmm? |
| | And does it freaking matter? No. Does this story give any sense of how Google really works, or how little any of this has any effect on 99.999.999.999% of the searches going on out there? No. |
| | And what is that iconic picture of the late Daniel Pearl in handcuffs doing in this story? We don't learn until the second paragraph from the end that some folks "bombed" Google to "highlight the plight" of Pearl. But somebody just glancing at the story (Hmm.. Something about Google and bombing...) would never draw that conclusion. |
| | So, what have we got here? 1) A headine about "bombers," 2) a martyred symbol of Truth at All Costs, 3) portentious worrying about what companies might do to inflate their worth, and 4) a few anecdotal accounts of bloggers having fun with a few isolated search engine results. |
| | And what's the net effect? Google and bloggers get trashed. |
And back in the real world...
| | Spent this morning hanging out at a terrific school here in town, where I met Nicole van Dam through her dog Professor Binks, whom I just discovered here is a Leonberger. The professor is the nicest combination of huge and sweet I have ever seen in a dog. Almost made me want one, which is saying a lot. (Every one of my pets met an end that was expensive, tragic or both.) |
| | Anyway, I enjoyed talking with Nicole while I schmoozed up the professor, mostly by scratching his neck. Nicole is quite an artist, as you can see from the rest of her site. |
Once again...
| | Apparently Dean's Radio Blog had a bunch of screwy links the last time I sent bunch of ya'll there to check out what he was saying — not ony about CARP, but about the scary Tauzin-Dingell bill. Here's the permalink to what he said. |
| | And here are some more links on the matter: |
| | Those are all courtesy of Jeff Gerhardt, who runs The Linux Show and has lots of hard-knock experience in the ISP business. |
| | I must say here that I've hardly read any of this stuff yet, and I present it here because I trust Jeff, Dean and other friends whose shorts are in a knot over this thing. |
More on CARP
Connecting Rulez
Happy Birthday, Mom!
| | She's 89 today. In great shape too. My sister and I are lucky sibs. |
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