Another reason that we need to scrutinize the search engines that we use and recommend: it all comes down to economics, not intellectual priorities. According to the NY Times article below on business unit reductions (22 January 2009), Google "makes virtually all its revenue from advertising related to Internet searches." That means that profitability informs site rankings:However, Google and Microsoft, both giants, are shedding non-core units in response to shareholder pressures over lower profits in the current econonmic crisis. Surprisingly, You Tube (owned by Google) is apparently still barely profitable. Apparently, everything really is cyclical.
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1 comment:
A guy running away with a bundle of money -- apropo for so many things these days ... :)
Thanks for the list to this article. Every time we use Google for something in class I reiterate that Google's search results list is impacted by money and remind the students to use advanced search techniques to dig deeper for information that may not pop up in a basic search. This is a good reminder of that.
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