Thanks to Gordon Carmichael for bringing to our attention the collusion of Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco in censorship of web content in China. We are reliably informed that Google is also collaborating in the non-listing of censored sites in its search engine there. They are highlighted in the â??Reporters Without Bordersâ?? review of web-oppresive regimes, in the ‘one’s to watch’ section.
Coinciding with that was an â??articleâ?? on the unprecedented collaboration of Microsoft and Google in funding a lab at UC Berkeley, looking to streamline web-wide operating systems. The outcomes of this will, they insist, be freely available, and of use to those wanting to challenge the dominance of web-wide systems users such as Amazon, and you guessed it, Google, Microsoft et al. This philathropic approach to IT development is all well and good for improving ‘brand image’ but doesn’t sit easily alongside the censorship issues (mentioned above), or Microsoft’s ongoing love affair with the patenting of code.
A possible site of interest to those wanting to re-claim rapidly disappearing communal online space is â??google-will-eat-itselfâ?? – a site dedicated to slowly buying google with the revenue generated by it’s own advertising – and then entrusting it to GTTP [Google To The People Public Company].
Surprising collaboration indeed given that Microsoft is running scared – will google OS be coming out soon.
I know from personal contacts here in Berkeley that the google lab which talked the talk of open IP, and open collaboration with the university, students and faculty is struggling to deliver – preferring to keep ownership of the any potential money spinners rather than letting it be published – unacceptable for many of the geeks of this famously hyper-left pocket of the states. Until they show them the pay offer?
While we’re on google – their brand is rather ingenious – an increasingly massive corporation that is expanding at an unprecidented rate – with ambitions to deliver (and control?) the worlds information – with a logo that looks like its been thrown together in 10 minutes in Word – Times 64pt and some dabbling with primaries in the colour picker – dressed up with clip art for seasonal variation, world cheese day, etc. It’s more church notice board than billboard, I’d love to know if this is an intentional stratagy or a happy coincidence. Or, perhaps the perfect ploy of a power greedy robot mastermind intent on hiding plans for world domination behind a benign exterior…
the internet is indeed a strange place for brands which have become big because of their technical expertise and insight, rather than any particular aesthetic values (which google as you rightly say doesn’t have…). however their page layout stands out as a good design decision (no ads, no other info, just the search box) as it was completely different (and easier to use) than the other leading search engines at the time.
The internet, if you look in the right places, reads like a museum of bad design, and shows that the progress made in information design + communication over the past 100 years can be as easily forgotten as it was discovered.