Google Blogoscoped

Monday, September 26, 2005

Google Suggest "Racism"

Nicholas looks at how Google Suggest completes phrases like “blacks are ...”, “whites are ...”, or “Chinese are ...”. (There’s a lot of rudeness in the auto-completion, and of course Google can’t be blamed – they’re only completing with whatever phrase is approximate according to the popularity of previous searches.)

Gmail.cn

Gmail.cn (not Gmail China!) looks like a site Google might want to take to court one of these days. [Thanks Miel.]

Young Googlers

“It’s hard to imagine a group of 23-year-olds with more responsibility on the planet.”
Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products at Google, on Google’s several dozen product-manager associates

Everybody Hates Chris at Google

Google Video is teaming up with UPN to offer you the first episode of Everybody Hates Chris (“inspired by Chris Rock’s life as a kid”) to watch online. [Via Search Engine Watch.]

Chinese Firewall Grows?

MSNBC and others report China toughens the restrictions imposed on internet news publishers. News.google.com, for example, already cannot be reached from China. I’m not sure which versions of Google News, if any, can still be accessed in China, but I suppose it’s the Chinese Google News version exclusively... Google obliged to some of the restrictions put forth by the Chinese government and agreed to censor certain news publications*.

*Here’s what Google’s saying on the subject: “ In order to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons. For example, they may display improperly in our service, or be inaccessible to users. Google has decided that, in order to create the best possible news search experience for our mainland China users that we will not include links to sites whose content is not accessible. Some sources were not included because their sites are inaccessible and therefore do not provide a good experience for our News users who are looking for information.”

Homeland Errors

Here’s the Dept. of Homeland Security like you probably never saw it before...

Not So Humble Google

Google is flattering itself: their snippet for Google.co.uk reads “The local version of this pre-eminent search engine.” (Preeminent is defined as “superior to or notable above all others”. Spoiler: the snippet is a quote straight from the Open Directory project.)

Keybag

What’s a key bag? That’s a key bag. (A perfect accessoire for sitting on the key chair, too.) [Via Jerz.]

False Images on Google News

[Google duo move up on Forbes’ list – showing Bill Gates and Warren Buffett]

The Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin might have struck gold with their search engine (they’ve recently been ranked #16 in the top 400 of Forbes’ richest Americans), but still not all of their services work flawlessly; a combination of picture and headline spotted at Google News shows the limits of an automated newspaper AI.

Yahoo Reality TV

Andrew Wallenstein writes Yahoo is teaming up with college-based network MTVu for a new reality series called “IMU: I Miss You”. The series “follows three college couples as they work to make their long-distance relationships last through Yahoo! communication devices.” According to Andrew, the lucky winners will get a two-week trip to Europe.

More at Reality TV Magazine, including a short interview with participant Marianna.

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