Google is trying to take over the world.

[MayorMeanBeans]

"When Google conquered Internet search in the early 2000s, it was strictly a Web company and faced only Web competitors. Since then it has only rarely ventured out of the friendly confines of the Web world. The 2005 launch of its controversial "book search," which enraged the New York publishing industry, shows what can happen when Google leaves its comfort zone. Now, with its recently announced plans to enter wireless communications, Google is making its deepest foray yet into a foreign territory where its allies are few."

 

 

In Google's words, its recently unveiled "Android" is the "first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices." But it is a signal of much more. Google is as much an ideology as a firm and can resemble a nation-state in its pursuit of power rather than a mere corporation chasing quarterly numbers. Google and its allies are now trying to make the principles of openness—the commanding ideology of the Internet—the conquering principle of the wireless world, and the Android announcement is just the first step."

 

 

Android is, in form, another of Google's giveaway strategies, a Linux-based operating system for mobile phones that comes with a free set of tools that should make it easy for any programmer to write applications for a mobile phone. It's clear that any Android-based Gphone will be far more "open" than any cell phone the world has yet seen. That means any developer, anywhere, will be able to build whatever functions they think make sense for a mobile computer, and users will be able to install whatever they want. In comparison, today's cell phones, smartphones, and the Apple iPhone are closed and controlled platforms. We have no idea what the killer apps for a Gphone might be, and that's what makes Android truly revolutionary.

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Who, if anyone, is threatened by Android? Google's truest and most formidable foes are much older and more powerful. Today we call them Verizon and AT&T, but their real name is the Bell system. Their ideology, which today governs the cell phone world, is called "Vailism," and it can be traced back to 1907 and the origins of AT&T's domination of American telephony. The Bells' philosophy, as promulgated by AT&T's greatest president, Theodore Vail, is based on closed systems, centralized power, and as much control as possible over every part of the network. Vailism is the antithesis, in short, of everything Google stands for. It is this—conquering the business culture of the telephone, as opposed to the computer—that is Google's great challenge.

 

 

If that sounds abstract, we can make it more concrete. Over the coming years we can expect the Bell system to do everything in its power to destroy or subjugate Google. That's what history suggests; for since 1894 or so, the Bell system has swallowed or eliminated almost all of its would-be rivals. As one historian writes, in the early 1900s Bell would bankrupt competitors, and then "in truly medieval fashion, pile the instruments in the street and burn them, as a horrible example for the future."

As that suggests, bad things tend to happen to firms that challenge Bell. While actual burning of equipment is rarer these days, the Bells do still run the industry, in part, through terror. Almost every firm in the wireless world is, somehow, connected to AT&T or Verizon, and to defy them or even speak out is to risk retaliation. That's why Google's venture might be compared to trying to start a new waste management firm on Tony Soprano's street.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the Bells are strong enough in Washington to try to use government as a tool against Google. The exact mechanisms can be hard for anyone but a seasoned telecommunications attorney to understand. But where there's a lobbyist, there's a way to make life difficult for a market entrant. Don't be surprised if Google's wireless division or Google itself begins to face new pressure from the FCC, antitrust authorities, or other sympathetic government bodies.

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And to the extent that Google is already a part of the broader war between open and closed systems, attacking the wireless world gives Google and its allies a chance to go on the offensive. It means that Google can spend less energy defending the Web from the Bells and cable companies in the ongoing struggle for net neutrality.

What Google has on its side is lots of money, smart employees, and some important allies. But most important is its conviction that it is on the side of history. Google believes that the ideology of openness must win out, and that the Bell system will collapse under its own contradictions. For a firm, Google has an astonishing sense of its manifest destiny. As one Google executive told me recently, "We don't do something unless we are convinced we will do it an order of magnitude better."

 

 

That's why it must be understood that Android is just an initial step. Next, Google or its partners must do whatever they must to get their hands on more spectrum to establish a beachhead of true openness in the wireless world. Provided Google continues to have the nerve and resources, we'll likely remember the Android announcement as the beginning of a long, drawn-out battle for ideological supremacy in the world of wireless."

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2178158/pagenum/2/

 

 

 

so i admit i didn't understand all of the technical stuff (is spectrum just wireless territory aka air?), but this shit is getting on a star wars level. next thing google's gonna be invading belarus for "not being open enough". as far as it means more free/ill shit for me i say go for it google. i've been using google scholar all day.

[the.crooked]

A spectrum is a range within the available wireless field. Energy can travel within a spectrum of wavelengths and frequencies. This is what governs the different spectrums.

 

 

Google wants to become the world's information infrastructure.

 

 

If you are interested in how they are positioning themselves for the future, read up on how much fiber optic cable they own on this continent and also look at the distrobution of Server Co Lo's they have been building near major power grids, etc.

 

 

Workin for google is my dream job. Who doesn't want to work for the corporation that doesn't fuck up and has people wanting them to take over everything?

[the.crooked]

I feel like google is almost a new model for the Corporation at large.

 

 

It is like when Despot's of time's past learned that if they gave their feudal resident's some semblance of what they think they want, then they will learn to love them and protect them.

 

 

No different than Google. "Enlightened Corporationism" if you will.

[Mercer]

I'm wondering if they will ever start a free online university for people to study things they

couldn't afford to otherwise. I believe the Google founders were in education originally. Just

imagine if some semi impoverished kids otherwise forced into a life of manual labor could

study online anywhere with internet access.

[the.crooked]

I think that is what they were trying with Google Books but then they got shot down with the whole copyright thing.

 

 

I think Google will be the corporation to flip the script on proprietary rights and copyright law.

[WORDISM45]

at the google office in sydney they assign people something like 25% of their time to work on 'personal projects' as well as having mad offices with pools, spas, saunas etc and employing masseuses full time for employees, sounds pretty rad

[the.crooked]

exactly.

 

 

god they need to hire me when i get done with grad school.

 

 

i could do amazing things for them.

[WORDISM45]

such as...?

what's your degree in?

[the.crooked]

philosophy.

 

But I want to study information systems and technology through philosophy when I am in grad school.

 

I want google to hire me so I can tell them what to develope.

 

Ultimately I would like to use google as a platform to push certain views I have about AI, consciousness and emergent systems

[the.crooked]

As far as what I could do for them... Yet to be seen exactly.

 

 

Look up "semantic webs" or read the article on them in the new Scientific American, and then I will tell you some of my thoughts about what Google needs to do in the near future.

[diamond encrusted jesus]

i didnt read the whole article, but i dont see anything wrong with google being available everywhere..unless they bias their searches in some way. i've learned way more info using google than in public schools. and it also allows the spread of alternative media and whatnot way more then even a few years ago, when all you had was NBC ABC etc. i think google and the internet as a whole has a democratizing effect on the world, even though i think it has many negative homogenizing effects on cultures..such as graff.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

i think google is naive to what they are doing.

 

they are setting up a pretty nice big brother cooperation, and it's not like i feel that these people that work for google are even doing this.

 

what i'm worried about is when all of this stuff if finalized, who will seize control of the company and use it for personal inetresets. i know it may seem like paranoia, but this is the world we live in.

 

having a monopoly on information is kind of scary.