BTW, do you read Cringely's weekly columns?
The last several weeks he's been writing about attempts to figure out Google's algorithms for adwords.
If you haven't seen it, it's worth reading how the system is being gamed.
Adwords experiment Part 1, Part 2 (near the end) and Part 3
Posted by Lis Riba at October 17, 2005 10:17 AMIf they really answered to only their shareholders they wouldn't make Google Talk on an open network... more profitable to make people use yet another proprietary network.
Posted by Anonymous at October 17, 2005 07:54 PMAnonymous: being profit-driven doesn't mean being stupid. Google gets plenty of credit with the geek croud (which sooner or later do move their friends and families to the latest and hippest tech) by establishing an open network (notice that S2S isn't there yet, though I do believe it will in time). In other words, Google has a valuable reputation with geeks that would end up costing them money if they act overtly evilly by our values. That doesn't mean that the day acting evilly pays off enough they will refrain from doing so. Also consider that if Google started a closed network it would have to fight a tough battle against the network effect and the existing players, a battle to get some users to start with that would make the network useful at all. Geeks are doing this job for Google now.
Lis: No, I don't read Cringely - thanks! I keep saying, I've got to do more Google.