The Wall Street Journal looks at a key competitive issue on the Web.
It’s unclear to me why it’s a good thing for market competition when a $191 billion company like Google buys a $6 billion startup like Groupon or any other major company now, really. Especially since it’s increasingly taking advantage of its market dominance to push its own businesses.
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
What to do if you find a baby bird
Expert advice
Inside Google’s secret lab
We might deplore the practice, but posting pictures of our food online is a way to bring everyone to the table
How the ‘World’s 50 Best’ list changed the way elite restaurants do business
“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Here's the most glaring omission in all of this: Google does not force anyone to use the Google search engine, and never has.
If I don't like the way Google prioritizes search results, I can refine my search or use another search engine; there are innumerable others to choose from.
And there is nothing immoral or unusual about a company that plus-sells its own products to its patrons. Should a McDonald's franchise owner be expected — or forced, as in the Microsoft suit — to give directions to the nearest Burger King?
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 14 Dec 2010 at 01:58 AM
@David
A good analogy might be if Starbucks bought Yellow Pages and removed the listings for all other coffee shops (in the 1990s). Certainly people are free to use a different business listing, but is it really worth having two large phone books around for those few times that you want a non-Starbucks Coffee shop? Probably not.
#2 Posted by Eric Titus, CJR on Tue 14 Dec 2010 at 01:38 PM
I use Google for searching simply because it is not only quick--most of the time--but thorough. Sometimes too much useless junk. It's like trying to find details about a subject with a history. Other search engines either don't have it in detail or tells one to turn to Google. It's like trying to find out how the calendar for Islam works. Even wikipedia is simplistic but turn to Encyclopedia Britannica in book form and it's there in DETAIL. If I want something that is not 8th grade level of information, I either must find a specific journal online--not by Google--or by the old-fashioned way--a book on a shelf at home or the library. Also, Google or any other search engine can't tell you about something if one doesn't have specific names, time, place and hopefully not too far back in time. Computer engineers have admitted the same to me. An encyclopedia or library shelves can let you hunt by alphabet and library patterns and not only find what you might be looking for but also some other information that may be even more helpful--the " serendipity method" that is dying in the minds of anyone under 40 years of age. There will always be a few or one major search engine w/ a few partners hanging on to find information--here and elsewhere. The person has to have the wherewithal to take the time to hunt. One item is not sufficient now any more than it was for the research paper one's English teacher or professor assigned you in high school or college--any level.
#3 Posted by Patricia Wilson, CJR on Tue 14 Dec 2010 at 02:58 PM