Start of a Campaign.

James Random

James Random

Member
This will be the first of many posters (but this shall be the 'title poster') I shall be making. The idea behind this is that Google represents a threat to us. If it is to be the librarian of the Internet then we are all in big trouble. It controls our daily routine too much. People don't 'search' for things anymore, they google it instead.

So much so, that if google ever started to charge for their service, or went down/vanished then it would cripple the information superhighway as we know it today. Initially Google was a good idea. Ad-Free search engine that was high-speed and put an end to things like Ask Jeeves and Yahoo! and AltaVista.
But then, somewhere, Google obviously decided the money to be made from advertising was great enough that it should renege on it's own ideals and begin advertising.

So, after reading much about it, I shall be helping the culture jammers to Jam Google. You can to. Not by writing to them and telling them NOT to advertise. but by clicking on all of the ads. I read somewhere that the companies that put out the ads wont pay for 'protest clicks'. So that is what we must do. Protest click all the ads before information is privatised.


All_that_is_Solid___by_JamesRandom.jpg


The phrase comes from 'All that is solid melts into air'. Wonder if you can tell me where that phrase comes from!

Btw, the phrase 'All that is solid melts into google' wasn't originally my idea. I have just adopted it to help push forward the campaign.
 
Think this may get few replies :) Google is amazing. Brainwashed - maybe, Happy to be - Definitely
 
Yes, but Google is not what it was. It is a traitor to its ideology and if it is to be the Librarian of the Internet then we face great danger.

Google initially maintained that if a Search Engine advertised, then it would always be biased to the advertisers. They wanted a simple, fast, ad-free search engine and - initially - this is what we got. But then somewhere Google decided there was too much profit to be made out of advertising and betrayed itself.

Because of this, google has become the internet's biggest info-polluter and single handedly killed the dream of the 'commercial free internet'. Which was originally the intent back in the infancy of Yahoo! and AltaVista.

Google controls the ad-space on over 85% of all websites. Whether you are surfing the New York Times, MySpace or an infrequently trafficked blog, chances are that Google provides the advertisements that distract you.

Google is, in other words, the most radical reordering of information to benefit advertisers the world has ever known.


A friend of mine rejected the idea that Google both owns the internet and controls him in any manner. I challenged this by asking him to go look up the phrase 'All that is Solid Melts into Air'.

Naturally he returned with the answer: That it is the slogan of the communist party during the reign of the USSR. He added that he failed to see the relevance between the slogan and any possible control Google might have over him, however small that may be.

I then enquired of him as to how he obtained the answer to my challenge. He said he looked it up. I asked of him. 'What did you use to look it up?' He answered, of course. 'On google...oh yeah, I see your point.'


And on a similar note:

tumblr_l00nu89FKg1qaur0wo1_1280.jpg
 
I have no issues with people advertising, I have no issues with people controlling what I see, I choose to use their service, and choose to go on their websites. If I was against it, I wouldn't. In the same way if people were they wouldn't.
I fail to see the control they have over me when I have access to bing, yahoo, books, word of mouth.
 
I'm not convinced by the message or the conspiracy theories, but leaving that aside for a moment, I don't think the visuals are strong enough to communicate the message you're going for.

James Random said:
Google initially maintained that if a Search Engine advertised, then it would always be biased to the advertisers. They wanted a simple, fast, ad-free search engine and - initially - this is what we got. But then somewhere Google decided there was too much profit to be made out of advertising and betrayed itself.
Click to expand...

So, they have advertisements on the Google homepage? Considered by many to be the most valuable piece of internet 'real-estate'. The homepage remains advert-free, as it has done from day one.

James Random said:
Because of this, google has become the internet's biggest info-polluter and single handedly killed the dream of the 'commercial free internet'. Which was originally the intent back in the infancy of Yahoo! and AltaVista.
Click to expand...

Blue-chip venture capital firms, Yahoo! and AltaVista, and many other search engine companies approached by Stanford University turned down the chance to buy Google's search system for $1 million. Their refusals forced Sergey Brin and Larry Page to reluctantly drop out of school and start the firm.

James Random said:
Google controls the ad-space on over 85% of all websites. Whether you are surfing the New York Times, MySpace or an infrequently trafficked blog, chances are that Google provides the advertisements that distract you.
Click to expand...

Where did you get that stat?
Get the feeling this thread will be more of a debate around the topic than the work, so may be best to be moved..

Thanks,
Greg
 
Can I just ask the question who cares?

Ads are there whether we like them or not.. so I say 'meh' :) ignore them if you don't like them :) OR if you hate Ads so much then destroy all your computers, tvs and never leave the house and stay in reading books from the 1900s to avoid any sort of possible advertising :)
 
i agree with renniks, there are so many alternative ways to search the net its not fair or correct to say google controls all. there was an excellent documentary on google a few weeks back on BBC2 that you should watch james. dont get me wrong, its nice to see someone passionate about a subject, but from checking out your website this seems to be 1 in a long line of campaigns you seem to enjoy getting involved with.

id be interested to hear how you think google should make money as a company without the use of advertising? they are not a charity, at some point they need to make money to run the service, so the only alternative I can think of is to charge us all per search, but since google have always said they will never do that then advertising is the most sensible option.

i dont understand why you are so against internet advertising yet you make no mention of real everyday advertisements that you will come into contract with every day through billboards, bus stops, newspapers, tv, through texts, radio etc. Would you want to ban all of them as well?
________
Extreme q vaporizers
 
davewill said:
i dont understand why you are so against internet advertising yet you make no mention of real everyday advertisements that you will come into contract with every day through billboards, bus stops, newspapers, tv, through texts, radio etc. Would you want to ban all of them as well?
Click to expand...

If this is the case he may well have to stop making these posters? ;p
 
There's Advertising and then there's "Toxic-Advertising" or 'Info-polluting'. And I hadn't neglected the fact that theres advertising on billboards and, well, everywhere you go.

The point is that the level of advertising on the internet today is such that it directly violates what the internet was originally set out to be: A commercial free information tool.

This might help explain much better:
YouTube - Micah White's Thought Bubble: Junk Thought


Chris asked who cares? Well. Over 85,000 people do. And the number grows daily.

Case in point comes from the second poster.
A search for 'fashion' brought me 15 hits for shops and other commercial outlets before
I get anything that is actually 'information' on fashion in the form of wikipedia.

15 shops/ads
1 Information website.
 
Tailor your searches to retrieve what you want. The majority of people searching for fashion will want fashion shops.
If you want information, use an informational search (the wikipedia one for example)
Or search "fashion information" which returns a whole host of informational pieces.

Apologies, I shouldn't vent on you, but 85000 people are against something that they do not need use or shouldnt affect them. But it seems like it does
 
If you want more accurate search results based on a search term use bing (but i suspect you hate MS as well) so thats out of the question.... hrmmm talking about bad advertising i could digress into the wonder bra ads of the 90's now that just lending on trade descriptions....
 
Ok I'm going to turn into Berry.

What the hell is the point of this stupid campaign.

Google is the biggest search engine on the net serving god know's how many gigabytes of info a day and thats before taking into account youtube and it's other sites.

Maybe I'm just completely misguided in my view that you know the internet isn't free and you need to pay for the bandwidth, then you need the servers, the electric, software etc.

It's not cheap - did you expect google founders to pay for all this out of the kindness of their own heart. Then there's all the free software they give away and they're constantly developing their search algorithms

They also have a business model where they pay companies to use their search engine, firefox, apple (currently), android mobile phones (they can use a different search engine) are just a few off the top of my head.

And now the killer - if you don't like google, don't use it, it's that simple, there are loads of alternative search engines out there, bing/yahoo, ask, dogpile, altavista.

You have alternative email instead of gmail, you have alternative analytics tools, you have alternative online document editing, you don't HAVE to use google.

I do because it's quick to load up the search page, it's that simple.
 
Sunburn said:
im getting angry with control pants! making size 28 look like 8! wtfs the world coming too!
Click to expand...
definitely, if you've got it you've got to flaunt it - let it all hang out :up:
 
Just caught up on this thread, and pretty much agree with Livi's' stance. Plus I'm sure I saw the OP's email address on his blog somewhere and It was @googlemail.com!?
 
DeanZappy said:
Yeah thought so -
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It's not an email address I use, however. Which is why I used it on the businesscard. So as many 'strangers' can send as many emails as they like unsolicited and I wont care.
 
James Random said:
It's not an email address I use, however. Which is why I used it on the business card. So as many 'strangers' can send as many emails as they like unsolicited and I wont care.
Click to expand...


:confused: Surely you should want people to contact you about business from your card? I think you should look into getting your own domain and a more professional email address, it's your first point of contact with most people after all. :up:
 
I think he means it was for an example rather than the email he would show with his business card
 
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