The University of Michigan library was aware that Google has a commercial interest in obtaining digital copies of its copyrighted material.
There is a PDF file at the University of Michigan website that was created by John Wilkin on December 13, 2004. In this file he includes a screen shot that demonstrates how Google plans to display snippets from copyrighted material. Notice the Google ads on the screen. Google is acquiring the U of M library for the purpose of making money, and that's just fine with the library.
However, it is also violates Section 108 of copyright law, which says that libraries can make copies under certain restricted conditions, one of which is "the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage." This is just one of several apparent violations of copyright by the library.
The Regents of the University of Michigan should immediately instruct the library to withhold all copyrighted material from Google.
Letter to the University president: Page 1 Page 2
Letter to a University lawyer: Page 1 of 1
Letter to the Regents' representative: Page 1 Page 2
University of Michigan FOIA request: Page 1 of 1
Letter to Stanford University Library: Page 1 Page 2
Letter to Harvard University Library: Page 1 Page 2
Saturday, July 16, 2005
PageRank: Google's Original Sin
By 1998, the dot-com gold rush was in full swing. Web search engines had been around since 1995, and had been immediately touted by high-tech pundits (and Forbes magazine) as one more element in the magical mix that would make us all rich. Such innovations meant nothing less than the end of the business cycle.
But the truth of the matter, as these same pundits conceded after the crash, was that the false promise of easy riches put bottom-line pressures on companies that should have known better. One of the most successful of the earliest search engines was AltaVista, then owned by Digital Equipment Corporation. By 1998 it began to lose its way. All the pundits were talking "portals," so AltaVista tried to become a portal, and forgot to work on improving their search ranking algorithms.
Even by 1998, it was clear that too many results were being returned by the average search engine for the one or two keywords that were entered by the searcher. AltaVista offered numerous ways to zero in on specific combinations of keywords, but paid much less attention to the "ranking" problem. Ranking, or the ordering of returned results according to some criteria, was where the action should have been. Users don't want to figure out Boolean logic, and they will not be looking at more than the first twenty matches out of the thousands that might be produced by a search engine. What really matters is how useful the first page of results appears on search engine A, as opposed to the results produced by the same terms entered into engine B. AltaVista was too busy trying to be a portal to notice that this was important.
But the truth of the matter, as these same pundits conceded after the crash, was that the false promise of easy riches put bottom-line pressures on companies that should have known better. One of the most successful of the earliest search engines was AltaVista, then owned by Digital Equipment Corporation. By 1998 it began to lose its way. All the pundits were talking "portals," so AltaVista tried to become a portal, and forgot to work on improving their search ranking algorithms.
Even by 1998, it was clear that too many results were being returned by the average search engine for the one or two keywords that were entered by the searcher. AltaVista offered numerous ways to zero in on specific combinations of keywords, but paid much less attention to the "ranking" problem. Ranking, or the ordering of returned results according to some criteria, was where the action should have been. Users don't want to figure out Boolean logic, and they will not be looking at more than the first twenty matches out of the thousands that might be produced by a search engine. What really matters is how useful the first page of results appears on search engine A, as opposed to the results produced by the same terms entered into engine B. AltaVista was too busy trying to be a portal to notice that this was important.
Yahoo! launches health blogs
Yahoo! as launched a range of interesting health blogs, covering topics including yoga, nutrition, diabetes, depression, cholesterol, breast cancer and asthma.
The blogs are written by experts in their field, and include an RSS feed, comments (although Yahoo! registration is required) and permalink options, although the branding is simple and generic across the various blogs under the Yahoo! Health Beta banner.
Steve Rubel suggests that theses new blogs could be part of a strategy by Yahoo! to build their own consumer blog network, however comparing the two is like comparing chalk and cheese. Whilst the Yahoo! blogs have the ability to build traffic through leveraging the Yahoo! brand name, posting a couple of times a week doesn’t normally make for a lot of repeat viewing.
The blogs are written by experts in their field, and include an RSS feed, comments (although Yahoo! registration is required) and permalink options, although the branding is simple and generic across the various blogs under the Yahoo! Health Beta banner.
Steve Rubel suggests that theses new blogs could be part of a strategy by Yahoo! to build their own consumer blog network, however comparing the two is like comparing chalk and cheese. Whilst the Yahoo! blogs have the ability to build traffic through leveraging the Yahoo! brand name, posting a couple of times a week doesn’t normally make for a lot of repeat viewing.
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