Michael Gracie

Less than a week after Google rolled out Knol, its “Wikipedia killer”, the blogosphere has decided to whip itself into a frenzy. The major cause of the consternation - Google seems to be ranking Knol pages, which are supposed to be filled with content from a never-ending and every-increasing number of “experts”, a bit higher than the average SEO junkie might suspect.

Sounds like competition to me.

Is Google bad or is Google good? I don’t think the “experts” really know for sure, but I do see a pattern emerging. When blogs became popular, those working behind the scenes figured out that comments and trackbacks were a good way to generate search engine attention - and they latched onto the best ranked blogs. When the search engines figured this out, they appealed to the best of the best to add the “nofollow” tag to their discussion threads to weed out the scum. The big blogs agreed, I believe out of fear that Google would see discussions without the tag and bump down the renegades accordingly. All was well, as the favored few remained high on the first page list.

Unfortunately, content creators are now coming under increasing stress. The sole business motive, advertising, is showing signs of weakness. Purveyors of online expertise are crying for folks to click on their ads - they ask “why give the money to Google?”. Meanwhile, they beg at Google’s feet for traffic - it’s the proverbial biting of the hand that feeds you.

What’s even more odd about all this, and what would clue the average internet surfer into how badly the tech blogosphere needs a twenty-ton dose of Ritalin, is that the crowd waited until the day after they pounced on Cuil, a potential Google search competitor, before releasing their joint statement on the evil Knol. Yes, after giving a well-publicized Google search competitor a general thumbs neutral/negative (not entirely unearned, since Cuil had major technical problems on the day of its launch) the virtual chatterbox moves on to complain about the fact that Google might be infringing on their territory by juicing its own search results with competitive content.

Instead of recognizing the the signs of an impending threat and rallying behind the future generation, content creators are playing cards for the small pot instead of the final table. To be fair, some have a clue - seek alternatives and take action instead of pissing in the wind. Still, discussion revolves around quick fixes.

Budding surgeons don’t pass their boards by suggesting band-aids for severed femoral arteries, and it seems much of the tech blogosphere forgot their hemostats on this trip to the operating room.

Trout fishing isn’t usually about competition, but when you’re hot, you’re hot. This last Sunday, after briefly describing my morning to another fisherman - how I was hooking up on #16 Princes and #18 caddis pupae every other cast while others looked on in dismay - they noted:

“It’s a great feeling catching fish while others can only watch. Everyone on the river starts fiddling with their gear, switching flies over and over. Then, they just leave.”

Yes, it’s a great feeling.

Keeping your head, knowing it never lasts, is always the hard part.

Throwing dries to fish, while they try staying out of reach (not happening )

That competition is not from each other. No, the economic battle is between the anti-virus vendors and the malware creators their software is supposedly designed to stop.

The money made from malware is eclipsing the revenue of anti-virus vendors, a leading net security vendor claims. Raimund Genes, CTO of anti-malware at Trend Micro, cites FBI figures that IT security problems cost the economy $62bn last year against IDC estimates that the anti-malware market was worth $26bn in 2005.

Yes, I read the rest of the article, but now I am thinking…why did I bother.

BellSouth “finally” announced that they are going to throttling down internet transport for content providers that don’t pay up. Well, actually they said they would be providing better service for those that paid, but what they really mean is the former.

As Bill Smith, CTO at Bell South, pointed out: “Higher usage for broadband services drives more costs that we have to recover.”

If they can’t recover costs of transport, then why in the hell do they continue lowering prices for broadband access?!

The reason is simple: because they’re desperate, because they lack vision, because they just can’t compete.
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“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” - Douglas Adams

Just food for thought…
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