Google Books Holland | Google Books India | Ban on essay writing ads | Hot trends | Organising your life | 23andme | Google is worth $150.62bn
It does sometimes feel that new media news is dominated by Google, as much through speculation as official news. So I thought I'd ditch other stuff for a day and instead catch a snapshot of Google stories.
Google Books expansion
Google has announced the first Dutch partner for its ambitious book search programme, which aims to digitise every book ever published.
The addition of the Ghent University Library collection will add at least 300,000 French and Dutch-language titles to the index of Google's book search which already includes more than a million books.
This is Google's fifteenth library deal, with Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford university libraries already on board. Two Spanish libraries, two Swiss and one German library are also involved.
Google won't detail the exact procedure for some reason, but the process involves methodically scanning, page by page, every book in each library. It's a mammoth task. Add that to the even more mammoth mission statement of indexing all the world's books and it seems quite unfathomable. But Marissa Meyer, Google's vice President for search products and user experience, told New Yorker magazine earlier this year that Google thinks it can complete the task "inside five years".
Of all the world's books, 5% are estimated to be currently in print and 25% our of copyright and in the public domain. Google is focusing on that 25%, and that 5%.
The remaining 70% is anguishing offline in a combination of second-hand bookstores, personal collections and, probably, rest homes.
The book search results variously will show either the full text, up to 25% of the text or the cover blurb, depending on the copyright status of the book. Search results show where to buy the book or the nearest library that holds it, although Google is having trouble adding this feature in the UK because we don't have a centralised national catalogue of library content unlike most countries in the EU.
Google defends itself from concern about abuse of copyright by saying the sue of snippets is fair use under US law, as with search results.
Announcing the deal, the Ghent University Library's website had dug out this rather prescient quote from its former chief librarian Ferdinand Vander Haeghen, speaking in 1867:
"Until now all we have done is to accumulate treasures and carefully arrange them on the shelves of our libraries. We seem to have forgotten that this immense capital, little used today, could bear abundant fruit. Let us hasten, therefore, if it is possible to make it completely available to scholars by publishing a universal catalogue."
On the fun side, this newly indexed information can provide amusing insights into literary trends:
Precisely 681 of the books that Google has indexed begin with "a dark and stormy night", there were 620,600 results for "sun" but only 180,600 for "rain" and a healthy 1,744 references to Google.
Google Books India
A similar deal to Ghent, the University of Mysore in India has just partnered with Google to index 800,000 texts and manuscripts. Documents include the 4th century political treaties the "Arthsastra" and several eight century documents, many of which are written on palm leaves. The university will patent its material after digitisation, which is being paid for by Google. Update: Google says this is total bobbins. (Hindustan Times)
Google mobile for the UK?
Ah - the eternal complement of blogs and rumour. Like a sturdy oatmeal cracker with some delicious but suspiciously blue cheese.
This time, the gossip is that Google is preparing to launch its own branded mobile phone in the UK in the next few weeks. TechCrunch says the device wouldn't be sold through stores but online, and the basic unit would be Nokia. Like all the best internet rumours, this sounds believable enough, but then I've heard that they have taken "gullible" out of the dictionary. (TechCrunch)
Ban on essay writing ads
Google has banned adverts for pre-written essays - a move widely welcomed by the education sector and condemned by the essay writing firms, who say the move punishes legitimate businesses. The essay writers join a curious blacklist of prostitutes, weaponry, drugs, tobacco and miracle cures. Universities UK, who claims as many as 12,000 essays are bought by students every year and says that is undermining the integrity of university degrees, so "making life harder for these cynical essay mills is a step in the right direction".
Web plagiarism and fraudulent essays are a major problem for universities, and students can pay anything from £70 to £5,000 for an essay. Essaywriter.co.uk claims 80% of its custom is generated by Google and that a blanket ban won't stop people finding these services. It didn't happen in my day. (BBC)
Hot trends
Replacing Zeitgeist and building on the Google Trends tool, Google has introduced Hot Trends, which shows the most popular searches in almost real-time. Heading the list as I write this - and I'm assuming "sex" is manually omitted - was Monica Goodling, the former justice official who has announced that she will testify in a case about the firing of eight US attorneys. The fifth hottest search is for the iGasm - Apple getting a bit hot under the collar about an iPod-style ad for a sex toy. (John Batelle)
Organising your life
The logical next stage in organising the world's information is for Google to organise personal information too, according to chief executive Eric Schmidt. Reported in the FT, Schmidt said that in five years Google will have better algorithms and better personalisation - "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'"
iGoogle would be a key part of this strategy, as well as Google's personalised search feature where users give permission for Google to store and refer to their search history. There's also Google Recommendations, where search suggests products and services based on established preferences. (FT)
Google backs biotech firm - started by Sergey's wife
Google invested $3.9m in 23andMe, a biotech company founded last year by the (new) wife of Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. The company has something to do with helping people understand their genome which sounds great, and it doesn't hurt to have friends in high places. (AFP)
FYI
Google shares are currently trading at $482.60 each, which means a market capitalisation of $150.23bn. Microsoft's is currently $292.94bn and Yahoo $39.16bn.
