Google. I’m surprised the word appears in only 10 of the previous 417 Farmdoc’s Blog posts. For subjectively Google seems much more pervasive in my cyber life. Eight days ago I added this comment to blog post 210: ‘On 4 June 2009 Google launched its flu trend web page for Australia. Here is the article and here is the direct link’. Seems like a good thing. As does RabbitScan which uses Google Earth to provide evidence-based mapping of rabbit location and prevalence. This mapping’s intended to stimulate governments to develop and implement new rabbit control measures, now that resistance has developed to Calicivirus that was released in 1995, and rabbit numbers are growing again. RabbitScan’s founder, NSW grazier David Lord, said this use of Google Maps is being watched as a potential model for mapping other pests, and also weeds and wildlife. RabbitScan’s mapping campaign’s due to end in December. I’ve joined it. And as I did so I pondered Google – what I think of it, and my relationship with it. In a word, my relationship’s ambivalent. Whilst doing good and helping people, Google’s simultaneously getting bigger and more powerful. And more pervasive. I don’t know if my awareness of this will help. But it won’t hurt. And judging by this article in last Tuesday’s Age, I’m not alone in my circumspection.
1 comment:
As this article tells, the newspapers are nervously watching Google too.
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