Google Me This

Well I've been allowed to reside here and freely vent, chuckle and rant, and like a good tenant, I thought I'd find a little more about my kindly landlord, only to discover that its none other than Norman Google Bates. So I decided to google Google. Predictably, after typing "Google" I was rewarded with google.ca, google.com, google directory,google maps..not until the 8th listing did I get Google-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I want to emphasize this because this is a battle of epic proportions, where Google is the Joker, hiding behind its crude grade-3 logo, and our Wiki, is nothing short of The Bat.

Google is the fat cat of the Internet, weighing a good 23 Billion dollars and should instead be called GOOOOOOOOOOGLE. The unofficial company slogan is "Don't be evil", yes, truly..you can imagine long lines of white coated lab technicians each with a smiley button, humourless as yesterday's potato. Googleisms-
"Google is known for its relaxed corporate culture, of which its playful variations on its own corporate logo are an indicator."
"It is identified multiple times as the #1 Best Place to Work"
I save the best for the last, smiley in hand..but by now its become a laughey, a very large laughey.
"All Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them." What, you wonder do they do with the rest of the 80%? Google?

You cannot but assume this wiki is being produced by this Neo-Googler factotum, ass on the line, trying to curry favour with his equally humourless boss, for as is our fate we are served with more mindnumbing facts, that Google Corp feels is appropriate of its self-image.
Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex) A googolplex is the number 10googol, which means it's a 1 followed by a googol of zeros (i.e. 10100 zeros).
Wow, Google bases its inspiration on a bunch of Zeroes. Run..duck..thats a herd of irony fleeing and throwing themselves off a cliff. It is not done with us yet, there is the ever hip Google Radio. caller : "hello, I can't find my husband" . DJ:"go to google maps. Next caller". Dj "you again: caller: "my husband is posted as deceased. Thrice. And thats not even his picture". Imagine the power of this corporation that it actually believes there will be a demand for something so totally uncool. We are Google for we are mainly zeroes(notice how the dimunitive e.e.cummings approach offsets any fears that we are facing a very large, confident, steamroller).
If you are under the impression that Google is a great innovator , and that would be downright silly knowing that its employees only work 20% of the time, think again
Google acquires Blogger
Google acquires Writely
Google acquires Keyhole Inc (Google Earth)
Google acquires Youtube
Google acquires JotSpot
Google signs an agreement to acquire enterprise messaging security and compliance company Postini. Oh no no red flags here. Its Google after all. The red flag is Google China, transplanting its slogan from "Don't be evil" to "Dare to search" :D

Anyway the platitudes continued, and you might just go back to something productive unless you chance to glance upon an innocuous little word called "knol", third in line from the bottom.
Knol is google's attempt to wipe out Wikipedia. I deliberately linked Knol, because no longer are we presented with Google's humble and childlike self. We are presented with a sophisticated appealing version of what appears to be Wikipedia, with a few major differences. This is Google's confident self, flush with a major fanny pack of $$$, and it doesn't pull any punches when it says "Knol pages are meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read". Ok, imitation is the best form of flattery, and who wouldn't welcome more choices. Just like we often click on "terms of agreement" and move on to posting pictures of ourselves as cute babies, y'know like who the hell wants to read that long ugly thing, we might miss some massive implications hidden in the fine print.

1. All contributors to the Knol project must sign in first with a Google account and are supposed to state their real names.
2. The authors have an option to allow their knols to be edited by the public, to make them editable only to co-authors or to make them closed entirely.
3. They may also choose to include ads from Google's AdSense to their knols.

And finally, jubiliantly losing its teachers pet position in Grade 3...
4. Relevant nudity is allowed (in most countries).
Whay!!!

Things haven't changed all that much really.You might guess correctly that Google's top order of billionerds are still grappling with their nerdy selves, forsaking the dismay of their (minute)army of marketeers, public relations experts, and advertizing agencies, by going ahead and naming Knol after as a unit of knowledge.

So whats the bottomline, and google has one big ass bottom.
The enforcement of intellectual property rights. Good? Y'think? Heard about the 1990s US patent on turmeric, tell a billion Indians who have been eating and applying its medical properties for 3000 years. Google becomes the arbiter of "hey it belongs to me", simply because its published it under authorship. Its Advertizement driven, and that means you may not necessarily get the best results but one thats propped by the Heavies on the page. And what about individual contributions, what about the simpler pleasure of updates, annonates, collates that we all love participating in, the essence of the "wiki" in "Wikipedia", a universal collaborative not-for-profit effort. Just as Apple didn't die out under the behemoth of Microsoft,
we can hope that the intense personal attachment we feel towards this humble and useful tool, that Wikipedia survives. Right now, Google is making Microsoft look positively angelic.