LISNews: Librarian News

Wow!! Big news in the blogging world today (well, it actually happened on Thursday). Google, has bought Pyra labs, the maker of the famous Blogger software.

Not sure how this will play out, but I assume that it will be like when Yahoo took over Geocities a few years back, or when Google took over the Deja News archives. Also, I guess that Google will come up with some sort of backend stuff that will automatically generate similar weblog postings that appear on the Blogspot server (soon to be the Google server), like they do with Google News.

I am sure that more news (and information about how this will effect Blogger users) will appear as the news spreads. We live in exciting times.

This story is being slashdotted, big time!!

The Boston Globe Magazine has a rather Long Story on Google.
They say google is the first tool truly to make sense of the white noise that is the Internet, Google has become essential research for everyone from sales people calling on new accounts to single people taking another spin with blind-date roulette. Not only that, Google changed our concept of time as well. It has helped make our past - or oddly refracted shards of it - present and permanent.
Also, As a nation, we need to put measures in place, before it\'s too late, that provide some basic protection of vital personal information, like bank account numbers and Social Security numbers and, most important, details that have personal safety implications, such as the addresses of victims. But, in the end, given how much of life is lived online nowadays, the greater good is served by making most information accessible and permanent.

Jill sent over A Slate Story on Google, and the SearchKing lawsuit.
They say the legal question is whether Google\'s lead in the search-and-ranking business gives it unfair dominance over every Internet business, and the legal answer appears to be no.
For some reason they then go on to say the issues raised in the suit should concern anyone who worries about the ways in which the Internet promotes free speech in fabulous new ways while allowing a handful of companies to control access to that speech. They even go so far as to say nervous pundits have suggested that maybe Google ought to be regulated, as a utility or common carrier.
Seems funny coming from a site owned by Microsoft...

Gary Deane, our Canadian correspondant, sent over This National Post Story thet says Google is, arguably, the most important site on the Internet. It is an inescapable fact of Internet life.
They take a good look at the law suit brought by a company called SearchKing, where it alleges that Google changed the way it ranks pages, and that the change in ranking hurt SearchKing\'s business.
They go on to ask:

\"Is it, perhaps, a public utility, and therefore deserving of regulation? Is it an example of a network effect, where increasing users have created an unassailable standard that has daunting market power? And if that is the case, what if Google became more arbitrary in its rankings, as SearchKing is already alleging?\"

[Update] Jessamyn points to A Great Discussion on This over at Lawmeme.