On Google today there is a link below the search box. It says – Watch The Perfect Game, a baseball search story.
This video is part of a series by Google called “Search Stories”
Here are the current stories:
Search Stories: An Introduction
Zack Matere: Growing Knowledge
The Tofino Riders: A 1,000 Year-Old-Wave
Caroline Moore: Supernova 2008ha
Dave Strenski: New Energy for Detroit
Erik-Jan Bos: A Letter from an Old Friend
I don’t post this to glorify Google. There are several issues raised in these videos that will be of interest to librarians. A librarian is specifically mentioned in the Erik-Jan Bos video. The “Growing Knowledge” video has several ideas/issues that will be of interest to librarians. Each video is only 1-2 minutes. Consider watching them all and posting your observations and comments here.
Advertising
Very moving. I guess what I kept thinking is why can’t we, as a public library, make advertising like this. Maybe show it before movies at the local cinema as well as on Youtube.
ARE YOU HIGH???
Can you imagine getting THAT phone call? “Hi, this is Google, and we were really inspired by that one search you did. Yep. Really brought tears to our eyes. Wanna work with us to promote how awesome we are by splashing your ostensibly private search all over the web as free advertising for us?”
Um, yeah. Maybe the “look-at-me!” Millennial culture doesn’t see a problem with this, but I think the average person would be a bit creeped out to know just how much Google knows–and RETAINS–about them.
Because You Can…
Propaganda is alive and well.
Message boards
On the Growing Knowledge video I like the idea about taking knowledge from the web and moving it to another media. The message boards that Zack created are a good way to provide information where there is no infrastructure for computers.
You have a librarian role for someone to figure out what the important information that needs to be on the board is; finding that information and making it available.
Putting knowledge together
I like in the Detroit solar power video the idea of putting information together in one place. Scattered information is inefficient and if not found is not useful. When someone weaves together all the important information about a topic it makes the information much more usable and makes it more likely the information will have an impact.
True but…
‘ but I think the average person would be a bit creeped out to know just how much Google knows–and RETAINS-about them’
Only if you sign in, and don’t forget you are getting this for free, you don’t have to use it.
Try charging people for the right to use what they have been using for free for years and they would tell you everything about themselves to not pay.