The fight for questions: who will mine more of our questions
and thereby benefit most? The battle has begun.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
Can Microsoft Break Google's 'Monopoly
on Questions'?
"In the 21st century digital economy, questions are a raw material worth more than money, gold and oil ... Those who compete for the questions of humanity want more than to entertain - they want to play a role in every area of our lives."
In this case, first of all, there
is a lot of money at stake. Last year, Microsoft bid billions for Yahoo [$44.6
billion]. Now instead of a buyout, it's settling for a partnership. Because
ultimately Microsoft isn't that interested in the Yahoo brand and its revenue. The
ultimate goal is to combine Microsoft's new search engine "Bing" and the digital clientele of Yahoo
to create a serious competitor for Google. Because indeed, Google is the
household name of Internet search engines. But this is an understated
paraphrase. Google is a corporation that monopolizes questions. And in the
digital economy of the 21st century, questions are a raw material worth more
than money, gold and oil combined.
On Google's deceptively
simple Web site with its search box and two buttons there are no limits to the
questions. Where can I find music, cheap merchandise, a job, new friends? Who
was Albert Einstein? What's my money worth now? What's the fastest way to get
to my destination? And how do I get back again? The answers aren't important
for Google because the true value of its users lies in their questions -
nothing reveals more about a person. In every question there is a desire, and
so the sum of the questions and desires paint an image of an individual. Now bundle
the questions and desires of millions upon millions of Google users - and one
can learn a great deal. For example, about social and political developments,
but also fashion, trends, hot spots - and over and over, market opportunities.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
That market has long sought a
way to achieve this kind of consumer forecasting and societal transparency. For
quite some time there have been sophisticated methods of targeting individuals
with the goal of achieving pinpoint marketing. But up to now it's been behavioral
patterns that have been used to unmask the individual. What matters, however,
is not just revealing habits and preferences, but aspirations and dreams. Now, people
will be far more exposed than ever before.
Such insight isn't entirely
new. It was important, for example, that after the attacks of September 11th,
2001, for the U.S. government to get access to search engine logs. The logic is
simple: whoever searches the Net for chemical merchandisers, rental car
agencies and the quickest route from the airport to vital points of the
infrastructure could be planning a bomb attack.
This is also not the first
time in the history of man that a battle has raged over the sovereignty of
questions. During the past two millennia it was above all the religions that claimed
the right to choose the great questions of mankind and the small questions of
men. Today, Google in no way claims the infallibility and omnipotence of a
church. And unlike religions, search engines provide no clear answers to
narrowly-defined questions. Generally, one shouldn't overestimate the
transcendental capabilities of the digital world. There was an early parallel to this in the digital world's short
history.
At the beginning of the
nineties, the California LSD-Pope of the hippy movement, Timothy Leary [video below], saw in
the virtual reality of new media a kind of transcendental change that would
result in a new consciousness and more spiritual world. One can safely
attribute reading such a universal dimension into new media to Leary's
excessive consumption of psychedelic drugs. In essence, however, he surmised a change
in the engine of economic development that could quite fundamentally change
humanity. Those who control the sum of the questions can at least give direction
to decisions.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
One thing is already certain:
the attempted merger of these digital corporations isn't comparable to the
mergers of media giants in the eighties and nineties. And these also had
implications beyond the business world. Culture has been irreversibly changed
by the concentration of economic power in culture and media. It's been a long
time since in Western Europe and on the American coasts, one could distinguish
between high culture and pop culture.
The merger of these digital companies
is not, however, about culture and media, but about society and everyday life. We
therefore have to kiss the concept of "new media" goodbye. For one,
because it's no longer new. The worldwide Web has been around for 15 years. What's
new is the orientation of a digital culture that now vies for attention
alongside traditional media - from print to television. Those who compete for the
questions of humanity want more than to entertain - they want to play a role in
every area of our lives.
