The myth of the infinite book

“We must be vigilant in resisting this catastrophe-minded pessimism, apart from the fact that it reveals the pointless temptation to oppose inevitable development of technologies whose advantages, as well, are obvious, not just in terms of efficiency and economy but also ethically and politically. But we must also be wary of a progressivist – and sometimes “romantic” – optimisim, ready to endow the new distance technologies of communication with the myth of the infinite book…”

Derrida, Paper Machine, Trans. Rachel Bowlby, (Stanford University Press, 2005), p.17

Could Derrida be commenting on the Google Library Project that has so many publishers up in arms? After all, Google’s “ultimate goal is to … create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages”

Filed under: Derrida, Google, books

Gettin googled

Isn’t amazing how much Google has become part of our vocabulary? 10 years ago, none of it was there. The rate of change is amazing. And you can see it happen before your very eyes.

You can watch it with Google Analytics. I’ve been playing around with Google Analytics this morning for work. Fun stuff, and all free. Worth organising to have on your site, or blog, or whatever.

I linked to one of the Google blogs the other day, and had a massive spike in hits. Was this a whole bunch of people in silicon valley checking the trackbacks? Apparently a whole bunch of them were referred to this site as well. I wonder why?

Filed under: Google

iGoogle

Why is there an i in front of ‘Google’ on their homepage?  Is this some collaboration between Apple and Google?  Is Google following the market now, rather than leading it?  Or are they just going to buy Apple or iTunes or something… (don’t you just love conspiracy theory?)

 

Here’s Google’s explanation:  ‘a name that connotes interactivity, the Internet, and personalization all at once’.  I’m not convinced?

Filed under: Apple, Google, marketing