Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Ballad of Google and Big Media

When pages are long and clicks quite many,
And blogs both smart and wry,
Tis joy, to track through webs,
To read the words of small fry.

And so these small pages would not cease,
Alongside the well-known ones.
"But it is only the big newspapers they read,
By web gods, they read tons," said lowly poster man,

"It seems to me I'm laughed and shunned,
And thought of as nothing at all;
Yet if Google be alive in this web,
A huge force might be my scrawl."

"The populace for all," quoth Larry and Sergey,
"As the viewer reads what is loaded,
All writers will publish, too.
And the large will be outmoded.

Write, publish, my merry bloggers all,
For Google will go with thee,
And seek your audience
And bring their eyes to where you be."

with apologies to the singers who have sung this before

Google's creed to do no evil seems to also consider the implications of doing good. Not just the warm and fuzzy values of feeding the poor, housing the homeless and so forth. But the value that says all people have a voice.

I've been thinking lately about the good old days. When people sat around the fires and told stories and songs. No, not before TV and radio, but back further than that to whenever they actually did these things. People everywhere used to have a voice, one which you can still find today in places where technology hasn't quite reached. Anywhere storytellers still ply their trade to a willing audience. A place where people can have a creative role in their society, which is responded to.

This is one of the purposes I see in blogs, poetry readings and similar engagements. A place where people can express themselves without trying to compete with William Shakespeare (or ballad writers!), but can simply say what's on their mind.

PS: this is not the promised Google as Robin Hood. I just got distracted!

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