Comp Lit 19: Googlization, Googlized, Google it!

2011-04-02T08:32:00.001-07:00

I know class is over, but...

2009-06-08T17:25:00.001-07:00

who says the blog has to be?

For those of you who were interested in Google Sketch-Up, there is a competition being held by the Guggenheim Museum in honor of Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. It seems simple enough, and the prizes include a trip to New York and a behind the scenes tour of the Guggenheim.

If you're interested, check it out on Google's blog or at the official competition website.

Anyways, good luck with finals and I wish everyone a happy summer!

a new google product--very cool e-mail innovation--the wave preview

2009-06-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

very long but if you skip around you can get an idea of the product. i think it's very cool, you can use it to communicate, e-mail, IM, and it's so easy!! you can edit, blog, collaborate, the possibilities are literally endless. just thought i'd share but i'm sure most of you have probably already heard about it!

Cool Feature in Google Earth

2009-05-28T15:48:00.001-07:00

I was totally unaware of this feature that can be found in Google Earth...a flight simulator!!!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/31/google-earths-easter-egg-a-flight-simulator/

You can also embed your maps by copying the embed code and posting to the blog site

2009-05-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

View Best Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia in a larger map

Thurs, May 28th and June 4th

2009-05-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hi class,

We are continuing our discussion of geo-browsers and mapping for the next two sessions.

For this Thursday, I want you to create a map using Google My Maps. To do this, go to Google Maps (login) and click on "my maps". There, you can create a map. You should make a map of something relevant about your life (ie, favorite restaurants, bike trails you like, where you grew up, etc). It can be anywhere in the world.

When you are done, right click on the "View in Google Earth" icon and COPY LINK LOCATION. Post the link on our blog as a comment, which will essentially allow others to see your map.

Also, for Thursday, spend some time going over HyperCities: www.hypercities.com

Think about what you like and don't like about the site as well as what you'd like to be able to do in a geo-temporal environment.

----

FINAL CLASS PRESENTATIONS: (June 4th)

In groups of 3, you will present either:

1. A group mapping project using Google Maps/Earth or HyperCities. If you opt for this, you need to talk about the particular google tool you are using (how it works, what it does) and your project that you created in Google Maps.
2. A new Google Tool that we haven't talked about in class, but showcases some aspects of Web 2.0. If you do this, you will actually need to create something (not just discuss what it does). You need to USE IT.

Presentations will last about 10 minutes (each person must speak about 3 minutes), followed by a brief Q+A session.

Some issues you may want to address:

1. Issues around privacy and publicness
2. Web 2.0
3. How Google tools extend knowledge or limit knowledge
4. Content creation
5. Authorship and collaboration

Thurs, May 21: Geo-Browswers: Earth, Maps, HyperCities

2009-05-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Install the latest version of Google Earth and spend some time getting to know the basic features. Google Earth is a sophisticated "geo-browser", comprised of satellite imagery of the whole earth and innovative navigation features for contributing and viewing geo-data.

You should watch some of the tutorials to learn about the functionality of Google Earth. Click here.

Take some time to "tour" the earth and make a list of interesting places that you would like to share with the class. You can share these as 'tours' for the class.

We will spend the next three sessions learning about three Geo-browsers:
1. Google Earth
2. Google Maps / Google My Maps
3. HyperCities: A Google Maps/Earth Mash-up (a UCLA project directed by me)

For the last day of class, students will work together in teams to create and present projects in either maps, earth, or HyperCities. These will be KML based, user-created maps, with 2D and potentially 3D objects. You can create 3D objects using Google's Sketch-up program.

Google Outages

2009-05-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

So we had talked in class about the network that google has, in terms of many epicenter-esque locations of their databases and whatnot. The idea is that if one computer network fails, there is a bunch of backup places that Google has to make sure that the whole system doesn't fail. That plan sounds foolproof, but I guess today something else went wrong. Google isn't being too specific about what EXACTLY went wrong, but this seems to describe it generally. I like the fact that the company actually took to Twitter to apologize to everyone that was inconvenienced. Its amazing that there are plenty of other search engines, yet people don't think to resort elsewhere when such an event occurs.

For Thurs, May 14th -- Google and Web 2.0

2009-05-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

For this week:

1. If you haven't already, please read carefully the Tim O'Reilly article defining Web 2.0 (note, it's five pages long). In addition to this article, please articulate how the suite of Google products are "Web 2.0-like" (not just search or the company as a whole) but individual products and software applications. What do you imagine will constitute Web 3.0? Here, you might look at the blog about the semantic web (posted below).

2. Orient yourself in SivaVaidhyanathan's blog, "The Googlization of Everything." In particular, I'm interested in his most recent post on the user/Google transaction. If you recall, both Kiesha (of Google Advertising Sales team) and David and Scott (on Android) talked a lot about "user experiences."

Future Google Features

2009-05-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Google's "Searchology" event was yesterday (Tuesday), and they revealed a number of new search features they want to implement in the future.

One feature is Google Squared, which will hit Google Labs soon. If you search "small dogs" using Google Squared, you'll get a table of name, picture, description etc of small dogs.
Screenshots of Google Squared from Google Blogoscoped

Another talked about feature is "rich snippets" which will return more data using markups in a page's HTML metadata (meaning Google will support microformats and RDFa). (I don't quite understand this, but here's a brief discussionof it- including screencaps of rich snippets- for those who might better understand.) This ideally will get more relevant information faster for reviews, people, businesses.

BBC article;
CNET article

SearchEngineLand's recap links page of Searchology;
Google Blogoscoped's recap of Searchology (it has screenshots of Rich Snippets)

Sorry Google

2009-05-07T01:31:00.000-07:00

Looks like Twitter is a no go.

Check it out

Story on our class on UCLA Today website

2009-05-04T17:40:00.000-07:00

Dear class,

Check out this story about our Googlization class.

-Prof Presner

"Revolutionary new web software could put Google in the shade"

2009-05-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting article about new web software that will supposedly revolutionize the way we interact with information on the web. We shall see I guess.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html

Web 2.0 and Android (for May 7th)

2009-05-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

For class on Thursday, please read the classic statement on Web 2.0 by technology-guru, Tim O'Reilly: "Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software".

This will provide the theoretical and historical basis of our conversation for the next couple of weeks. Please read this article carefully.

Then, learn about Google's Android:

1. www.android.com
2. The developer site for Android

We'll be joined by Scott Ruston (PhD, Mellon Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA) and David Shephard (PhD Candidate, UCLA) to discuss mobile media and the platform.

Advertising and Google

2009-04-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

For class on Thursday, April 30th:

We will be speaking with a Google Advertising Sales Manager and learning about how Google has transforming web advertising.

In preparation for this meeting, please learn about Google Adwords and Google Adsense.

Also, read about Google's privacy policies and it's other advertising services, including DoubleClick and Google Analytics.

After you have read this material, please formulate at least two questions (posted on here as comments) for our conversation.

Info from our guest from Google:

Kiesha Ramey-Presner is an Advertising Sales Operations Manager for one of Google's largest retail account teams. Her team is responsible for specialty and big box Bay Area-based retailers including Gap, Levi's and Macy's, and generates approximately $100 million in annual revenue. Now managing aspects of both the pre-and-post sales client relationship for Search and Content, Kiesha began at Google seven years ago as a Creative Maximizer. In this capacity, she came up with keywords, wrote text ads and structured performance-driven accounts for some of Google's largest clients.

Make sure students understand what Search-based Google text ads are (AdWords). This is the baseline for any discussion that gets into other areas, like Content (ads on all of our partner sites outside of Google) - including YouTube. It's also worth noting we've explored applying our auction-based ad model to offline areas, including TV, Print and Audio (the latter two of which were cut in recent quarters).

Preparation for April 23rd class

2009-04-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Dear class,

For class on Thursday, I would like to discuss and evaluate -- as concretely as possible -- the fears over technology "taking over the world." As you certainly know, there is a long history of representing computers/robots/technology as "evil" and destroying human civilization. Think, for example, of the Matrix (a film in which humans are essentially the "food" for a massive, omniscient super-computer) or the idea of "the Borg" in Star Trek (an all-powerful, computer-like being that consumes everything in its path). Can you think of other examples?Why is technology to be feared?

Perhaps the video that Kevin posted (below) can help us -- why are we so scared of openness? Why can't the technologies enable new, more open social formations rather than dystopian visions of a fallen world?

The real work for the seminar is this:

How (if at all) is Google and Google technologies changing society and our very notions of what it means to be "human"? How is Google changing the ways we think about information and knowledge? How is Google changing the ways we think about privacy, individuality, identity, and our sense of self?

Please spend some time looking at the posts already on the site and thinking about the implications of various Google Technologies: Google Search, Google Earth/maps/streetview, Google Latitude, Google Docs, Google Book search, Gmail, etc. Look at the various posts and comments already on the blog.

Finally, learn about at least one Google Technology that you have never heard of before (ie, Google Knols). Click here to see some that you know and some that your probably don't know.

Quit Being So Damn Scared of The Internetz...

2009-04-21T00:53:00.001-07:00

So the title is just to get everyone's attention and I wanted to perhaps continue our discussion about privacy/social networking/meeting stranges on the internet in one concise place. Maybe no one wants to discuss this but I want to know everyone's opinion on meeting new people on the internet.

There seem to be many here, or at least a few, who would gasp at the idea of going on a site, finding someone, e-mailing or messaging them and introducing yourself. People who may take the attitude "the internet is for me to maintain my local friends or friends that I know in person." Psh! I say "no way" to that. Certainly it can and does help with that. But I am under the impression and have always used the internet to MEET NEW PEOPLE, meet new people with similar interests, who can help me get ahead, who can give me advice, who I can ask for advice, who I can ask for a place to stay when I am in their neck of the woods.

GASP...I know right. Anyway, what are you all's thoughts about this? Do you guys meet "strangers" on the internet? Give out your information, etc. Personally, I have met tons of great people over the internet, some that I talk to at least twice a week. As typical as this sounds....one of my really good friends on the internet is a 46 year old gay man from New York. So yes, I am an 18 year old college student talking to a 46 year old gay man and I don't feel threatened, scared, intimidated, or nervous. Am I naive? Stupid? Young? Also, let me throw this in. Does it make a difference that I am guy? Is there a gender double standard when it comes to meeting people online? I would argue yes. Discuss!

Also, here is a video that pretty much sums up my view on this. Vaynerchuk style!

Busy Day For Google

2009-04-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Google had quite a busy day today, launching two new, and in my opinion, extremely useful features in Google Labs. The first is called Similar Images, and basically it lets you narrow your image searches to like items, colors, styles, etc with just the click of a button. The second is called Google News Timline, and it organizes news articles chronologically and lets you search for articles on a specific topic during a specific time period. It would seem that both of these features have the potential to be huge time savers, and both are directly related to Google Search, showing that despite its ambitious expansion, Google is first and foremost a search engine.

You can learn more about Similar Search and Google News Timline over at the Official Google Blog (which is on Blogger of course).

See...Google might not be so evil after all

Google Book Search settlement

2009-04-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Google settles case over copyright infringement of book search -- and gains a huge, uncontested right to distribute book content. Read about this case here. For a less-legalise version of the story, click here. This story breaks down how Google has actually managed to engineer a monopoly over the rights to search virtually every book ever produced in the world.

Will Google Profiles kill off or threaten Facebook's popularity?

2009-04-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

Google Profiles is incredible less complicated, less busy, and way easier to use than Facebook. (according to reviewers). Although many people do not even know about this new application, it apparently has all that Facebook offers but without the ever increasingly hard to use interface. Facebook is way ahead of the game in terms of users and popularity. Does Google Profiles even have a chance? Check out this article...

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3815596/Inside-Googles-Facebook-Killer.htm

How Google Search Works

2009-04-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

So I went through some of my old computer science lecture materials and I found this .pdf on how Google search functions. Hope this helps, even though it may be difficult to understand some of the computer jargon.

http://labs.google.com/papers/googlecluster-ieee.pdf

The Pervasiveness of Google

2009-04-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from an article that I found on Google that really shows just how influential it is. There are several interesting ideas proposed in the full article regarding politics among other topics. Anyhow, I would love to see what you guys think...

'Furthermore, when Google said all the world's information, it really meant all. Google News, launched in 2002, aggregates breaking stories from traditional media sources around the world. Newspapers complain that their hard-won exclusives are being hijacked to boost Google's profits...Google Maps and Google Earth, launched in 2005, offer an astonishing interactive map of the planet, stitched together from aerial and satellite footage licenced from Nasa and various private companies.

Google Street View, released in America last year, takes this a step further by providing photographs taken at eye level, which has prompted media alarm about invasion of privacy...

Google's acquisition in 2006 of YouTube... caught most attention as a disrupter of the old media landscape. Its willingness to let people post and watch video clips for free has panicked the TV and film industries and provoked a $1bn lawsuit from the US entertainment group Viacom for 'massive copyright infringement'.

Google's tentacles are everywhere. It runs services for blogging, email, instant messaging, shopping and social networking. It offers a suite of word processing, spreadsheet and other tools to rival Microsoft's products in the workplace. It is building a software platform for mobile phones that may challenge Apple's iPhone and others. It has just launched Knol, a peer-reviewed encyclopedia to take on Wikipedia. In America, Google Health enables users to maintain their own medical records. The company is also working on language translation, speech recognition and video search...

The problem with Google now is that they have to keep growing,' says Andrew Keen. 'If they wanted to, they could destroy the publishing business and kill newspapers. Everything they do has a profound impact. It's like that saying about America: when Google sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold."

I was very shocked at the pervasiveness of Google and how expansive their impact really is. Many of us rely on Wikipedia for information, our doctor's office to store our medical information, and microsoft word to create documents, among other things. It appears that every facet of our online and mobile lives has already become reliant on Google, but soon our personal lives will be too. Doctor's records, newspapers, television watching, all online instead of in print or at the office. I'm not sure how I feel about this exactly, but here are some questions to think about/respond to.

1. For how long will these companies and services be of use to us if Google creates their own version?

2. Is it possible that the integration of all of the important elements of our daily lives under one umbrella is actually beneficial for the consumer even though it would mean that Google has effectively monopolized the tools and luxuries of our daily lives? How problematic is this really?

3. Is it the case that any service/application that Google gains becomes the dominant and most widely used application of that type? Why?

4. What are your thought on the quote "If Google sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold?" How would you interpret this and do you agree?

Here is the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/17/googlethemedia.google

Search in the World

2009-04-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

I did some follow up searches for the question that came up in class about whether or not Google is the dominant search engine everywhere in the world.

Apparently, there are five countries where Google doesn't dominate as the search engine: China (dominated by Baidu), Korea (Naver), Japan (Yahoo! Japan), Czech Republic (Seznam), and Russia (Yandex).

All five of the search engines mentioned above except Baidu are portals, where they have links to stories etc beside the search functions. Baidu started a Japanese version in 2007, and Naver plans to launch one in 2009.

*Sept 2008 article from marketingpilgrim.com;
*Sept 2008 article from shanghaiist;
*Feb 2009 article from The Economist about search engine markets in East Asia

Why do you think Google doesn't do well in these countries? Do you think this is a good or bad thing? Do you think the popularity of web-portals with countries that use non-Roman alphabets means something? (i.e. does Google not index foreign pages as well?)
Other thoughts?

Google Latitude

2009-04-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

I guess this doesn't really take away from Google holding every aspect of one's life. As far as I can tell, this was released within the last couple of days, if not today. Google Latitude-- a program that allows you to pinpoint exactly where your friends are at an exact time by seeing where their phone is located. Although you can decide who sees where you are, this can get you into a lot of trouble. No more white lies, if you're attempting to get out of something. I don't think Google will end up purchasing Twitter, as this is basically the same thing with extra amenities. Maybe they want a monopoly type of thing though...

Here you go.

I guess Google doesn't believe in Apple

2009-04-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/08/google.mobile.gmail/index.html

Alright, so this post is for all of you iPhone users out there. Evidently, Google still doesn't think that the Apple mail service isn't suitable for its own product. They already have released the Gmail application, yet they want to start taking over their competitor's phone, in my eyes. I love the plug in the article where the Google representative slyly puts down the phone's connection, stating "You'll notice that it's a lot faster when performing actions like opening an e-mail, navigating, or searching. And if the data network drops out on you..., you'll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose over a flaky, or non-existent, network connection," said Google mobile engineer Joanne McKinley." I like Google, but this is pretty funny.

-Chris

Is Google Killing Off Newspapers?

2009-04-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Many newspaper companies believe Google is helping contribute to the decline in traditional print viewership, which remains the principal source of income for these companies. They acknowledge that while Google helps drive traffic to the site, the search engine overall is unfairly profiting off these visits through ad-based revenue. Is Google accelerating the decline of these media companies or are the media companies' failed attempts to adapt to the new business climate killing them?

Here's the article

Google Search -- background, how it works, limits?

2009-04-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

April 9th and continuing on April 23rd:

Google Search: How it works (please learn about the basic technical aspects of Google Search).

What is Pagerank? Read about the development here.

Article by Nicholas Carr: "Is Google Making us Stupid?" from Atlantic July/Aug 2008)

Some questions for thought:

1. What can't you find using Google? Post your ideas..
2. Perform a search in which Wikipedia entries do NOT come up. Give some examples...
3. Global Google: Try to get results for "Africa" that are written by non-Westerners. Try to get results that aren't commercial interests. Post these...

Google Street Car Turned Away

2009-04-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

People in the UK stopped the Google 3-D Street Car because they feared criminals would use the images to target their homes. Are the villagers justified in believing Google has crossed the line or are they just being paranoid?

Here's the story from CNN

Google to buy twitter??

2009-04-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

This would be interesting: Real-time information (140 characters) about what people are doing and who's following them. Why does Google care? Maybe because their massive data centers can store all the twitters, harvest them, mine them, and deduce trends. If Google knows what I'm doing right now ...

But the deal isn't done. Read about it here.

more later. I have go twitter before it's too late!

Welcome -- Fiat Lux Course 2009

2009-03-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Professor Todd Presner
University of California Los Angeles
Comp Lit 19, Fiat Lux Course, Spring 2009
Meetings: Thursdays, 5-5:50 PM in A32 Humanities Bld

Course Description:

The audacious mission of Google is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Fashioning itself as a modern-day library of Alexandria, Google has had a massive impact on the way in which knowledge is created and information is stored, retrieved, and used. The purpose of this course is to analyze the cultural and social impact of one of the most innovative--and dangerous--technology companies. Starting with a discussion of Search, we will examine how "Google culture" presents, organizes, and selects information. From there, we will look at the impact of Google in setting the stage for the emergence of Web 2.0, the programmable web. We will examine several Google innovations, including Google AdWords, Google APIs, Google Book Search and Google Maps. Finally, we will examine the emergence of Web 3.0, a world in which information is melding together with place. Here, students will critically analyze Google Earth and Local/real-time search in order to consider how social spaces are changing.

Note: The course is inspired by SivaVaidhyanathan's Book/blog, "The Googlization of Everything." Many of the primary materials for the class can be found on his blog.

REQUIREMENTS:

This is a pass/no pass course. Students are required to attend all classes and actively participate in the on-line discussion through the course blog. On average, you should post one blog entry and/or two comments per week as part of the discussion threads. This is the "written work" for the class. All students will also participate in a final class symposium where they present projects on or about Google or using Google tools.

TENTATIVE SYLLABUS:
(note: The syllabus is flexible and will be tailored to reflect the interests of the class. Readings/links will be posted for each week. Students should feel free to post additional links, comments, blog entries for discussion).

April 2: Introduction: What is(n't) Google?

April 9: The Ultimate Search: Ambitions / Ideals / Limitations

April 16: No class (note: Our last day of class will be two hours)

April 23: Google as the Borg/the Matrix/Hal 9000? -- Putting Google on Trial

April 30: Google and the Global Economy: Advertising as the Tie that Binds

May 7: Local Search, Location, and Real-time Awareness: Android for all!

May 14: Google and Web 2.0

May 21: The Geo-spatial Web: Google Maps and Google Earth

May 28: Beyond Driving Directions: Everything is Mappable!

June 4: GOOGLE CLASS SYMPOSIUM (2 hours) -- open to all

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APRIL 2 and 9th: What is Google? What isn't Google? What can you do with Google? What can't you do with Google?

Assignment #1:

READ ABOUT GOOGLE: www.google.com/corporate

Learn about the history of the company, its philosophy, technologies, principles, etc.

Compare the company self-representation to the representation of Google as "evil" (such as in the following video):

all that is solid melts into google from Peter Woodbridge on Vimeo

* What does the video creator mean that "all that is solid melts into google"?
* Is this a fair representation of Google?
* Is Google's own self-representation fair?
* Should we fear Google or be grateful to Google?