Results for articles with tag 'carr' (2 total)
01/11/2009 07:16:45 PM 
Apparently some researcher has found that two searches on Google are the energy equivalent of boiling a kettle for a cup of tea. While Carr questions the validity of the data behind this research, he raises the issue of the lack of general questioning and discussion that surrounds the energy use of mobile devices and the internet.
While Carr certainly has a point and calls out all the new media advocates who suggest web-based media is more environmentally efficient than old media.
However, I think this is the tip of the iceberg, forget the internet, nobody is really questioning any purchase and action on environmental grounds. We simply aren't there yet on most things perhaps with the exception of some household appliances and cars, we aren't really interested, knowledgeable or aware of the environmental cost of anything we buy or do.
Life goes on with scant attention to such things. Carbon credits have yet to take off in the United States and there's very little transparency as to the real environmental costs of anything we buy or use. Most beer drinkers couldn't tell you the difference in the environmental impact between a domestic brew and one brewed in Europe for example and nor do they care.
Carr slams Google in his post and make a very interesting point about the company's serious conflict of interest; encouraging prolific use of the web at any place and at any time and the company's mission to do no evil, but Google is just one of thousands of companies who unwittingly and perhaps unknowingly are partaking in and encouraging the inefficient consumption of energy.
Posted by Ed Cotton
09/08/2008 09:35:25 PM
Most see this as a failure and call the giant company a "one trick pony", an organization that has an inability to have a "second hit."
However, leave it Nick Carr to set the record straight with some smart thinking on why they are doing this and explaining how, in essence, Google can't not be measured or compared with other companies or other strategies because of it's scale and power.
It comes close to controlling the internet, so finding more cheap/free/affordable ways for people to use it, is the company's strategy.
"Because the marginal cost of producing and distributing a new copy of a purely digital product is close to zero, Google not only has the desire to give away informational products; it has the economic leeway to actually do it. Those two facts — the vast breadth of Google’s complements, and the company’s ability to push the price of those complements toward zero — are what really set the company apart from other firms. Google faces far less risk in product development than the usual business does. It routinely introduces half-finished products and services as online “betas” because it knows that, even if the offerings fail to win a big share of the market, they will still tend to produce attractive returns by generating advertising revenue and producing valuable data on customer behavior. For most companies, a failed launch of a new product is very costly. For Google, in general, it’s not. Failure is cheap."
Nick Carr- The Omnigoogle
Posted by Ed Cotton
Articles for tag carr (2 total).