Large Wide
Large Wide The Gmatrix Has You: Google’s Brilliant Conspiracy to Dominate the World Wide Web Google's mission, according to its corporate web site, is "to organize the world's information and make ...
Large Wide
The Gmatrix Has You: Google’s Brilliant Conspiracy to Dominate the World Wide Web
Google's mission, according to its corporate web site, is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."[1]. This may be their purpose, but they are financing this goal by dominating the long tail of the world wide web. Through its network of web properties, web applications and services, Google is brilliantly plotting to virtually own your online eye-time.
In a span of only 10 years, Google has grown from the graduate-level computer science project of Larry Page and Sergey Brin into the most valuable and pervasive network of properties and technologies on the world wide web.
Google's properties include Google Search, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Code, Google Apps Partner Edition, iGoogle, Google Sites, YouTube, Maps, News, Shopping Groups, Books, Scholar, Finance, Blogger and too many others to list. There is scarcely a web site that Google does not touch in some way, whether it be via AdWords, AdSense, Analytics or Search.
Additionally, through the acquisition of technologies such as Urchin (now Google Analytics) and DoubleClick, Google is able to study how web users spend their time online, and position relevant advertising alongside nearly every piece of information that travels across the world wide web.
Google is also greatly extending its reach by offering a re-brandable version of Google Apps to Internet Service Providers, businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organizations. This strategic move allows Google to to expand its empire by offering improved infrastructure to the barbarians like the Romans did two thousand years ago.
Six Degrees of Google
In his book "Linked"[2], Albert-László Barabási explores the ideas of Graph Theory as they apply to various types of networks. An example of Graph Theory at work is the popular game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in which a player picks any random or obscure actor and another tries to connect them to Kevin Bacon is 6 links or less. Barabási explains, using Graph Theory, that there is nothing particularly unusual about Kevin Bacon's position in Hollywood circles. In fact all entities or nodes in a given network are connected to all others by an astonishingly small number of links. For instance, Barabási found that every web page is connected to every other one of the billions of pages on the world wide web by an average of only 19 links or degrees of separation.
The close connection between all nodes in a graph, as Barabási explains, is possible due to what are known as Super Nodes[2], or nodes that have a very large number of links to other nodes. Super Nodes, within any graph, are the most important nodes because they connect all the others and shorten the distance between any two smaller nodes. This concept is exactly what Larry Page stumbled upon when he created the idea of PageRank[3]. Web pages or web sites with the most links are the super nodes of the world wide web. Google is arguably the largest of the super nodes on the world wide web. If the world wide web has a center, it is likely to be Google.
Google has discovered, however, that it can extend beyond being a super node to which all other nodes connect. By disseminating itself in the form of Analytics, AdSense, and AdWords, it can become part of every other node.
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin were negotiating with Wall Street underwriters to take Google public, there were many business experts who could not understand how their business model made money - or sense for that matter.[1] These experts, if you will pardon the pun, were rather short-sighted and missed the fact that Google is able to make money by what is known as the long tail, or selling a large number of items in small quantities.
In his book titled The Long Tail[4], Chris Anderson explains how a study of music downloads on Rhapsody demonstrates the long tail phenomenon. Mr. Anderson found that though the blockbuster hits, which account for 20% of music titles, may enjoy millions of downloads, the remianing 80% of titles or non-hits, when added together, account for a much larger volume of online music sales.
Google has masterfully positioned itself, through its vast network of online properties and tools and extensive reach, to capitalize on the long tail by earning a few pennies from the mouse clicks of billions of web users. The long tail applies to Google's model because each text ad may only be clicked a few times, but there are many millions of ads and many billions of clicks.
All roads, as the saying goes, may lead to Rome, but on the world wide web, all nodes - and mouse clicks - lead to Google.
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1. http://www.google.com/corporate/
2. Barabási, Albert-László. 2003. "Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life." New York: Plume.
3. Vise, David A., and Mark Malseed. The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and Technology Success of Our Time. Paperback ed. Dell Pub., 2006.
4. Anderson, Chris (2006). The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0237-8.
About the Author
Scott Lewis is web developer in Richmond, Virginia and the creator of the SkyBlueCanvas Lightweight CMS. Scott has 12 years of experience in web design and development and is a member of the WYMeditor Semantic XHTML open source editor development team.
Wide Width Shoes For People With Wide Feet
If you want to buy a new pair of shoes, you would imagine that’s something quite easy to do. You would expect to find shoes of all sizes, designs, and materials. But, when it comes to wide shoes, is that really so?
Most of the manufacturers make shoes of sizes and shapes that meet the requirements of a majority of persons. But even if there is a sizeable majority, there is always a minority. About two-thirds of all people have medium width feet, while one-third have wide feet.
Those people whose feet are wider than average will find them at a disadvantage. Regular width available shoes will not fit them correctly and in no time, the person will realize how uncomfortable the shoes are. Walking and even standing in them will be a major problem. Even if one is prepared to undergo the pain and discomfort, the shoe itself will give way. It will be torn at the place where the foot exerts pressure due to the foot’s wide width. The person will undergo torture and then ruin the shoe.
Does the remedy lie in having custom-made wide width shoes? If a person decides to follow this course, she or he will realize how hurtful it is to the wallet. Custom made wide width shoes may well be unaffordable for a substantial number of persons and do not always work as well as you would expect. Often times the styling is very unattractive as well.
The manufacturers have figured out that even this minority is sufficiently large enough to produce a very nice range of wide width products. If they cater to the special need for wide width shoes, they will have a sizeable market. Persons with wide feet need not worry. They do not have to undergo the torture of wearing ill-fitting shoes, or have to spend a fortune to have custom wide width shoes made.
You can find information on a wide variety of wide width shoes for Men and Women at www.daveswideshoes.com
Therefore, if you have wide feet, you can relax and go online and find a great alternative that will ensure that your feet feel comfortable, healthy and relaxed as well.
About the Author
Richard Johnson has worked in the retail shoe industry for 25 years. He has specialized in sales of wide width shoes and other health and wellness products that focus on footwear comfort. You can get more information on a wide range of extra wide shoes and foot comfort items at www.daveswideshoes.com.