GoogleGuy Says Stop
GoogleGuy has requested that I stop posting his comments on this site.
This site will continue (more info below).
I started this site about 11 months ago, to provide an easy and convenient way for people to hear comments made by an anonymous Google employee, known as GoogleGuy. GoogleGuy was posting useful information in a very busy discussion forum. At times, his comments were the only valuable ones to read, and I found myself scrolling endlessly trying to locate his comments. The search tool provided on the forums was extremely poor, not helpful at all for located the comments of a particular member. I thought about recording them privately for future reference, but I realized that others were likely in the same position as me. So I decided to post them publicly, so others could benefit. It turns out that I was right, as thousands of people from around the world began to use the site as resource for Google information.
The owner of the forums was not happy with this site. He made a number changes to the forum site to make it difficult for me. In doing so, he also made it even more difficult for forum members to find GoogleGuy's comments in the forums. Of course, these ill-advised tactics made this site the only reasonable way to locate GoogleGuy's comments, and the traffic to this site increased significantly (Thanks, Brett! :)) To this date, I don't understand why he view this site as a threat -- it provided links and traffic, enhancing the poor search and filtering features of the forums.
From the beginning, I said that I would stop if GoogleGuy made such a request. Though he certainly learned of this site days after it was launched, he did not make any reference to it in his comments, nor did I ever receive an communication directly from him or indirectly from any of his colleagues at Google. For 11 months and over 1,000 forum posts, GoogleGuy said nothing about this site. Based on this silence, I assumed he was okay with me providing an easy way for people to learn hear comments about Google. About a week ago, in a thread about "Google Under Siege", that changed. Suddenly, GoogleGuy requested that I stop posting his comments to this site. So I will live up to my word, and the format of this will change.
Why GoogleGuy suddenly make this request after 11 months and 1,000 posts? He didn't explain the reason. All I can offer is pure speculation, which may be "way off the mark", perhaps:
-my commentary was too critical of Google?
-the current pressure on Google (relating to privacy concerns) is a factor?
-he wants to silence me prior to the Google IPO
I really don't know, but he did sound "annoyed". Feel free to add you own speculation in the discussion for this entry.
If GoogleGuy changes his mind - and I hope that he does - I will begin to post his comments here again. Perhaps he was just frustrated when he posted his request. Perhaps he will decide that easier access to his comments is a good thing for Webmasters and Google alike. If you would like GoogleGuy to reconsider, please voice your opinion in the discussion for this entry, on your own sites, blogs, etc. You can also try posting your opinions in the WMW forums, but you are likely to be censored if you do.
I will continue to report and comment on significant comments made by GoogleGuy. I will not include entire posts verbatim, but I may quote a few sentences here and there. This will actually improve this site, by focusing only the seemingly significant (or controversial) statements made by GoogleGuy. In short the new format is "more commentary, less quote". As I have always said in the past, my commentary is my own opinion, which some may disagree with. Going forward, I may continue to be "way off the mark" at times, and I encourage open discussion and debate as always. This format will likely take 2 forms:
1) A Weekly Report - summarizing signifcant comments each week
2) Short Articles - focusing on particularly notable comments
As always, I appreciate any and all feedback. What direction do you think this site should take? What features would you like to see?
said at 4:33 PM (utc-5) | TrackBack (2)Join the discussion:
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| 94 | 05/04/07 12:02 EDT | ikarus: I stopped all fridays ...
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