Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Specious Reasoning as Journalism
by Ken Houghton
Now, don't get me wrong. Charles Platt has been making this argument for over a decade. But Robert Cryan and Jeff Segal resort to a strange argument to "make" their point:
What else happened in the past year? GMail became available to anyone, not just people who were recommended to the service.
What should be amazing is if GMail only doubled in the past year. If it was already reaching 50% of its near-term potential audience before "going public," then there is good reason that Google now depends primarily on non-US sources for its revenue.
Via Infectious Greed, Breaking Views argues that privacy is dead.
Now, don't get me wrong. Charles Platt has been making this argument for over a decade. But Robert Cryan and Jeff Segal resort to a strange argument to "make" their point:
Just look at Google's free e-mail service, Gmail. Google mines messages so that it can insert context-related advertising. Just a few years ago, this seemed like an outrageous incursion into privacy. Now, Gmail is common, and the number of accounts doubled in the past year. [emphasis mine]
What else happened in the past year? GMail became available to anyone, not just people who were recommended to the service.
What should be amazing is if GMail only doubled in the past year. If it was already reaching 50% of its near-term potential audience before "going public," then there is good reason that Google now depends primarily on non-US sources for its revenue.
Labels: Journamalism, technology
