Products are Relationships… A Rant... Appeal...

I read an article today that stated some things I have been thinking about for quite some time, but haven’t had the opportunity to actually sum up for myself.  Google Is Facebook Is AOL: What Happens When a Good Google Goes Bad.  


It is not strange to anyone who converses with me about Google that I have a love/hate relationship with “them”. 
 

I first came to love Google because of their amazing and pure search engine.  What research/information addict would not fall in love with Google?  They gave me results from all over the planet in seconds.  They gave me the opportunity to find new things/ideas/thoughts/puzzles/places/information/etc.  They expanded my horizons, broadened my views, heck… let’s go with it, they were helping me to do what Star Trek inspired me to do….

 

Then... they developed, and gave me without consent, the +1…  For quite some time, due to my schedule and my ignorance, this “feature” has been in place and it is making my search queries deliver the same information over and over again… This is what I would call search purgatory… bordering on the theme of the movie Groundhog Day .

As a research enthusiast, and an information junkie, I do not want to search for things I already have information on… I want what is new, what is cutting edge, what is taking a front seat… I want pure search.  This +1 thing is making it all about me.

Maybe Google thinks that the success of “social networking” is based solely on people who are so into themselves that they take pics of themselves and try to make it look like someone else took them.    I would understand that "snap judgement"  , I make those myself - sometimes - until I get to know the person in the photo. 

 

I bring up the “social networking” segment because I considered Google Plus, but reconsidered very quickly when I saw what I did on the page to sign up… another +1 thing… I don’t want to share my searches, they are random, they are sometimes silly, they are sometimes my personal thoughts, they belong to “me”.

I signed the SOPA  petition through Google’s home page, only to realize they want to take away my privacy… again.

My point of this blog is to say to Google...  that I love what you did; when you did it to me right… but now you seem to be seeking to take from me what I hold dearest to my heart… my privacy.  I want a way to not have to give any more of that away without my permission.  I want you to go back a bit to your roots… don’t pull the plug on where you are going… just remember your own mission statements.  Put me first, my rights, my privacy, my research, my searches, me…

As in any relationship, it takes 2.  And each one needs to hold the other one above itself to be successful. 

I want out of +1, and I don’t want to have to ask for it.  

I don’t need to “search” for things I already know… unless I desire to do so… and/or I need/want a reminder.

I want to keep my privacy… decide who can “see” any part of me… decide what I “share” with anyone… In real life, I share “real” things with so few people I can count them on one hand or less, don’t try to force me to do that with others, don’t try to give others info that will make them think things about me, make snap judgments about me, when they don’t even know me…

Work with me, work for me… I know who I am… do you still really know who you are?