Google's Own Second Life?Today The Arizona Republic notes an interesting rumor: Google is reportedly working to create a virtual world that will rival Second Life, and the company may be testing the project at Arizona State University.
So far, details are scant. But the university is now soliciting students with video-gaming experience for an unspecified software-testing project. And since the questionnaire Arizona State is sending to student applicants asks if they have Gmail accounts, speculation is rampant.
Tech bloggers and Arizona State students might be excited about the project, but skeptics are already lining up: The Motley Fool has weighed in with a column titled "Don't Do It, Google." -- Brock Read
Does anybody out there have any other examples of Google contracting with universities (beyond the library scanning thing)? I am interested in the evolving relationships here. I am most interested in whether universities -- which have strong privacy policies and shun internal non-disclosure agreements -- cut deals with a company that has almost no privacy policy and enforces strong NDAs internally and in contracts.
RSS Feed
Comments (2)
How about this?
It involves no binding contract, but I thought it might be worthwhile to point you in the direction of "The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools," a/k/a The Calhoun Report. It's a Library of Congress-sponsored study that argues that online library catalogs should be more like Google, because that's what users are familiar with and that (if I can be reductive for a moment) librarians should let go of their fussy attachment to detail and the ability to locate exactly what a patron requires. It's gripping reading, really.
The Calhoun Report generated some controversy among librarians. Cataloging can be a great finding tool, emphasizing precision over sheer numbers of hits. Google users are often looking for just enough information, what they call "satisficing," rather than a complete and thorough retrieval set. "Satisficing" may sell, but it isn't what librarians want to provide. So we're fussy, I guess.