The Googlization of Everything

I Want Media:

David Eun: Google Won't Become a Media Company

The head of Google's content partnerships insists that the Internet behemoth won't be a competitor to traditional media. Producing content is "not our business," he says. "Journalists, news bureaus -- that's not what we do."

... IWM: What are the biggest misconceptions potential media partners have about Google?

Eun: The biggest misconception is that they fear Google has aspirations to become a media company, meaning that we would produce and own content that would compete against theirs. That's a major misconception. We don't produce or own content. In fact, we see ourselves as a platform for our partners that do.

The second misconception is that there are some folks who are concerned that we might take their content and do things with it that are not acceptable or legal. Again, that's not correct. We only work with content in a way that is productive and helpful to our partners.

When we talk about Google Book Search, there are still publishers who think that we're scanning books and putting entire copies online, whether the publisher wants it or not. And that is not at all true. What we do is we scan books so that they're searchable, and then reveal only a small group of words around a search term like you do on a regular Web search.

For one reason or another, there is still disinformation and misperception out there. We're trying to correct it. ...