A Google hijack or useful engagement

A colleague brought this morning’s Guardian to my attention and a story called “From Google to Gaggle”. The Guardian reported on one of Google’s experiments on the format of their news results. Google run many trials, but this one allows the subjects of a story appearing in Google news a “right of reply”.

Surely nobody would think this action is a bad idea – it will introduce balance, get alternative viewpoints, flesh out superficial quotes, etc? The latter strikes a chord with me as I can recall many occasions when a 15 minute interview with a journalist has led to two sentences completely out of context.

Well, would you believe it, some folks believe Google is attempting to hi-jack and own entire online conversations and all the space / media around it.. This comment was made by Mike Butcher, editor of MediaBites who as I’ve never met can’t really comment directly on his opinion.

I have met many journalists, media types, who appear to hold similar beliefs, in that they believe they have an intrinsic right to their copy, nobody else is allowed to hold an alternative view, comment on it, let alone have that view get equal public billing with the original story. It’s almost as if they are scared of criticism or good old fashioned open debate.

Google want to be useful to their network and enriching a news item by inviting comment is useful.

I think this criticism is a little unfair. Google don’t always get their experiments right, but in this case more viewpoints is more value.