Google changes the Web (The Googlization of Everything)

The cost of First Click Free October 20, 2008
The web you see when you go through Google's search engine is no longer the web you see when you don't go through Google's search engine.

In a note on my previous post, The Centripetal Web, Seth Finkelstein points to Philipp Lenssen's discussion of a new Google service, called First Click Free, that the company formally unveiled on Friday. First Click Free allows publishers that restrict access to their sites (to paying or registered customers) to give privileged access to visitors who arrive via a Google search. In essence, if you click on a Google search result you'll see the entire page of content (your first click is free) and you will only come up against the pay wall or registration screen if you try to look at a second page on the site. ...

Is this as big a deal as I think it is?

Filed under: All the World's Information
Posted by Siva Vaidhyanathan, October 21, 2008 7:19 PM

Comments (1)

Joris van Hoboken on October 22, 2008 12:57 AM:

Manual pingback:

I have attempted to partly answer the question you ask on my blog:
http://www.jorisvanhoboken.nl/?p=206

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Siva Vaidhyanathan

This blog, the result of a collaboration between myself and the Institute for the Future of the Book, is dedicated to exploring the process of writing a critical interpretation of the actions and intentions behind the cultural behemoth that is Google, Inc. The book will answer three key questions: What does the world look like through the lens of Google?; How is Google's ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of knowledge?; and how has the corporation altered the rules and practices that govern other companies, institutions, and states? [more]

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