W6 Exercise: 3 e-commerce websites

The definition of e-commerce: buying or selling products or services online.

There are three websites matching the definition:


http://www.southwest.com/

http://www.ebay.com/

heep://www.alibaba.com/

Book review (Win. 2007)

Book Title: Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge
--A View from Europe
Author: Jean-Noël Jeanneney ; translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan.
Publish Information: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Summary

The statement “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information.” is on Google’s Corporate information page. Since 1997, Google has been becoming the most powerful online search engine and currently handling 75 percent of online requests in many countries. The author, Jean-Noël Jeanneney is worried about the cultural heritage and provoked serious international debates regarding to the global digitalization in literatures, publications and other documents. If Google makes its claim true, the universal knowledge can be accessible and utilized. Otherwise, for the purpose of diverse culture development, that will probably become another kind of imbalance.

For instance, the language is based on “American” English. Or the other situation could be up to the weight if advertising on Google’s search engine. If an engine driven only by profit motive, the results of the search might be different and it is also according to the auction sold to companies. Likewise, if we apply the same system to the digitalization of books that Google is working on (Google Book Search), that will lead the public property to commercial use.

Besides, the author mentioned another concern that librarians and booksellers worry. That is they are anxious for their possible disappearance on account of the new technologies. Mr. Jeanneney pointed out that librarians and booksellers are especially qualified to provide all sorts of newly discovered connections and help to enhance the profusion of knowledge.

From his perspective, European should be prodded to develop their own search engines for preserving the cultures and face the challenge of globalization that the World Wide Web brought. At least, they should keep an eye on the market: try to avoid injustice and monopolies. In addition to the economy and culture concerns, back to the authors’ points of view, will their copyrights be protected and not affect their intents to write? As a consequence, how the giant search engine takes it into consideration plays an important role in the close future.

In the end of this book, the author concluded that Google’s prosperity is not merely related to a better digital library for the more convenient access to knowledge, but to help us to think about the imbalance in the production and dissemination of information. Furthermore, Mr. Jeanneney thinks that we should pay more attention to find out the new ways of cross-cultural influences, representations and stereotypes in the information society.

Discussion

According to the content of this book, there are two issues to be discussed more.

Different Market Concept:

At the beginning of this book, the author proposed the statement that Adam Smith, famous eighteenth century British economist and the inventor of the theory of the “invisible hand.” In accordance with Smith, as we know, he thinks the sum total of self-interested actions of individuals and businesses is destined and according to a strange and improbable alchemy, the market will spontaneously create the best of all possible worlds. However, in Europe, they hold the different point of view: the market is not above the nation and the state. Thus everyone should pay attention to the market.

In my opinion, in online industry, it is hard to regulate the development of one dominant company like Google even though we have had the Anti-Trust Act. Laws can help to protect the small companies that just enter the industry. Nevertheless, in this case I think the fundamental element is to meet the users’ needs. Google takes efforts in making impossibilities possible such as Google scholar or patent search. It is unfair to judge it because its market share is higher than Ask.com or yahoo.com.

Therefore, the best way is to keep encouraging new competitors into the market. And try to differentiate their services from others. What is more, the disadvantage of the monopoly market is the inefficiency and ignoring the bottom-up ideas. So far, Google is still on the track and working on how to reconstruct the media landscape.

Last, Google is still the private organization and profit-driven. The way they put the commercial links and advertisements still makes not neutrality for users. Thus, how to balance the information and draw the lines are very important.

2. Culture Imperialism:

This book is definitely from the view of Europe as the title shown. As the developed countries like French and German the same as the United of States, it is not hard to imagine that the powerful America search engine will cause the anxiety especially to the intellects. The more people adopt Google, the less cultural influence will exist based on the universal language “America English.” Besides, as anyone who uses Google knows, what is intrinsic to all the information it provides is hierarchy. Even if there are many pages of results, the research rarely goes beyond the first few. That is against the neutral of information. You never know what kind of database or sources are included or lacked. That could be the problem, yet that is also a problem of globalization.

As an outsider of those two areas, I can understand why the author arise the topic and how he felt about the diverse cultures. That does not mean Google or globalization is wrong. In other words, to respect and preserve different cultures is more important in the global village.

Conclusion
I recommend this book not because it mentions the pop issue “Google”, but the broader thinking in observing the commercial and cultural impulses. The book gives you the whole picture of Google and the concurrent development in another country or region. But if the author could show the constructive timeline and some numbers, the book will be understood better.