March 3, 2006

Prediction: By 2011 Google Won’t Exist

Filed under: — Administrator @ 2:47 pm

I’m going out on a limb here but this comment got me thinking about the excesses of the Dot Com Era and today’s Google. For those who weren’t paying attention 7 years ago, simply read articles about Google today and you can relive the era when Pets.com, Value America and WebVan were set to change the way we lived and did business.

It didn’t happen then and I don’t see how it’s going to happen now.

Since I DO plan to be around in 5 years, let’s make it as air-tight a prediction as possible.

1. I believe that Google will fail as a company because it will face increased competition in it’s main revenue stream - the Adsense ad server - and it will have to spend serious cash in order to buy access to other revenue streams. While stock buyouts may be used to do this, I believe that those with the best prospects will require cash.

2. Most markets are already saturated with competition. Google will have to either find a completely new market or compete against others. So far it has shown little aptitude for competition - unlike Microsoft which is a true hypercompetitor.

3. Google may be weakened over the next five years to the point that it is purchased by another firm. While Google may still continue to exist, it will not exist in the form predicted by those who view it as unstoppable in the year 2006.

So there, I’m on record. And if I had shorted it’s stock three weeks ago I’d already have enough cash to celebrate this prediction in style. But I didn’t so waaah.

White Supremacist Keeps Job On UD Campus

Filed under: — Administrator @ 10:26 am

The University of Delaware is all atwitter over learning that one of its own - a physics research assistant and instructor - is an active member of a white supremacist metal band. There have been several stories (I count at least eight) in the local News Journal in an attempt to publicly shame the university into firing the instructor - but so far UD president David Roselle refuses to cave in to the pressure.

In what I can only describe as bizarre, some self-appointed “black community leaders” have now called for the university to provide “separate but equal” classes for those who “do not feel comfortable” with the instructor.

That’s right: 114 years after the Plessy v Ferguson decision, a court decision that several generations of black leaders including Martin Luther King jr himself rightly viewed as subjugating blacks to the white power structure, the current “black community leaders” are calling for it back.

What’s next? Separate water fountains and bath rooms? After all, if minorities are uncomfortable with a Nazi Punk in class, what if they should run into him in a restroom?

Of course the concept could be extended further. Women who feel uncomfortable around men should be allowed to take classes taught by women. And should they feel the need to pray, they should be allowed separate space at the local mosque. And since an unveiled female face can elicit uncontrollable impulses from men, women should be forced to wear burkas to prevent them from exciting men and making them “uncomfortable”.

It’s a slippery slope, so thankfully UD has a president who understands that tolerance means feeling uncomfortable - alot. I just received my lunch from a women wearing a head scarf. It made me feel uncomfortable but so what? I still smiled at her and thanked her for her service.

Tolerance isn’t easy. Tolerance is a wool shirt that you wear because without it it’s every man/ideology/creed for himself and only the most powerful will survive. Tolerance is a two-way street. I’ll tolerate you if and only if you tolerate me. Once that street goes one way, all bets are off and it’s war.

And anyone who thinks that I’m a right winger with racist sympathies should read this first.

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