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Nick misrepresents the original paper. Nick writes: > they introduced Google to the world, they warned that if the search engine were ever to leave the “acade
by chewxy 7y ago
Nick misrepresents the original paper.
Nick writes:
> they introduced Google to the world, they warned that if the search engine were ever to leave the “academic realm” and become a business, it would inevitably be corrupted. It would become “a black art” and “be advertising oriented.”
This is verbatim from the original paper:
> Aside from tremendous growth, the Web has also become increasingly commercial over time. In 1993, 1.5% of Web servers were on .com domains. This number grew to over 60% in 1997. At the same time, search engines have migrated from the academic domain to the commercial. Up until now most search
engine development has gone on at companies with little publication of technical details. This causes search engine technology to remain largely a black art and to be advertising oriented (see Appendix A in the full version). With Google, we have a strong goal to push more development and understanding
into the academic realm.
The meaning is not even close to what Nick suggests!
- rrss 7y agoI don't agree. When that paper was written, "Google" referred to an academic research project, not a company. Page and Brin indicate that because other search engines were developed at corporations, they were "largely a black art" and advertising oriented. Since Google has become a company, and is no longer a research project in the academic realm, it has become a black art and advertising oriented, just as Page and Brin said happened to search engines developed at corporations.
- extempore 7y agoThe phrase “black art” in the paper refers to a technical challenge which only experts can tame, via methods which aren’t widely known. It has zero to do with ‘black arts” in the sense of witchcraft. The blog post drifts between these meanings, possibly with poetic intention.
- bsanr2 7y agoPerhaps the use of "black art" rather than "technical challenge which only experts can tame" in the paper implies poetic intention on their own part?
- thu2111 7y agoIn fairness, Google has published a lot of academic papers on cutting edge research topics over the years. If you wanted to build a search engine today, you'd be starting from tech they pioneered, described in well written, peer reviewed and published papers.