"The Smashing Pumpkins were a once relevant band"

[CrabbMan]

Sorry to waste your time, but this made me chuckle.

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive...es_narrow.aspx

Speaker details Google's narrow focus
By Elizabeth Murphy Email
Collegian Staff Writer

When searching for the word "Siva" in the Google search engine, Internet users are more likely to find a link to a YouTube video of The Smashing Pumpkins than information on the god that more than one billion Hindus worship worldwide.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia, pointed this out in his speech, "The Googlization of Everything," Friday morning to a near-capacity audience in the Foster Auditorium. The University Libraries Colloquia Committee sponsored Vaidhyanathan's speech.

Vaidhyanathan displayed a screenshot of the results showing that The Smashing Pumpkin's 1991 music video for "Siva" tops information Web sites on the Hindu god of the same name.

"The Smashing Pumpkins were a once relevant band from Chicago," Siva Vaidhyanathan said. "There are a billion Hindus ... You would think that would be the most important thing. This gives us some indication that the Google universe does not map to the rest of the world."

Vaidhyanathan spoke to more than 100 people about Google's infiltration into the lives of the people of the world.

"Google actually has a pretty profound and perhaps disturbing role in what we consider to be valuable, true and important," he said.

Vaidhyanathan said Google users are not the consumers of Google products, they are the product.

"Millions, perhaps billions, of people use Google everyday. We are not Google's consumers; we are Google's products. The advertisers are the consumers," Vaidhyanathan said.

Google collects detailed records and information on its users, Vaidhyanathan said.

"Google knows everything about many of us and a lot about almost all of us. Google knows your interests, your passions, maybe your fetishes," he said.

Vaidhyanathan said one of his biggest gripes with the company is its lacking universality. He said he would like to see 12 year olds in South Africa have the same accessibility to the rich array of resources provided by Google that any of his privileged students at the University of Virginia have.

"We are probably not getting the best of all possible results, the global results," he said. "... If we consider the function of the Web to be a source of information about the world, it may not be ideal."

Vaidhyanathan pointed to Google's official mission statement: "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible."

"It's a stunning mission statement for any company," he said. "But it's the universality we have to question. How universal is Google? We know it doesn't work exactly the same way in China."

Vaidhyanathan said many people are angered by the establishment of Google in China, where the government censors the Internet. He displayed a photo, which he said he does not endorse, of two men holding signs reading, "Goolag: exporting censorship, one search at a time."

"It is indicative of a growing sense of unease about the concentration of power that Google has in the world," he said.

[skipgo]

he's right.

[Ol' Couch Ass]

Yeah pretty hard to argue with that.

[davin]

this guy may have a point about google....but lets be honest....localizing them to chicago and saying they were once relevant was just a way of driving home his argument even further. it seems like a bigger trajevesty that way......vs. saying "world renowned rock band currently on tour with a new album".

its just his way of belittling the SP reference even more. because, lets be honest again, if more people were interested in Siva the god vs. Siva the song, those links would move up in the Google search results. this is true of people using google, at least.

[Caine Walker]

a true trajevesty.

[smashing0]

isn't the god usually spelled Shiva?

[Deadeyes]

Really did waste my time reading that. Thanks

[topleybird]

Sounds like he's just jealous he isn't the top Google result

[Eulogy]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...va&btnG=Search

yeah that guy is a fuck

[bja1288]

Originally Posted by smashing0

isn't the god usually spelled Shiva?

either way works according to my professor

[arCHI]

davin speaks the truth. isnt the google hierarchy based on # of hits or something? i mean who goes on google to learn about god anyway?

[SlingeroGuitaro]

relevant to what?

[Dajjal]

I guess all the IT and call center people we outsource our jobs to don't spend a lot of time on Google.

[Floppy Nono]

um, when i google shiva all i get on the first page are sits about Hinduism. Does something about the pumpkins show up for you guys?


edit: oh nevermind i now see eulogy has pointed this out. What the fuck? This guy must be a huge dick who googled his name and cried when the pumpkins came up over himself

[CrabbMan]

My goal in life is that when you google my name, the Smashing Pumpkins come up. As it is, ten years after graduation I had a guy say to me, hey you're that guy from high school that always wore smashing pumpkins shirts.
I'm on my way.

[Gish08]

Oh give me a fucking break. It's at the top of the results for a reason you douchebag. Get over it.

[dzhezus]

Floppy Nono is correct, i saw another article about it somewhere and tested it myself. The usual transliteration for the Hindu God is sHiva, and the pumpkins song is Siva. He's a douchebag with a book coming out, has to find some kinda controversy. Too bad some simple fact-checking destroys his thesis.

[???]

has this guy taken into account that a) most of those billion hindus, at least the ones living in india, cannot afford the internet to use google in the first place and b)hindus have hundreds of gods other than siva to look up.

guy needs to quit whining

[tcm]

???: the hindus would have no need to look up their own gods so like there goes your whole point whoosh out the window good bye for ever.

[june_soma]

Originally Posted by CrabbMan

My goal in life is that when you google my name, the Smashing Pumpkins come up. As it is, ten years after graduation I had a guy say to me, hey you're that guy from high school that always wore smashing pumpkins shirts.
I'm on my way.

Actually, I have a friend who does this for a living. Helping companies to get higher up on the google search. Like when people search for different authors, he takes money from online bookstores to make sure they come up high so people are more likely to click on their link to buy the book. Don't ask me how he does it, but he has his ways. A very lucrative business btw.

As a joke he ensured that when every time someone here in Norway searched for Kiss (as in the band) his friends homepage came up top. The friend is a huge Kiss-fan. He had to change it though, cause Kiss Army Norway started to send the guy alot of hate mail for some reason.

So it is possible.

[Floppy Nono]

yeah like how when you google (Edit: i forgot the word), george bush comes up

[???]

Originally Posted by june_soma

As a joke he ensured that when every time someone here in Norway searched for Kiss (as in the band) his friends homepage came up top. The friend is a huge Kiss-fan. He had to change it though, cause Kiss Army Norway started to send the guy alot of hate mail for some reason.

haha

[wilch]

is hindu a popular indian alternative band or something?

[Revol]

Music is never irrelevant. It's a completely pretentious thing to say, you listen to music you like, it makes you feel good, it doesn't have to be compared in relation to other factors. Even if it's making a political statement towards a past situation, thats still a documentation of history, and if it's just plain good music, the lyrical content doesn't matter.

[stripes]

Yeah yeah, we hate the Smashing Pumpkins, too. Get over it!

[RenewRevive]

Originally Posted by ???

b)hindus have hundreds of gods other than siva to look up.

i think hindu gods number in the millions, wherein lies the problem. if they focused on one all-powerful being maybe they would rank higher on google.

[Pizza Club]

His name is Siva? Wouldn't that be like naming your kid God McJesusson?

[davin]

i've worked with serveral people, mostly all IT contractors, named Siva. so far they're all douches.

[topleybird]

If your last name is already McJesusson I say go for broke, man

[davin]

lol.