Lost in the discussion about Google changing its algorithm to defeat ‘googlebombs’, is that it marks a turning point for the search engine – pointing away from a service that that trumpeted democratic means to determine relevancy of links in search results.

Web 2.0 proponents believe that algorithms, when used to achieve such aims, are somehow different then human editors.

They certainly scale better. But goals can be very much the same.

Instead of letting the web inform Google what *it* wants, Google has started to second guess the web. Maybe it has all along and PageRank was nothing more then a marketing message. I don’t think so. I think what we’re seeing here is a passing to be mourned.

Nick Carr puts it clearly in his Guardian piece:

…One of the company’s top engineers, Matt Cutts, explained the move on a Google blog: “Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven’t been a very high priority for us. But over time, we’ve seen more people assume that they are Google’s opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That’s not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception.” (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)

The company is allowing concerns about its public image to influence the search results it dishes up. The upshot in this case may be salubrious, but what kind of precedent is being set here?

And, perhaps more important, what does it tell us about what’s inside the Google black box that determines how most of us find information on the web most of the time?

Three years ago, when Google was first asked about Googlebombing, it gave the corporate equivalent of a shrug. It’s not our problem, the company’s technology director, Craig Silverstein, told the New York Times. “We just reflect the opinion on the Web, for better or worse.”

The implication was that Google’s search engine was a passive feedback mechanism that reported the public’s wisdom – or stupidity – back to the public. Reflecting all the strengths and flaws of democracy, it was the people’s machine. Google itself had little control over it. (nytimes.com)

The perception of Google as an honest broker, disinterested in the information it presents, remains a popular one. We like to believe that “we the people” control what comes out of Google’s mouth.

But while that may have been true once, and while it was in fact one of the company’s founding ideals, it’s not so true any more.

Not so long ago, technology pundits marveled at how Google enabled a group of bloggers to influence the meaning of the words ‘Second Superpower’:

…Although it took millions of people around the world to compel the Gray Lady to describe the anti-war movement as a “Second Superpower”, it took only a handful of webloggers to spin the alternative meaning to manufacture sufficient PageRank™ to flood Google with Moore’s alternative, neutered definition.

Indeed, if you were wearing your Google-goggles, and the search engine was your primary view of the world, you would have a hard time believing that the phrase “Second Superpower” ever meant anything else.

To all intents and purposes, the original meaning has been erased. Obliterated, in just seven weeks.

You’re especially susceptible to this if you subscribe to the view that Google’s PageRank™ is “inherently democratic,” which is how Google, Inc. describes it.

Make no mistake, Second Superpower was a Googlebomb, that for now, still lives. But probably not for much longer.

Hey, I could be wrong. I’m not a search engineer. Search engineers worship the alter of relevancy above all else. And ‘miserable failure’ certainly was incorrectly defined – in a strict sense – by the linking web public. Like ‘second superpower’. But that was our linking influence that Google once let us wield. No longer it would seem.

Update: Seth Finkelstein comes by and mentions that the algorithm won’t eliminate the Second Superpower google-bomb *itself* due to the fact that the author probably didn’t mind it so much since the piece uses the text ‘Second Superpower’. Understood. And that’s not the point I was trying to make. The point is that the ‘Second Superpower’ is no more. The web – as a voting public, with linkage, now has less influence to define and redefine language, meaning and ultimately – drive attention. That maybe a good thing in terms of quality of search results. But that doesn’t celebrate or further the fabled ‘democratic’ nature of the web that Google once trumpeted as its means to its end. Another classic google-bomb that will probably disappear: santorum.

Nick Douglas, at Valleywag has a concise list of services to visit to get a daily dose of tech/social software/media business news. He suggests using a feed reader to save time if you’re so inclined.

Here goes a simpler suggestion – visit OriginalSignal.com and Popurls.com.

There you will be able to scan the latest stories published by the services Nick Douglas mentions (except for Paul Kedrosky – bookmark him or subscribe), plus those of many more.

And it will take you less than 5 minutes.

Publishers of tech biz-news news have embraced RSS and Google, and have adapted their writing styles to suit. This has created the opportunity for services like OriginalSignal and Popurls to coalesce conversation in this niche and provide useful filters for news and information flowing around it.

There are *only two* reasons to visit tech biz-news services when simple views into whats being talked about on them – right now – like OriginalSignal – exist: to read the rest of stories that catch your interest (not as necessary since most follow a terse, fact based/keyword rich headline/lede style to improve their their standing in search engines), and to participate in related discussion threads.

OriginalSignal and PopUrls provide a convenient front door for both purposes.

It’s a blessing for consumers of this kind of news and information. I wonder how publishers plan to make money if services like OriginalSignal and Popurls proliferate.

So save yourself the time spent following separate tech-biz news services and spend that time being creative.

RawSugar, a service that has been compared as a del.icio.us competitor, but in actuality had a number of great differentiating features, is in funding trouble. My friend Bill Lazar has some to say about this, as a do a few folks like Steve Rubel.

RawSugar isn’t dead, nor does it deserve to be. One feature it has – the capability to consume and coalesce your personal content streams and tag them – is one that I feel should be adopted by other social media. I was planning to figure out how to leverage it – finally – when the news broke over the holiday. Notice my experimenting with del.icio.us in my right hand menu.

RawSugar, to me, is a victim of two things: 1. A UI that hides the good stuff. It’s front door is little more than a pitch/splash page when it should surface the activity taking place within. 2. A lack of attention in the online press – grassroots and otherwise. No matter what anyone says – there is only so much attention to go around and only a few people who have direct influence over it. Without their attention influence as a help – it takes a groundswell approach – vast numbers of those with lessor influence – helping spread word. It’s possible. But far more difficult. Hence the demand to get noticed by blogs like Techcrunch. Being labeled too easily as a “del.icio.us” competitor – unfairly since it has a host of differentiators – didn’t help either.

I hope they get some funding. In the meantime, Bill is up for some new opportunities.

There is a spammer who has targeted this blog and I accidentally removed valid comments. Apologies.