Google and the devil went for a beer...

The latest edition of the New York Times Magazine features an interesting piece on Google's entry into China. Although Google is not the first major search engine to operate China (Yahoo conceded to China's censorship demands back in 1999), it's certainly the largest, with the potential to completely overhaul how people in the Communist state use the internet.

The NYT reporter gets access to Google's new man in china, Kai-Fu Lee, a Columbia IT graduate fluent in English and Mandarin who's already worked for two of the world's most powerful technology companies, Mircrosoft and Apple. Lee has obscure little formula that he uses to sum up Google, or Google in China (I'm not exactly which he is referring to and whether there is a difference):

"youth + freedom + equality + bottom-up innovation + user focus + don't be evil = The Miracle of Google"

Now apart form being long and clunky, the "don't be evil" part struck me as odd, especially coming from Google's head in China - that is until I was told that "don't be evil" is the motto that Google's been chained to ever since two guys started up the little search engine back in 1998. Silly me. Making fun of Google for its "don't be evil" motto brings to mind something about shooting fish in a barrel, but it's also been done to death. So I'm not gonna bore anyone with a tirade. But if you want an example, go to www.google.cn (Google China) and search for Falun Gong.

What I'm interested in is whether Google investors, who's stocks are currently hovering at about $US440, consider the little catch phrase a liability or a asset; and whether investors - which includes small mum and dad investors, as well as fund managers and large investment firms - considered the "don't be evil" phrase when they signed up for the google float. And more importantly, whether those people and firms snatching up Google shares today, who have a lot more to lose than the ones who signed on at the start, take the "don't be evil" ideal into account.

I'm sure there's a formula analysts use to determine branding and reputation values for any given company; but what would be the effect on Google shares should, say, eventually Google happen to forget to include their famous phrase in their annual report, and it's never seen again? Shares up or shares down? If you assume the majority of investors (major financial firms and large corporations) have a no problem investing in stocks and companies who may be making their cash on the backs of what some would describe as amoral pursuits just as long as it helps the share price, the then answer would be that the share price would jump. Just imagine not being lumbered with this "don't be evil" weight: as a company, you've essentially got a mandate - just like all those other public companies who don't have statements telling them not to harm cute kittens or dress in black - to evil it up.

What I'm getting at is, that although Google has allowed China to dictate what the world's most ubiquitous and powerful search engine puts in front of China's billion plus internet users, it's still a company regulated by a market that doesn't like - especially after Enron and HIH - to be seen acting amorally. As a public company, you don't need to have "don't be evil" written into your constitution to be a public company acting in good faith. It's just that those who are buying the stocks would like to know that, if, on the off chance a decision needed to be made that wasn't completely ethical, their stocks aren't weighed down by a tiny phrase that could cause them a lot of embarrassment. But then again, Google made it to China and they're going gangbusters.

Tom Waits, Don Lane, Kurt Vonnegut and bad interviews

I'm currently about half way through "Innocent when you dream", a collection of interviews, reviews and writings about Tom Waits that's just been release here in Australia. The subject of Tom Waits is almost a full-time extra- curricular activity for me, so it's no secret that I'm loving the indulgence, but like so many other things Waits-related it's got me heading off onto a complete mental tangent. Aside from the usual obscure metaphors and junkyard philolsophy, it's a great chance to see read how some of the poor bastards who are forced to interview Waits react when he decides to re-invent parts of his life mid-interview: he hasn't named his kids yet, but just calls them something different every day, usually after an object lying around the house. Stuff like that has the potential to get under peoples' skins.

After a while you get used to, and sometimes a little bored with, Waits' infantile playfulness and his need to amuse himself, and suddenly the whole book starts to tell you more about the journos interviewing Waits than the man himself. According to a Guardian journalist who's had the pleasure of catching Waits in a reticent mood, most of his answers begin with "I don't know", and are followed by a dribble of "umms" "ahhhs" or "oohhs". In one of the most famous interviews of Wait's career, Don Lane interview Tom on his Aussie chat show. It's unusual, because there's footage of this and everything, but here's a selection, but check out the rest here:

D: Well, at 29, (as Don leans in, Tom sits back in his chair) My god! It's the first time I've seen you up straight! Pardon me, I didn't mean to say straight. (mimes ventriloquy (?) with Tom) Well, how are you tom? (In funny voice:) good, thank you, everything's fine! (Back to normal voice:) At 29, you write about all these things that have happened to you, sorta like these lowlife things that have happened to you...

T: You read that right off the page!

D: No I didn't!

T: Ah, you did. It says lowlife, right there

D: Ah, yeah, well I won't mention that. You don't want that question used? You got a pen? Can I borrow a pen? (Stagehand gives Don a pen.) Well, I'll go through the list, Tom, and you can tell me what you'd like to answer and I'll do it. How long have you been singing? You answered that, though, didn't you?

T: I've been on the road for about seven years.

D: Seven years. We got that. (writes) Seven years. How does a guy with a voice like that decide to be a singer and succeed?

T: Well, it was a choice between entertainment or a career in air conditioning and refrigeration.

I'm glad Tom stayed in entertainment. Watching these types of interviews is akin to watching car-crash tv, or Big Brother: they're a chance to view the ugly reality of humanity that most of us don't get to see in the press often enough. Journalism schools will tell you that as an interviewer you should be almost invisible to the reader when the copy is finished - doubly so for hard news interview pieces. But dealing with artists (and I don't mean the standard celeb who pops up on Rove Live, although the Don Lane interview is an exception) is frought with danger for the interviewer. So often it's the interviewer who feels like they're getting rough treatment from which ever artist they're interviewing on any given day, and they want readers to know it.

I remember the Australian running an exlusive interview with famous author and poet Kurt Vonnegut over in New York earlier this year. Nason met Vonnegut, and thought him a washed up old liberal intellectual, who's far past his best: too bitter and nothing to say. And Nason let us know it, with his rambling piece (hey, I can't talk, but this is only a blog), which gave Vonnegut an almighty slap and treated the author with almighty contempt, complaining of his views on Iraq and the Middle East. The point is that Nason's feature said more about Nason than it did about Vonnegut. So much so that there's now a fire David Nason petition (check it out here) that you can sign to pressure the Aus to get rid of him.

These are some of the more extreme examples; but how a jouno, especially one covering the arts beat, handles difficult interview subjects can tell you a lot about their biases, ego and skill as an interviewer. Hey, if you come away from reading the piece thinking more about the journo who wrote it than you do the subject, then someone's doing something wrong. And it's not the artist.

Enough from me today. This has been the first real post from The Verbose Ghost, so I'm off to celebrate with a drink.

Welcome

Welcome to the inaugural post from The Verbose Ghost. As you probably know, this is a media blog (like we don't have enough already) and, if all goes to plan, it will relentlessly follow the Fourth Estate, along with those who own it, regulate it and those who spin it. Anyway, this post is just an introductory heads-up to give you a little information about what's going on here at The Verbose Ghost. Stay tuned.