[LINK] Google Christmas logo

[Stephen Loosley]

At 08:04 PM 23/12/2006, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 07:17 PM 23/12/2006, Reagan Blundell wrote:
>
>> For what it's worth, I see the kanagroo christmas logos from here
>> in Switzerland, so it isn't .au specific.
>
> Thanks for letting us know that, Reagan! I hoped that was the case.
> I wonder what the story behind it is. Could it be drawn by an Aussie
> transplant working at Google? Cheers Jan

It is amazing, right now Google must surely be at net-saturation-point:

         WebProNews  December 23, 2006
                   http://www.WebProNews.com

Eight Internet Winners In 2006: Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer

The year 2006 was a major year for all things Internet related. 
In fact, it might remembered as the year the Internet exploded. 

Record broadband adoption, major government attention, and the 
advent of video and social media made it the net's best year ever.

To commemorate that, we've come up with a list of Internet 
winners, because everybody loves a good end-of-the-year list.

Internet Winners In 2006

1. Google

Every year for Google has been a breakout year for the eight-
year-old company, but 2006 was a blockbuster. Besides adding 
user-generated video phenom YouTube to its roster for $1.65 
billion in stock, Google remained a favorite of Wall Street, 
with stock catapulting over $500 per share. That spike was 
more than enough to cover the cost of purchasing YouTube.

And then they moved in with NASA.

2. YouTube

If Google was a winner just for acquiring YouTube, then YouTube 
founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen, who created a site and 
flipped it for major moolah, in just a year and a half, without 
even demonstrating how the site could turn a profit, are the 
biggest table scrap winners of the year. They still run their 
company and still got those stock certificates.

3. Broadband

Dialup Internet access has become akin to having outdoor 
plumbing. In the US, broadband access hit nearly 80 percent 
of the population. Because people no longer had to begin 
downloading a large file and then go to dinner while it 
finished, they spent more time actually enjoying video and 
audio content on the Web. 

4. Lawyers

Happy days are here again for the corporate attorney. As Internet 
companies become Web giants, the window for lawsuit, valid or
not, frivolous or not, gets a lot bigger. Google settles with 
advertisers angry over click fraud for $90 million - that's $60 
million in advertising credit for the advertiser and $30 million 
cash for the attorneys who won that case. Yahoo's lawyers are
so good, all they had to say was 'sorry about that' and write a 
check for $5 million to the complainant's attorneys.

5. Social Media

For the end user it's been all about friends' lists, blogs, 
wikis, amateur videos, vlogging, podcasting, and instant 
messaging. From the consumer end, it's been a communication 
bonanza and the official creation of the citizen media. Ideally, 
the elite and powerful only provide the means by which the people 
communicate, not control the communication itself, and the people 
are eating up. And for the professional media, if we hear the 
words "MySpace" or "YouTube" one more time...

6. Podcasting

The word "podcast" may have been Oxford's word of the year
in 2005, but nobody really knew anything about it until 2006. 
Now organizations of all types - newspapers, corporations, 
educational institutions, radio stations, kids - have started 
their own virtual radio stations. Though Apple made threats to 
those audacious enough to use the term "podcast," a trademark 
infringement Apple said, all it took was a tongue-in-cheek 
one-dollar check to Apple head Steve Jobs to get official 
approval to podcast at will.

7. The Man

In all his incarnations, in government, media, or corporate America,
The Man came out far ahead of the rest, even if he were scratched 
and bruised on the way. The G-Man, and his DOJ minions, strong-
armed all the major search engines for their search data and got 
it, even from Google. Phones were tapped, records were seized, 
and online gambling, except that which is preferred by The Man, 
was banned. In China, The Man again forced Google to alter its 
search results to match the imposed cultural hegemony.

8. The Proletariat

However, The Man hasn't always won this year. Though the 
telecommunications industry (one of The Man's most powerful
front organizations) had Congress wrapped around its green finger, 
there were enough grass roots to forestall any legislation without 
meaningful Net Neutrality protections. With a massive Republican 
defeat in Washington, Net Neutrality has a fighting chance. 

When AOL tried to impose the equivalent of an email tax, the people 
revolted and AOL was forced to reconsider.

When Britain proposed a blogger code of conduct, again the 
proletariat told The Man where to shove it.

When TV wasn't as entertaining, when news wasn't as neutral or 
biased as it needed to be, when radio was too censored, and movies 
were far too polished, the people took the media into their own 
hands, which makes The Man very, very nervous. 
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