Recent Comment
Spotlight
Recent Comments
- John: " The 50x claim is spurious at best. I'm ..." [go]
- Aman: " That is because of the bad customer supp ..." [go]
- David Temple: " Way to chortle in your joy John. All pro ..." [go]
- David Temple: " John, I think what surprised Google was ..." [go]
- Jasmine: " i love battlemedia ..." [go]
- Ken: " Google lets you search for *free* while ..." [go]
- Mike Maddaloni - The Hot Iron: " I use Google Search on my Treo 680 - not ..." [go]
- DAVID BLACKSON: " LETS PLAY BASEBALL!!!!! ..." [go]
- Sergey Rusak: " It is quite interesting and I can't wait ..." [go]
- Ron Davis: " My dad and I go to Florida for baseball ..." [go]
- ben: " Yeah its pretty cool. I really like the ..." [go]
- Sam: " The company I work for, peak to peak pow ..." [go]
- JG: " Oh. My. Fing. Goodness. Mayer’s just ..." [go]
- balls: " You still suck balls ..." [go]
- DPW: " No Chadwick it is not a real google page ..." [go]
- Nefas Elektronik: " Thank you very much from Turkey ..." [go]
PERFECT FOR THAT PERSON WITH EVERYTHING
Order 'The Search'
Yup, it makes the perfect gift for that officemate or colleague who you thought had everything....including you! If you order here, I promise to sign it, assuming we can figure out the shipping...
You can also buy the audio version here.
Check my book page for more info.
Blogger's Rights
Top Posts
- The Database of Intentions (or how this all got started)
- From Pull to Point(or the first post where I riff on the "Point-To Economy")
- Google As Builder (or the point at which Google stopped being simply a search engine)
- On Google v. Yahoo
- TV and Search Merge
- On Sell Side Advertising
- Battelle Gets Searchstreams
- Search and Immortality
- Toward the Endemic (on endemic advertising)
More coming soon...
Active Topics
- 24 comments: It's Not Fair, But Google, You Are A Media Company (01.30)
- 21 comments: Google Drops More Than 160 Points (01.22)
- 15 comments: Google Slams Microsoft (02.03)
- 13 comments: Google's Share Drops? Inescapable (02.12)
- 13 comments: I Disagree, Google (01.24)
Monthly Archives
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
About John Battelle
Searchblog Newsletter
Enter email to subscribe to "Re-Find", Searchblog's weekly newsletter:
Calendar
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
Syndicate
Powered by
July 3, 2007 8:43 AM
Google and GrandCentral: Open MP3s No Longer Allowed
After Google's GrandCentral acquisition, Reader Troy points out:
GrandCentral offers a range of truly useful features, but one that was just plain fun was "RingShare." This allowed users to pick from a range of different ringtones (authentic Russian *beeeeeep*, anyone?), or -- better yet -- upload their own MP3 for a personalized ring, "please hold" message or muzak.
As of today, though, the MP3 option is no more. (See below)
I can't complain about this decision; the legal liability for Google/GrandCentral isn't worth it for what amounted to a non-essential, gee-whiz feature.
Well, I can complain. Why was this done? To avoid potential liability, right? In other words, caving to possible lawsuits instead of defending customer centric features. I hate the phone world.
- Posted by John Battelle on July 3, 2007 8:43 AM
Comments
I'm actually not surprised that they did this, but there must have been some issues already, perhaps some sort of distribution of the MP3s or something?
Ah, the infamous telco (and music) industry. :p
This didn't come as a surprise to me too, though i only learned of their "old feature" about custom mp3 ring tones when i visited their site after the acquisition announcement. But if this feature is indeed something that customers want, doesn't Google have an existing deal with at least one of the record labels? Maybe Google can license more songs to have a larger directory of "custom" ring tones. Just my $0.02
I can understand Google banning or discontinuing access to any unlicensed mp3s that GrandCentral may have been offering, as a direct, GrandCentral-to-user service.
But it sounds like, from the post above, there was also a facility on GrandCentral for users to share/swap mp3s with each other directly. User-to-user. In addition to pilfering popular music, one user might have recorded a jackhammer, and uploaded that to share with others. Or recorded the sound of an old 1953 AT&T; phone. Or their dog barking, or something like that. Right?
What this service sounds like to me is YouTube. GrandCentral, at least in this latter capacity, was just acting like a neutral carrier of (not necessarily copyrighted) mp3 audio, and should have been protected by the DMCA, for at least the user-swap portion of the service.
So would someone please explain to me why Google shuts down the GrandCentral user swap service completely, and yet still lets YouTube run rampant? Is this a double standard? If not, why not?
Yes, the newly updated Yahoo! image search, is much more comprehensive. Love it!
-Prem
Please ignore my previous comment. Was meant for another post.
- prem
Leave a comment