Yep, its the company people either love or hate, and we all know their do no evil motto is a crock, but at the end of the day its time to spread some blog love to the folks at Google, who despite launching crappy betas every 5 minutes (Google Analytics anyone….hang on a sec I’m still waiting for it to load) Google has done an awful lot for the Blogosphere. Aside from Google search which I must use 50 times every day (I switch between the US and Australian sites via Firefox as well), there are 3 big things we should love Google for.
1. Buying Blogger
When Google bought Blogger the blogosphere was a lot smaller than it was today, and people sat up and took notice. Sure, they didn’t create Blogger but their purchase gave an immediate boost to the legitimacy of the blogosphere as having value and one could argue helped create the boom (or as some would argue bubble) that we see in blogging today.
2. Adsense
Before Adsense there was BlogAds and not much else. Adsense did more to legitimise advertising on blogs than any over service and provided widespread money making opportunities for many, many bloggers (even if its only a couple of dollars a month for many, its still nice).
3. Matt Cutts
Although I’ve referred to Matt as being evil in the past for befriending comment spammers, any guy who makes a living out of getting SEO’s and Blackhats pissed so he can get them to blurt out their secrets is a good bloke in my books….oh, and he writes a blog about Google from the inside that helps us understand how it works as well.
So to all the Google staff, we do appreciate you, and heres some blog love to make your day :-)