Barry recently covered the NY Times Google Bombing article discussion, highlighting a campaign tactic of influencing rankings based on buzz phrases or even politician names. For the politicos that are scrambling to find SEO’s for next year’s election, we have found a little Halloween story told by Google’s Eric Schmidt.
Digital Point Forums points to an article at the Financial Times from earlier in October in which Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying that within five years, search engines such as Google will help the public decide who to vote for. Mr. Schmidt claims that search will allow people to evaluate the potential truth of statements uttered during the campaign season by candidates for office. A quote directly from the article explains:
He forecast that, within five years, “truth predictor” software would “hold politicians to account”. Voters would be able to check the probability that apparently factual statements by politicians were actually correct, using programs that automatically compared claims with historic data.Pretty cool, and it’s highly likely that people with advanced search skills are already performing this type of research, if they care to. I am sure that Gary Price could help find all kinds of voting records and transcripts to support the decision-making process. Politicians better realize that as the power of search grows, so does the power of the voter. When in a hot zone, Marines are always reminded to “keep an eye out for CNN.” Politicians are used to looking for microphones, but Internet databases may be a little harder to avoid.
The short discussion can be found at Digital Point Forums.
