Hockey Teaches Google a Lesson
Today Canadians from the rocky shores of Labrador to the old growth forests of Vancouver Island are biting their nails to the quick as they wait for the results of the Hockey Night in Canada Anthem competition. So the CBC wants us to have a new song, eh? Isn’t that a lot like Labatt’s telling us we need a new beer? So who will get the honours? Will it be thirteen year old Robert Fraser Burke with “Sticks to the Ice” or elementary school teacher Colin Oberst with “Canadian Gold?”
Although le hockey is not our national sport (our official sport is lacrosse), nevertheless the world thinks of us as a bunch of skate-wearing, stick-wielding puck slappers. Even Stephan Dion has played on this image, doing hockey spots during his election campaign to prove that he play de hockey just like de regular guy, eh. So entrenched is the role of hockey in Canadian life that if a child reaches the age of majority without knowing the rules of the game and owning a graphite stick signed by Wayne Gretzky, then the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture is entitled to deport the poor kid to the U.S. where they play football and basketball and other ice-impoverished sports.
One of the great myths of Canada is that this is a land of ice and snow. But that isn’t true, except maybe in Stephen Harper’s bedroom. Most of the year, the grass is green, the roads are bare, and the moose are chewing up our vegetable gardens. Which means kids have to resort to street hockey if they want to keep their stick-handling skills sharp for the next season. So it’s common for drivers to stop their cars and wait for a play to end before the kids pick up their nets and make way for the car. Although the law of the land says that roads are for cars, everybody knows that in Canada roads are really for hockey.
But not everybody agrees. Toronto has become increasingly street hockey intolerant. Read Matthew Blackett’s “Reclaiming the Streets in the name of hockey.” He’s writing about the neighbourhood I grew up in and mentions Longmore Avenue. I used to play street hockey on Longmore (Lawnmower) because the street ended at a hydro field so there was less traffic. (Compare with a more enlightened Kingston which has passed by-laws permitting street hockey on designated roads.) Notwithstanding an increasingly law-and-order approach to – well – just about everything in life, the kids are still out there. They aren’t sticking it to the system; they’re just doing what comes naturally; they’re having fun.
So what has this got to do with teaching Google a lesson?
This week, Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was reported as saying that the internet is a “cesspool” that allows false information to thrive. The solution is “branding.” Build an online identity that people can trust. As you build trust, customers will keep returning to you as a source of reliable information. Well, whatever.
Personally, I like the cesspool image.
Schmidt is a maven of the information superhighway. To push the street hockey analogy, if kids wanted to play street hockey on the 401 (Toronto’s twelve lane limited access highway), they wouldn’t last fifteen seconds; they’d all get mowed down by transport trucks shipping goods through the city. The 401 is a conduit of commerce. There is no room for kids playing street hockey. For Schmidt, the internet is likewise a conduit of commerce. To Google, even non-commercial functions are viewed as commercial opportunities. Internet-as-entertainment, internet-as-social criticism, internet-as-information, internet-as-community-building, internet-as-playground? All these other functions get subordinated to the vision of commercial hawks like the Association of National Advertisers. Every last web page, no matter what its function, is just another swath of advertising real estate.
The problem arises when some smart-assed blogger comes along, says something funny or outrageous or false using key words like “Iraq” and “Bush” that also have commercial value, and rises to the top of google rankings for searches that include those words. Media outlets like CNN and Fox have a hissy fit because a lone blogger has diverted traffic from them and “stolen” value from their sites. It’s like the street hockey kids who stop traffic on the 401 so they can play a game. Truckers look at the watches, see that they’re losing money, and start blaring their horns.
The ad execs who complain to Schmidt are like the city councilors who want to pass by-laws prohibiting the game. Kids demonstrate that such a tight-assed commerce-is-the-only-game-in-town approach to life is doesn’t work. The game goes on. The “cesspool” reflects the need for release that we all have, those minor transgressions that are just as important to social order as the rules.
In fact, I think Schmidt’s response was sound. He threw responsibility back on the ad execs. He didn’t say we should tighten up the rules and punish those who contribute to the cesspoolishness of the internet; he told the ad execs to develop their brand.
In the meantime, I’m going keep playing my own brand of internet street-hockey. It’s completely worthless, but not without value.
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