Forum Moderators: travelin cat
I am just following up on a thread from a couple months ago. I think sending Google general the request for a Mac tool bar is not the answer. I think we need to bend some real peoples ears. How about starting with a sticky to our little communities GoogleGuy. Perhaps that could get a fire lit. After all it is just plain rude to have excluded us.
I think another option that everyone over looked is to e-mail the Safari crue not just post in some thread and hope that they notice. There is a bug report address in the beta of Safari. Send in a message saying that there is a bug with Safari, it does not have a propper Google toolbar. If they really want to some instant Mac user support for Safari, add something to it we really can't get anywhere else. Otherwise why would be bother leaving Explorer, or Netscape, just because Safari has a pretty mettal fasuad? Sounds like a selling point to me.
We have been ignored from the start. I say it is time for Gorrilla tactics.
Just my two cents :-)
IMO better to keep the toolbar as a seperate thing we can install and uninstall at will.
Yeah. I agree. ;)
I sometimes think we Mac users are better off...
Ditto. People have gotten SO obsessed with PR, it's hard to get good discussion going about any of the OTHER contributing factors of good rankings.
It's nice to live in my own little universe where that little green bar isn't staring me in the face on every site I visit.
However, another way to finally have a mac toolbar could be to find someone who writes the toolbar himself as a plugin for any bowser (except msie, sure).
... any skilled volunteers? ;)
although I was doodling at the time, I think the answer was that there is NOT enough demand yet to warrant this.
maybe a fellow member who was paying attention could answer the question in detail.
and yes I do agree you are better off without it, it can be annoying some of the time, where webmasters get obsessed by it, and forgt some simple basics.
Shak
(I think thats my 1st ever post in Mac Forum)
their philosophy seems to be quite similar ... they are the good guys.
I can see Google being the good guys, but not Apple.
Perhaps the news didn't get to where you are, (I live about 40 minutes from the Apple and Google headquarters) but I remember about a year ago there was a big deal about Apple's own distributors suing Apple because:
1: Apple refused to pay for repairs- Leaving the authorized resellers to pick up the cost for parts instead of honoring their warranties.
2: Apple required the distributors to accept faulty machines, with no returns. Forcing the distributor to eat the cost of refunds to customers, and to sell the machines at a loss as refurbished.
3: Apple's sales force contacted customers directly and told them that buying through a reseller is "risky" and that they should buy directly from Apple.
Here's a related news item [sanjose.bizjournals.com]:
seeks more than $5 million in compensation for what Elite Computers says is breach of contract, unfair competition, false advertising and fraud.Apple "has repeatedly breached each of said contracts by failing to reasonably provide merchandise, goods, services, labor, credits, pay undisputed sums due and support for Apple products sold and or serviced by (the distributor)
Dell had a change of heart about reselling the I-Pod and backed out after six months. Why? According to this news story [macnn.com],
...the change came about because of alterations to Apple's reseller contract.
And this news story [businessweek.com],
A number of resellers lost authorization to sell Apple gear as of April 1 by refusing to sign a new contract with Apple. Several resellers were unhappy with the terms of the deal, according to sources, including a clause that gave Apple the right to inspect its resellers' business records even after a dealer was no longer selling the company's products.
Apple has even been sued for Racial Discrimination [macnn.com] against African Americans.
So... What is so GOOD about Apple?
They are a tighter monopoly than Microsoft. According to news stories and lawsuits, Apple's business contracts are one-way streets heavily weighted in favor of Apple.
The point I am trying to make is that, based upon past Apple business practices, if I were Google, I too would be wary of doing business with them.
I can name tons and tons of scandals to make a story like the macnn story of. However, they say nothing about a company's philosophy or the truth about life.
BTW: a company that "ignores privacy issues" [google-watch.org] is the perfect partner of a company that "discriminates africans". ;)
Sorry, no offense, but that's a ridiculous interpretation.
[edited by: littleman at 5:54 pm (utc) on May 3, 2003]
[edit reason] Please, no heavy politics [/edit]
Ridiculous is a very harsh word, and you should avoid using it in a forum because you risk offending people. The definition of "ridiculous" is: Causing or worthy of derision. Absurd, preposterous, laughable.
No offense taken? Please be careful of the words you choose. Let's try to stay civil, polite, and reasonable.
My statements were not opinions, they were FACTS.
but there are zillions of reasons to believe that apple are in fact the good guys.
That's a possibility, but you have failed to name one reason.
It's not enough to name the reasons, but you need to document the sources of your information- otherwise at best it is only an opinion or at worst, marketing hype regurgitated as opinion.
I backed up my statements with the sources of information, that way my statements are more than just opinions, they are elevated to statements of fact.
But, getting back to the Toolbar, Matt Cutts was very definite and clear when he said that there were no plans for a toolbar.
[edited by: martinibuster at 5:26 pm (utc) on May 3, 2003]
There was a tread a while back about google making a mistake by including PR in the toolbar. Possible they know this. BY keeping PR visable on the IE toolbar they can live with this. But People who run nix and apple are generaly a lot more computer savvy (being general) and this would open a whole new can of worms. By keeping this info from certain users it may be in googles best interests. I would not be surprised if PR is gradualy phased out as a toolbar feature.
I think PR should be changed to ER "Ego Rank" :)
After a bit of talk (30 to 40 seconds of his time ha!) Matt took note to it on paper and said it was worth looking into. Apple has the resources and the obviously see value in Google or they would have not implemented it into their browser - so maybe there would be something in it.
Matt did express some concern that Google's technology for the green bar is something they don't give out. So there may be some caution in releasing that technology to someone outside Google?
Ultimately Matt said “Do the math” there are just not enough Mac users for Google to create this, and Mac is more in touch with their customers (or should be). Perhaps we need to bug Apple a little as well!
Matt only wrote down a few things I noticed. So perhaps there is some hope... however, I wonder how much on that little tablet will make it to the hit list of things to do?
Cheers!
eboda
I agree with the PR becoming an ER. I still think the value of it will continue on for some time no matter how many of us may play it down or be sick of it.
What gets me more is that I have to go over to the PC just to check a clients PR. Basically that is all I use the PC for, which makes it for a really expensive Position Ranking Tool! ha ha ha!
Moving to a Mac has been tremendously liberating: liberating from Windows, liberating from IE, liberating from a host of viruses and also liberating from that Google PR indicator. The best move I ever made.
I just don't need that green bar.
Having the search form on Safari be Google only is a limitation. But I found a free little gizmo for OS X called Huevos that lets me add any SE or directory I want so I'm pretty happy.
martinibuster, nope, no offense taken, really! Sorry that i obviously offended you with my harsh words. This sure wasn't my plan.
>>but there are zillions of reasons to believe that apple
>>are in fact the good guys.
>That's a possibility, but you have failed to name one reason.
martinibuster, i didn't expect that it's nessecary to name reasons. However, compared to ms apple:
- doesn't give me a system that runs a exploitable web server by default
- doesn't give me a messenger that pops up every now and then to tell me that i need more viagra
- doesn't give me a system that can probe itself and other millions of systems down through malicious code by default
- doesn't give me a system where by default it's possible that a email automatically replicates and sends itself to email adresses found within my inbox.
- doesn't give me a system that can receive and run malicious code by default.
- dosn't give me a media player that sends my playlist to a central server every time i go online.
- doesn't insecure its own system to later sell security packages and consultings.
- doesn't force me to use and write jscript instead of java script.
....
