SIVACRACY.NET

Ok. I promised I would not blog until mid-December. Yet here I am. It's 2:40 a.m. in New York. It's cold and rainy outside. Instead of sleeping peacefully, I am letting our dog Ellie keep my place warm in the bed.

The reason I can't sleep? I am obsessing over Google. Yep. It's unhealthy and unwise. But please let me explain.

Imagine if a candy company rolled out an interesting new product. Let's call it "toot sweets." For more than a year, it chose not to buy one ad to support its sales. Instead, it depended on word-of-mouth and a swelling amount of press coverage to make its customers aware of "toot sweets." Over that year, it became clear that one reason the candy was getting so much attention was that it was controversial. Dentists and parents raised concerns about its propriety. Some threatened lawsuits. Still, the sheer amount of free media coverage made the product the envy of the industry.

Now imagine that a year after introduction, the candy company just up and changed the name of the product! Suddenly it's called "toot yummies" or something and it's located in a completely different part of the candy shelf (it's clear why I don't work in marketing!).

Why would a company do that? Well, in the real world, it would not.

Yet that's exactly what Google did this week. And it's driving me crazy.

After a year on line and a tremendous amount of media coverage, the company changed "Google Print" to Google Book Search.

What gives? Well, it was increasingly clear that Google had a major branding problem on its hands. I had told a Google lawyer that as much a few weeks back after a debate we had in Washington, DC. Despite -- or more likely because of -- hundreds of journalists taking an interest in the project to scan millions of books, the problem was not getting any better.

Over the past few months I have done dozens of radio, television, and print interviews about this project. With rare exceptions (Salon.com's brilliant Farhad Manjoo among the exceptions) reporters tended to conflate the portion of the project called "Google Print Library" with the larger umbrella project, "Google Print." The problem was, of course, that "Google Print" also included another sub-project, the authorized and licensed content then called "Google Print Publisher."

Let me give you an example. Last week I was on a television show debating Patricia Schroeder, the president of the American Association of Publishers. The host, a smart and well-regarded journalist, had no time with us before the show to get briefed on what we would say. Nor were we prepared for his background introduction. When he opened the segment, he asked me to describe the page that the audience could see on their screens, a search page from the "Publisher" project giving full-text access. But he called it "Google Print" and declared it was all scanned in from libraries without permission.

Now, I immediately had to do something that brings shock and fear to television hosts and producers everywhere: I had to correct a host live and on the air. I had to explain (and there is no five-word way to do it) the difference between the authorized "Google Print Publisher" program and the insurgent "Google Print Library" program, and how they both fit under the brand name "Google Print," which one could find, I said, at "print.google.com." The host gulped and regained his composure. Fortunately, he is a pro. He went right to Schroeder, who pleaded something about "let's respect the authors" or something. When I pointed out that she was in fact sitting next to an author who did not think the publishers had a serious complaint about Google and that she was not speaking for authors, she seemed unfazed. She is, after all, a disciplined politician. She was a charming and agreeable person. But her side clearly benefits from the conflation in the public mind.

This is but one example of the astounding level of confusion about the project. Every single radio interview I have done included at least one major factual error about the project(s) generated by conflation and confusion. Generally, journalists seemed to think that Google was providing full-text access to the books because they had heard of something called "Google Print." They had gone onto the site and seen something called "Google Print." They did searches for text or authors they were curious about and they got full-text results from the Publisher program. Most of my efforts to correct them have been edited out. It's been ugly and frustrating. I am sure the Google folks feel the same way.

This confusion was not the fault of journalists. Google just did not know how to handle its brands. Nor did it even keep its employees straight on it -- or at least give them a way to clarify public confusion.

Back in June when I gave a talk about the project at the annual meeting of the American Library Association I referred throughout the speech to the controversial part of the project as "Google Library." I did this because that is how publishers had talked about it with me to distinguish it from "Google Print," which is what they thought they were agreeing to for their authorized content. It also reflected the style that the Chronicle of Higher Education had chosen to keep its readers clear on the difference. In general, the Chronicle calls the authorized part "Google Publisher" and the unauthorized "Google Library." That made sense to me and made my speech possible. However, right after the speech an official from Google came up to me to correct me. "It's all called 'Google Print,' she said."It's all one single project." Oh dear. How was I going to make sense of this to people when I speak and write about it? Google was not helping.

Here on this blog I have generally (but inconsistently) used the more cumbersome yet accurate "Google Print Library" and "Google Print Publisher" to describe the subsets of "Google Print." That has tracked with the official Google usage ... until now.

Now, without warning (follow me here) "Google Print" shall be called "Google Book Search." And all the people who went looking for something called "Google Print" after hearing about it on NPR? Out of luck. Much confusion. Welcome to Willy Wonka and the Web Search Factory, folks.

In addition, "Google Print Publisher" shall now be known as "Partner Program." "Google Print Library" will be called "Library Project." What's the difference between "program" and "project?" I am not sure. I am confident an official of Google will write to me soon to confuse me.

This change is especially frustrating because I spent much of the past few weeks hammering out the edits on a long opinion piece about the Google Print Book Search Publisher Partner Library Project Program for the Chronicle of Higher Education. During the editing process I tried to introduce the style that I had used on the blog and that reflected the official Google style. The editor insisted that we use the style that the Chronicle had adopted because it was clearer to readers. I agreed that the Chronicle style (describing "Google Library" as a distinct project ... or program ... or whatever) was clearer. But I wanted to make the point that Google had generated much confusion by poorly branding and explaining its entire "Google Print" project. We ultimately went with the Chronicle style out of deference to the readers, who have enough to worry about.

So the article got pasted up (do they still "paste up" newspapers these days?) on Friday of last week because this is a short work week. The issue due Monday, November 28 has to be ready to print about four days earlier than usual. Basically, we can't change anything now.

Except DAMNIT! Google changed the name of every element of this endeavor! Now this huge, long article will come out Monday and it will describe a project (or program or endeavor) that people will not be able to find on the Google site if they look for "Google Print."

Maybe I will use words like "endeavor," "crusade," "operation," "Glass Menagerie," or "impossible dream" to describe the Google Print Book Search Publisher Partner Library Project Program from now on.

Or maybe we should all just agree to call it the Google Print Book Search Publisher Partner Library Project Program. I just made it "F5" on my keyboard.