j’s scratchpad

After lots of thought about whether I should blog about the project formerly known as Google Print, Google Book Search, I’ve decided it poses too much of a conflict of interest with my job and is too risky for me to do it. Lots of other people are writing about it. There’s no real reason why I should put my job or my employer in jeopardy for writing about it, too.

I considered talking to my managers about it, but I decided even if I could get their blessing, it’s still too risky. Too many people already think I’m an ‘official’ blogger for Harvard University even though I’m absolutely not. (The university as an institution doesn’t have ‘official’ bloggers. Some departments use blogs, but mine does not.) No matter how many times I say I don’t blog as part of my job, it’s never enough. The chance of having someone read something I write–even if it’s just a list of links to others who write about the service–and interpreting it as an official statement from Harvard or as inside knowledge of the project is too great for me to feel comfortable mentioning Google Book Search in this space.

Besides, it’s not like there’s nothing else to write about.

My apologies to those of you whom this decision disappoints.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Search Engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.