March 08, 2006 | Wednesday

Google, Ricky Gervais, and the Guinness Book of World Records

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Events |News |Search Engines |Google

Latitude COO Richard Gregory and I met up with Heather Hopkins, Director of Research for Hitwise UK, last night. Heather presented to our clients at one of our recent events, and with SES New York just behind us and Hitwise’s acquisition of HitDynamics announced this week, we had a lot to talk about. (And that was before we got onto the subject of our shared love of the Ricky Gervais podcast...)

One topic we touched on was the fixation on secrecy displayed by Google at SES and elsewhere. Techdirt (one of my favourite daily must-reads) has a good summation of Google’s recent troubles with trying to keep secrets. As Mike concludes:

[I]t would seem that Google is quickly learning how difficult it is to keep some things secret.

Speaking of secrets...If you ever bump into Heather at an industry event or in the streets of the West End (as I did a couple of weeks ago), ask her about her many attempts at winning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. She will amaze you.