Owen Thomas, editor of the Silicon Valley gossip blog Valleywag, has penned a reasoned argument as to how Google is winning political influence in the wake of this month’s presidential election. In the column he wrote, he takes a sharp-tongued look at how CEO Eric Schmidt appears to be trying to win and use influence in the new Washington.
Schmidt is savvy enough to realize that YouTube’s growing prominence as a media outlet could help the company become a larger political player — which is why the site sponsored two campaign debates. Traffic? Come on. YouTube hardly needs the help.
Thomas concludes:
In that light, isn’t there something that stinks about handing the president’s weekly addresses to a single commercial outlet controlled by a political ally of the president? Obama’s YouTube chats amount to a large, unspoken, behind-the-scenes government kickback. Every election has something dirty about it. And there’s no question Google won this contest.
