Google the greatest search of all

Google saves lives, does wonders and sometimes borders on magic - however, there is a great secret lying at its core.

Anyone speaking of "search" in the early nineties was most probably a priest, a philosophy student or a private detective. At that time, search had two aspects. Either someone searched for something, such as a misplaced key or a poultry product with two alphabets in a crossword puzzle and it was obvious that no one got the idea of speaking about this absolutely banal type of search. Or on the other hand, it was about the greatest things in the world: Searching the meaning of life and the likes. At that time, i.e. some two decades ago, computers came into spotlight, as the quick auxiliary devices. However, everything had to be presorted on the computers so that they could display their speed in searching through the (initially only locally saved) heaps of data. Therefore, for instance even today, surnames must be entered first and then the first name so that the dumb computer can proceed more easily with the first alphabet of the surname. Then came the Internet - which for a start increased the unsorted chaos. The internetting not only allowed the absorption of old forms of disorder in the computers but also surpassed it by a great extent. Now the net enabled man to not only put books and notes in a mess together, but also images of all sorts, videos and news -almost everything which can be digitalised. The objective of the development was to globalize the complexity. Anyone and everyone should be able to complicate things from anywhere and everywhere. Then came Google.

Center of knowledge: The Google offices are known for their colorful accouterments as well as for the code that is developed there

Walk over the water digitally

Meanwhile, the search machine company reminded of a Hollywood producer who owned a grand villa with a swimming pool and still wasn't satisfied with it. Thus, he got a acrylic glass bridge over the pool; to be exact: just under the water surface. If you did not know that there is a bridge, you could see nothing. Then sometimes the producer went to the pool and walked over the water. A wonder: In August 2003, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was asked in a conference when it was clear to him that Google was one of the epitomes of today's world. As an answer to this question, Brin told the story of a person who supposedly saved a family member with an acute heart attack by checking in Google what must be done and could protract quick medical help with the acquired information. In other words: Google now also created a wonder. The idea that someone could consult a search-machine instead of calling the emergency doctor is absurd - at least in Germany. In a country like USA where 46 million people live without a medical insurance, a facility such as Google promises a free-of-cost medical advice in emergency. Google signifies the great promise of Internet to convert itself to an everything-atonce machine. A machine which produces what is called magic in fairytale books - the instant fulfillment of any wish. However, the search in the net has rimarily become a worldview for us. As with the black stone in Mecca, you can now come in contact with everything that must be seen, heard, played or known with Google. What Google cannot display does not exist. A few years ago, I still went to the window to the small thermometer to check the outside temperature. Today I go on Internet for that. A new window opens which is almost empty, but for a colorful legend and an input screen: Google. From here, anyone can take part in the greatest collective experiments of the 21st century. The search has developed into a central interface of Internet from a useful but minor service. The online search has turned into a universally understood method to navigate through the information universe. If you show a Google search bar to anyone anywhere in the world, he/she most probably knows what you mean. Google gives orientation to people in confusing times. The search takes on a religious character from time to time. Many do not want to find any more. They only want to search.

Thinking about Google also takes on religious dimensions quickly. Google is omniscient. The only thing that it doesn't give any information about is its very core, the Google Algorithm. At best, one gets just a rough idea of how the great machine of knowledge functions. However, it is certain: In the previous decade, the search has developed into a central interface of internet from negligibility.

The Rich Google Starting from web-search, Google has developed decade which marks its territory in all sectors of the digital life Google AdSense/AdWords: 96% of Google's earnings come from advertisements; in the third quarter of 2011, its profit was 2.7 billion US dollars Google+: What a hype - 88 million people registered on Google+ in 88 days. Facebook took three and a half years to do this. Chrome: According to StatCounter, the number of people using Firefox is same as the number of people using Google browser in November 2011. Both have a market share of over 25 percent. Google search has a market share of about 84% according to Net Market share. Yahoo is on the second place with a market share of 6% -however, it also uses Google technology Android: The mobile operating system of Google runs on 190 million end devices worldwide which is more than 50% of the market. 575,000 new android devices are activated everyday. YouTube: 48 hours of video material is uploaded every minute on YouTube. In 60 days more video material foregathers than the TV stations ABC, CBS and NBC has telecasted in the last 60 years.

 

Preacher of knowledge: The former Google CEO Eric Schmidt alluded to the political potential for change due to Internet years ago

Masters of knowledge: The Google founders Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin in front of a rack filled with Google servers

Searching is more important than finding

If Sigmund Freud, who discovered the power of unconsciousness, had known the immense database of Google search requests, he would surely have been completely bowled over. People ask Google EVERYTHING and create - as said by the search engine expert John Battelle - a gigantic "database of views" with it - an information goldmine of a magnitude never seen before. What does the world want? A company which can answer this question has access to the very core of human culture (and to the innermost secret of selling). Sometimes, it seems as if people would now confess their deepest thoughts and wishes on the search screen of Google instead of going to the church for it. So far, the point behind a search was to find something. But the times have changed now - meanwhile it could become more important to find a further search. In the spring of 2007, a 34-year-old American doctor's assistant Melanie Mcguire was accused of intoxicating her husband William and then shooting him dead. The victim was cut into pieces after the murder and the parts of his body were stowed away in three suitcases which were found in a bay which was at a five-hour's drive. The phrase which Melanie Mcguire had googled on a laptop ten days before the murder, i.e. on 18 April 2004 was "How to commit murder". On the same day, further search requests were also made inter alia regarding the topic "non-detectable poisons" and "deadly doses of digoxin" - a medicine which alters the functioning of heart. Melanie Mcguire requested the search machine to play God. On 24 April 2007, Melanie was sentenced for what the judge called "a particularly outrageous and brutal, heinous and well-planned murder".

By now, Google also decides about the weal and woe in other sectors. A new form of the world economy developed parallel to the triumphant advance cool search bar: the Google economy. It is - regardless of the type of business that one carries out - mainly about landing on the Google hit lists as ahead as possible. In order to push oneself ahead, there are a number of clean and a greater number of unclean tricks. Meanwhile, an entire industry, the search machine optimizer, lives on this kind of jobbery. As the result lists are always rubbish-strewn, one decides for a counterstrike in case of Google. On 16 November 2003, the sorting of hit lists changed for the first time and that too quite dramatically. Numerous websites which could be found in the Top 100 before were degraded or could not be found any longer. It had so to say washed away the search machine deluge.

Entry only for high priests

Here lies the operation secret of Google which reminds of the holy of holies of the old temples where only the high priests could enter: The Google Algorithm. This formula re arranged the world; it made men and things visible or invisible, important or unimportant, radiantly happy ("on the off chance”) or thunderstruck. As the bible was not translated for centuries and could be interpreted only by the clergymen, the question of the How of the new, digital world order remains unanswered. Google wants to provide access to information to anyone who wants to make all the knowledge of the world transparent - with the exception of the knowledge about which criteria of the company are used thereby. The Google algorithm is far more than only the CocaCola formula of the 21st century. There are - as per what is believed - about 200 "signals" according to which the search superpower yant and what the oracle wants to tell 3n God approves of! "Don't be evil" is the Google's business motto. Whether one really abides by it in the company is something that cannot be controlled. Google makes everything findable in the digital world transparent; however, the company likes to hold its cards close to the chest. As the new service CNET published - he googled - the information about Eric Schmidt, the Google CEO at that time, it was replied with a drastic communication ban. The CNET employees did not get any information about Google for a year.

The Mecca of the world of knowledge

At a conference of British conservatives, the Google manager pointed out to the politicians "from the TV generation" that Internet would have serious impacts on the political process. Now is the time to awaken. In order to show that the search machines could function as a political control instrument in the future, Schmidt sketched out a kind of 'truth predictor' software which examined all the statements and actions of the politicians for contradictions and in this way could influence the outcome of elections. The first step in this direction has already been taken. Hence, one could search hundreds of YouTube videos of the candidates for text quotes before the last presidential elections in the USA. Incidentally, the denigrative quotes of a politician are gathered as elections campaign munitions - even if by the investigators of the respective rival candidate. At that time, Eric Schmidt said in an interview that he is on a global mission to open the eyes of political leaders. Let's see when Google becomes ready for the purchase negotiations with Vatican.