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.
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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.
