Thou Shalt Not Fear Thy Google (Weekly No. 5)

goo·gle
vt, often capitalized \ˈgü-gəl\
goo·gle | goo·gled | goo·gling\-g(ə-)liŋ\
Definition of GOOGLE
: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web

FYI, I googled that Michael Jackson/Google image, but you already knew that. For the purposes of this assignment, that action alone fascinates me. More on Michael Jackson and Google later.

Should we, humans, nearly 2 billion internet users, fear Google? It's hard to wrap my brain around fearing anything man-made, and this has nothing to do with religion; I just think that nothing or no one is invincible in this world. Nothing or no one has so much power that they can't be destroyed. What is there to fear about Google? Yes, they're slowly but surely taking over the web, but Google also went into cardiac arrest when Michael Jackson died. I know, poor choice of words, but I'm trying to get my point across. Although powerful, Google is certainly not immune to human behavior.

"Link by link, click by click, search is building possibly the most lasting, ponderous, and significant cultural artifact in the history of humankind: the Database of Intentions." — John Battelle

We live in an era where we are constantly seeking information via the web, that is virtually what the World Wide Web is, a massive hub of information waiting to be sought. I can't even begin to keep track of how many times a day I type Google's url into my toolbar in order to search for something, even websites whose address I know. That's just lazy. Google is my main method of gaining knowledge and navigating the web on my laptop and Blackberry. I constantly get into heated discussions with conflicting ideas; sooner or later one of us resorts to shouting: "Just Google it!" In The Search, John Battelle touches on this by stating: "Search has become a universally understood method of navigating our information universe." You can easily replace the word "search" with "Google" in that sentence as Google has become synonymous with search.

"Intent drives search. . . Searching is merely a means to an end."

Although we are still searching, over the past few years the behavior of incessantly searching the web has shifted from the desktop to a mobile device; and I'll give it to Google for owning 97% of mobile search traffic, but at one point no one was searching anything via a mobile device, and twenty years ago no one was searching the web. What happens when the intent fizzles away? What happens when people are no longer search-crazed?

If intent drives search and searching the internet is a learned behavior, what happens when humans start to learn a new behavior or given a new method to access/search for information. What happens if humans completely abandon this behavior? This is why I feel that no matter what Google does, no matter how much it acquires, we shouldn't fear it. If anything Google should fear the 2 billion internet users around the world. Google should fear how often human behavior changes and how quickly we are willing to jump ship to swim to the next big thing. Goodbye MySpace, Hello Facebook!

Although humans search Google over one billion times a day, ten years ago, Google was in its infant stage and barely crawling. This, again, is why we shouldn't fear Google, because at one point they didn't exist. As consumers, we should never fear a company that we essentially gave its power. Humans gave Google its power, and just like we gave MySpace power, we can take it away. Google's future is in our hands.

Just last year Google thought that Michael Jackson traffic was an attack on its servers because of the spike in queries. When the news became official that Michael Jackson was in cardiac arrest, then Google realized what happened. People were going mad searching for the latest on Michael Jackson's condition. The intent to gain knowledge on Michael Jackson's condition is what drove people to Google in unforeseen quantities. The search inquiries surrounding Michael Jackson's death set a precedent for Google as it had never experienced this type of "attack" before. Human traffic, human behavior, drove Google's servers into distress and ultimately crashed the servers. Now that is something to fear.