I am starting to see more and more interesting posts on Google’s massive dominance on our society. Of course, about a year ago, I noticed the prophetic EPIC 2014 (Rise of Google-Zon) presentation. That’s certainly an image that’s always stuck in my mind.
A few days ago, I noticed “Disturbing Facts About Google“. While I knew most of these already, seeing them all on one page kinda makes me cringe.
This morning, I noticed Google’s comparison to SkyNet, the fictional computer network in the Terminator trilogy. There are certainly some interesting predictions provided in this post. With Google’s recent activity, the speculation in this post seems reasonable to some extent.
I also noticed a recent contrarian view, a Slate article predicting that Google will fall just like all of the others that have been in their position in a particular market segment. “Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, IBM PCs, CompuServe, Nintendo, Netscape, AltaVista, AOL, Dell, the iPod, and Microsoft all held, at one time, what seemed like impregnable positions in their markets.” With Google’s stock at $400, predicted to rise to $500 by the end of the year, this seems less believable than the previous predictions.
A while ago, Mark Evans followed by D’Arcy Norman led an informal search for a better alternative to Google’s search mechanism. While some alternatives were noted, I don’t believe any one particular search engine faired as well. In my own work and teaching, I am certainly guilty of promoting Google without even thinking about it … the term “just Google x” is one I use far too often. And including this more critical note, this will be my 42nd blog post (on this blog) related to Google in some way.
And if the good people of Google are reading this, I say welcome our new dark overlords, masters of our universe. For the rest of us, let’s continue to pay attention. The future of what we write, what we build and what we create — the very future of our ideas — may just depend on it.
Update: I just noticed a recent Wired article that describes industry’s fear of Google getting into just about everything in Silicon Valley. It certainly fits this theme.
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Alec,
There are still many areas of tech that I’m clueless about. If someone is blocking cookies does the google cookie thing still work? Any difference between Windows, Mac, and Linux?
Heather,
I’m not 100% on this, but I am pretty sure that cookies work regardless of platform and are browser dependent. The thing with Google’s cookies is that if you don’t use them or block them, you might be unable to save your preferences. However, I have seen sites that have developed ways to get around this such as: http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm
I hope that answers your question.
Long live chocolate chips…
I thought a glass of milk would do a warm blanket, cheap cable no wide screen necessary closets are small places for big ExtraTerrestrial faces The techies who claim the (k)now say Google’s beyond immortal Phoning home has lost its…
After poking around with a few other search engines, I eventually came back to Google. The others just had too much extra crap thrown in, whereas The Goog just gives the goods in a nice straightforward interface. And the others worked best when they emphasized Google’s results anyway. Might as well get it from the horse’s mouth…
A while ago I began a search for an open source search engine that could rival Google in terms of performance. Nutch looked promising but it’s gone nowhere.
What I have found is Scroogle – it’s kind of a bare-bones commercial-free alternative version of Google. You actually get the same results as Google, without any additional fluff.
Their story is here: http://www.scroogle.org/gscrape.html
The search engine is here: http://www.scroogle.org/scraper.html
I think fear of Google is way over done and agree that IT industry in US has this habit of being way too paranoid. It is sometimes justified, some times not . Google has serious competition everywhere even where they dominate so in my opinion it is too early fear them.
Don Lapre is a Superstar
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