So, I’ll admit it… before starting this blog this evening on Google, I “Googled” wordpress to get kick off my running commentary on the major search engine mogul. Yes, I could have entered www.wordpress.com to get to the site to start off my little rant, but instead, I googled it– even though I knew the address.
If I had to count the number of times I used Google.com, I really don’t think I could count. Yes, that’s right, kiddos… I am a Googleholic.
For those of you who don’t know me (perhaps the random person who uses Google to search for “Britney” or even “Google”, even though my wity commentary on anything and everything random may do it for some of you (yes, I’m talking to you Mom and Dad!), I still need my day job– hey I have to feed my cat some how! By night I write about new media, politics and entertainment– and by day, I am an editor for websites.
I use Google to search for my sites (again, even though I know the URLs of my own work websites)… but I use google, perhaps out of habit– I swear, Google has turned me into their own living, breathing Google bot. This leads me to tonight’s blog topic…Should we be afraid of Google?
Now, as a Googleholic, I could sit here and tell you that Google is the best thing to happen to an online editor since sliced bread. I Google to find articles, links, photos, videos and even to find my own articles every day from 9 to 5. I Google myself when I get bored, and I Google places to go for Happy Hour after work (hey, a girl’s gotta find some way to unwind after work… Googling all day can be quite exhausting).
Is Google the new evil empire and will George Lucas write a new film trilogy about the evil empire, Google, and it’s evil ringleader-engineers taking over middle-America one-day-at-a-time until we all turn into Googlebots until it’s conquered everyone from here to Kalamazu? Umm… I’m going to take a safe guess and say no…
But, is there need to worry? I will venture to say yes– I know, I’m taking on my addictions head on–sans 12 step program, if you will.
In 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life Project did a survey on search engines. It concluded that 85% of Americans that go online use search engines– a staggering number of more than 107 million people in the United States alone. That means 38 million people could be using a search engine at this very moment. And, what search engine leads all the others hands down? …do I really need to say it?
Let’s face it, my cyberfriends… John Battelle says it best in his book, “The Search”– Google seriously knows what we want. It can answer our burning questions within a matter of seconds, and works every minute, as the major search engine builds itself up second-by-second. It finds these answers, as it searches marketing, media, technology, pop culture, international law and civil liberty sources until it spits back out a beautiful list that answers all of our questions.
The truth is, if google and search engines alike figure out what we want, then powerful corporations and organizations will start paying attention to our interests, and the little people (like you and me) will end up feeling vulnerable and threatened. Google admits that it knows what each and every one of us searches for, and technically, can give up all of our dirty little questions (/secrets) to an unsuspecting person (or agency)– thank you so much, Patriot Act….
But, hey, I don’t want all of you out there to feel like we must live without Google or search engines either. I don’t know, but Google feeds my addictions (work, personal, social) and simplifies everything for me… Without Google, I’d be lost in my job, clueless about where to go for Happy Hour, and wouldn’t be able to get directions back to my apartment from work. In short, I Googled it…
