The Search Continues

Source:
August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web, by Paul Ford

In the second half of The Search, John Batelle goes on to detail the further evolution of Google, spending some length on the intitial public offerring, and extrapolating with some speculation about where the technology-media industry is headed in the future. Oh the Places [We'll] Go! when the Web fully assumes the role of the next great computing platform! How simultaneously sweet and scary is the idea of a Google Grid??
Batelle raises the public/privacy issue in the context of reverse directories. It’s funny to think that people are generally okay with their information being publicly accessible (i.e. phone numbers and addresses), but it is not until a middle man (in this case, Google) connects those dots and makes it easy to identify that personal information that people begin to hit the panic button (since I don’t have a land line, I looked up my dad’s phone number for kicks); this phenomenon Batelle deems “the balance between a right to privacy and a right to know.” We can certainly all give thanks that the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed!

I also find it interesting that Google continues to stubbornly hold onto it’s nouveau (my descriptor, for lack of a better one) business model, even post IPO. When comparing and contrasting Yahoo and Google, Batelle raises an interesting distinction: Yahoo is far more willing to have editorial and commercial agendas, and to let humans intervene in search results. I think there is something to be said for allowing human intervention here. While I do respect Google for sticking to their guns so to speak, if they are to continue on the most successful path, they ought to revisit the idea of human intervention. There are only so many things a computer can do. As an aside on this topic, I think it is brilliant that Carnegie Mellon has established the ESP Game for tagging purposes. Why not let the collective human consciousness make a few calls and have a little fun in the process?

In quick sum, I think it is fair to say that media, technology, and search specifically are all merging into some kind of hybrid (look at Itunes and YouTube for an appertif). Google can dance the dance all they want, but they can no longer distinguish themselves completely from the media label. We are well beyond our more simplistic days of Google epiphanies. And we’re moving ahead at warp speed!