A pandora’s box Google – a double edged sword.

Do you remember the time before Google, I think my primary search engine was msn.com or yahoo. But now Google has hogged the entire search engine market, has about 80% of the market share. Google is like a Aladdin’s lantern, that brings you all you need, it’s infinitely large yet takes up no space. I can find a house in Mexico to rent, look at paintings in Prada or listen to Tiger Woods ill-considered voice mail to that bar girl.
It is a priceless resource that can fulfill your big and small information needs in no time. I can put together a research file on any subject, identify top experts in any field anywhere in the world, email them right away to ask a question or request an interview. Amazingly, they usually email me right back.

People in 60s sometimes ask me how many researchers are working for me. Who needs researchers when you have Google? Google is a double-edged sword in the media world while it is a boon it is also a bane. It is the worst thing for people in the world of old media i.e. TV, newspapers and books and advertising. So to the once-glamorous old media, Google is a Googzilla. It is like a scary monster tat leaves destruction in its wake.

Google’s mission is thrilling, idealistic and seemingly benign. It is a to make information accessible and free There is a terrific story about a conversation with Mr. Bill Gates back in 1998. What keeps you up in the night? Mr. Gates replied that what worried him most is not the competition he saw all around him. It was the fear that, somewhere there might be two guys in a garage dreaming up something completely new.

There were. Their names were Sergery Brin and Larry Page. By 2008, 10 years later, there garage start up had revenues of more than $22-billion and is full-on in competition with Microsoft. All money comes from ads that you never click but obviously other people do. Advertisers love them as they only pay if someone clicks. No more waste of time or inefficiency. To add to the pain, Google own content is stealing time and audience from everyone else.

At Google the world is inefficient and engineer is the king. They can make the world more efficient. Wouldn’t it be cool to have 20 million books online; or to digitize the newspaper distribution system; or to enable people to get software for free through cloud computing; or why shouldn’t phone calls be free?

Free information is wonderful. It levels the playing field between buyers and sellers; haves and have-nots. It means that third-world students who cannot afford textbooks can still have access to information. I is a tremendous force for democracy, social justice and liberation.

Google has demolished entire industries. Nobody buys encyclopedias anymore. People don’t need travel agents, either. Anyone is intermediary business (including retailers, advertising agencies) is basically toast. It has thrown entire education industry in disarray. What is the use of learning anything when all the facts are out there on Google. Will people who have grown up with web be persuaded to pay for content they now get for free?

Google of course would not rule forever for sooner or later some two guys in garage are sure to have a new idea….
What has changed since Google?

1. I stopped bookmarking things. In fact, it will take fewer keystrokes to get there and in case something better comes along I’ll get on it right away.
2. I stopped using specialized sites. If I want to read up on some vehicle, or anything, for that matter – google will show me the specs and reviews much, much faster.
3. I stopped using sites like weather.com, yahoo movies, financial sites, etrade, fool, even calculator, dictionary and Microsoft Excel for many cases! Everything could be done by a simple text box and “Search” button. Faster.
4. In fact I stopped using the address bar all together, just like many others – Firefox has an alternative “address bar” that is powered by Google and is proper: no need to add “.com” or retarded “www” to everything and accidental misspellings will get fixed. Isn’t that sweet? Just go Ctrl+K instead of Alt+D.
5. I do not have POP3 email client software anywhere. Gmail, even though it does not have folders and uses “collapsed” conversations, was by leaps and bounds the best web-based email program. My primary address is 10 years old and does not end with ‘@gmail’ but I tunnel all my messages through gMail anyway simply because they eliminate spam. 99.999% of it, like nobody else.
6. I stopped using my personal site. I can store family photos and useful files up there on FTP, just in case I’ll need them when away from home. With ad-free Picasa and the giant gmail mailbox I don’t need those either.
7. Finally, all sorts of Yellow Pages became history: online, offline – does not matter. Google finds that stuff too. Phone companies finally (!) realized that as well and stopped bombarding everyone with those useless yellow bricks.