As I sit resignedly before the screen and prepare to draft yet another fascinating foray into the world that I’ve increasingly come to refer to as ”Groundblog day”, a sudden thought has inveigled its way into my stream of consciousness. That thought translates roughly to words of this effect: “Geez! How much harder would this thing be to write without google?”
Ok granted, when compared to the musings of Newton or Plato, few members of the blogsphere are likely to be awed by my little epiphany. It does nonetheless lead us nicely into this week’s topic: social media on the web. Those of you who took the time to watch the video at the start of this post will probably have some idea as to what social media is, but in case you missed it allow me to try and summarise.
Social media is an umbrella term that essentially refers to networking applications such as Facebook and Myspace, user-generated content sites such as YouTube, and, more latterly, developments such as Twitter and Digg. Search Engines also come under the banner of social media, and it is this aspect of the web that forms the basis of this entry.
Search Engines have, almost since the inception of the internet, functioned as the web surfers sextant in navigating the “oceans” of digital information.
In 1998 a revolutionary new search engine called Google came along allowing for faster and more pertinent search results than ever before. Today, Google tracks an estimated 1 trillion web pages (approximately 25% of all web content) and is often built-in as standard into computer toolbars as a testament to its mastery of the search engine world.
In many ways Google represents far more than simply a search engine: it has also been responsible for creating many other useful applications such as Google Maps, Google Earth and the upcoming Google Library Project (GLP). The GLP is unprecedented both in scale and possibility: the digitisation of literally millions of books and manuscripts from around the world, that will eventually be accessible from anywhere in the world.
Writing for the Guardian online, Professor John Sutherland says of the GLP:
“What we are witnessing this year is the beginning of the greatest act of recovered memory in the history of our species. The next decade will be the age of the unimaginably vast archive. More particularly, the dynamic and usable archive. The archive, that is, which hurls its contents at you, rather than requiring laborious spadework.” - John Sutherland, Guardian Online
Some would argue however that Google’s near monopolistic status within search engine/ social media is more behemoth than benevolent, with the example of the search engine’s acquiescence with Chinese government demands to censor its search results commonly cited as a compromise on Google’s motto.
Certainly we cannot dismiss Google’s decision to self-censor (indeed it has been roundly criticised for it) but we should not let one incident cloud our view of its liberating potential:
“Google should be presumed virtuous until proven evil. Just because it could be evil does not mean it is. Just being big and powerful does not make it evil.” - Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine.com
Moreover, Google has never rated its content based upon how much a contributor has paid for it (unlike some other search engines) meaning that search results tend to have far more relevancy to users. The impact of Google upon the internet and modern society has been enormous and, whilst perhaps not perfect, we’d do well to remember just how fundamental it has become to our daily lives:
“Google has opened up the world’s digital knowledge to everyone. We can answer any question, satisfy any curiosity, fix any error of fact in the blink of an eye. I wanted to know just how fast that is, so I asked Google how fast an eye blinks and in .3 seconds it told me that a blink takes .3 seconds.” - Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine.com
