I’ve just finished an interesting book: The Search, by John Batelle (“How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business”).
Today everyone recognizes the importance of Search: what’s the point of all that information if you can’t find anything? What’s remarkable is how much Search was underestimated in the early days of the Internet.
The first search facility, Archie, was the project of a student at McGill University. A rogue group at DEC (Digital Equipment) developed AltaVista, but since it didn’t help sell minicomputers (DEC’s forte), it was left to wither. DEC was later absorbed by Compaq, who were absorbed by HP, which flounders today. DEC could have been Google, but they let it slip away.
Many other search engines flashed in the pan – Excite, Lycos, only Yahoo remains. Others – Jeeves, Kartoo, merely rehash what is served by Google or Yahoo.
Even Google started as a Ph.D. project by two Stanford graduates. They were simply interested in using cross-links to measure the popularity of web pages. The AdWords idea didn’t come till later, and they stole that from a pioneer/huckster named Bill Gross, who developed the idea of linking search results to ads at Overture.com.
Google has become indispensable. It is now a verb. They’re digitizing the world’s libraries. If you haven’t seen Google Earth, be prepared to be blown away. Imagine flying over the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Egypt, up the Grand Canyon (you can see the foam on the water), counting the windows in the Empire State building, the tiles on the roof of a Baghdad mosque, or seeing your house in Dartmouth.
Well, the folks who “do no evil” can keep track of your clickstream, the succession of sites that you visit as you surf the Web. They can keep a history of your viewing habits, tied by the common thread of your IP address (the numbers by which you are known to your Internet Service Provider, and that follow you everywhere). Google, or anyone examining the data, can form a picture of your interests and desires. Imagine what that information is worth to an advertiser!
In a different vein, it is interesting to note how the Internet has enabled the creation of a new form of humour: search for “Ghostly Car Ad”, and watch closely!
Finally, something totally unrelated that I found absolutely fascinating: a scientist is going to analyze the DNA on the back of the stamps on the envelopes that Jack the Ripper sent to Scotland Yard. If he licked the stamps, we may be able to infer who he was by correlating to the DNA of living descendants or relatives.