[tmbchr]™

What Does Google Do?



Was just thinking about this question: what does a search engine really do?

It acts as a referee in man’s search for meaning.

Not only does it help the end user find things, but it does so by organizing other people’s attempts to define a slice of reality and hammerings of meaning into a particular fixed form. Really, in a sense, a search engine is just a glorified user-defined cultural dictionary. Nothing more and nothing less. But a tool for helping you find information could and should be so so much more.

And don’t even get me started on MySpace…







3 Reader Responses

  1. Why Should I Go To Web Pages? - Pop Occulture Says:
    October 5th, 2007 at 2:34 am

    […] Following up from my last mini-rant, it occurs to me: why should someone looking for information on a subject ever need to go to a web page to find that information? […]

  2. Terry Says:
    October 6th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    The word index, as applied to a search engine’s crawl of the web and and the resulting organization of its results, is an apt one. Think of the index in the back of a book. Search engines perform the exact same function. On page so and so, you will find such and such a concept. Similarly, at URL so and so you will find a good result for the query you have just performed (most often an exact result).

    The difference is that Google is more efficient and than a traditional index in a book could every hope to be. This is why I’ve started entering the books I have at home in “My Google Library.” It’s a new feature of the Google book search, and it lets you search your entire collection over a specified query. A lot of the things I remember reading in my books at home aren’t included in the book index. Type in a query … and bang! Book, page number and highlight. Beats stacks of books at my side here next to my desk; or running over to the bookcase and flipping through something to no avail. We can now flip through 5, 10, 20 or 30 books at a time. I believe this will revolutionize research. It already has for me.

  3. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 6th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    Holy shit, that’s a great product pitch! I like it.



SURROUND YOURSELF WITH STRENGTH.