I’ve just been reading David Petherick’s post “Imagine there’s no Google” and it’s scared me a little. When the Internet was new we didn’t really think about the fact that all of our information was dotted around lots of different places, we remembered all of our different logins and passwords because we had to. We searched using Yahoo!, but it was a search so we didn’t need to keep it and our web portals (like My Yahoo or MSN) were fine for keeping our links and our personal emails.
But our web use has changed, most of us access the Internet and many have at least one web connected device in our house. It’s not just the geeks anymore, the growth of social media such as Facebook and Twitter has helped this, along with the way that email has been embraced by so many people. Of course the problems with Royal Mail have helped email’s cause, get your message directly to someone quickly, efficiently and know whether or not it has arrived within seconds? Of course!
I have been one of those people who has embraced the growth of the Internet and I love the connectivity it gives me. With my Laptop in the Lounge, my desktop in the bedroom, and of course the games console that’s attached to the TV I can access the web from anywhere in my home. Add to that my G1 and I’ve got the world’s knowledge in my hand all the time. And what do I use to keep on top of it? Google of course!
You see, the thing for me is that Google know exactly what it is that I need, and they tie it all together in one easy to use package. I’m currently typing this on Google’s Chrome browser, it’s clean, fast and simple – just what I’ve come to expect from Google products. At the same time I have my Google sidebar running (it’s part of theGoogle Desktop programme) which can check my GMail, Google Calendar, Google Reader and link me to my Google Docs. When I load up Chrome I get to see my iGoogle page with all the widgets that I find useful.
And this is before we’ve got into Picasa, Orkut, Blogger, Maps, Earth and Adsense. Yes, I am fully aware that Google are using me to improve their product, and I know that their product isn’t a search engine or any of the other delivery systems that they use. Their product is advertisement space.
They use my clicks and my history to target ads to me, when I recently sent an email to my partner about a B&B when we go to visit my cousin in Lancashire there beside my email was targeted ads for Hotels in Preston. If I hadn’t already done the search then I would have just been able to click on that link.
People think this is creepy, they think that there is someone at Google watching everything that they do online. That’s just not possible, you’d need one person to watch everyone who was online to be able to do that, and even Google can’t afford that many staff! And if someone at Google was able to separate my sad and boring life from the rest of the vast data stream that’s flowing through their servers every second of every day then they’re welcome to it, there’s nothing exciting there at all, I promise!
I know that Google’s products aren’t always the best option on the market (they are, after all, provided free) but they have one huge thing going for them, they integrate well with each other and I know what I’m getting, something clean, fast and simple. Designed to make my online life easy.
