Having just celebrated their tenth anniversary, the boys at the big G have been so busy doing no evil of late, it’s becoming difficult to keep track.
In the last week or so, Google has launched a new web browser, version 3 of its image management software (with face recognition), sent a satellite into orbit (part financed by the DoD) to take pictures for use in Google Maps, filled in some of that pesky missing data on the map of Georgia and provided some tech-infrastructure for the Republican National Convention.
In all of this activity one of the initiatives that has been less reported is the announcement that they are stepping up the newspaper digitisation programme, which started back in 2006. The main development is the addition of full facsimile images of print pages, searchable and reproduced on screen using a very elegant browser-based reader. This gives an enriched account of the reported news of the time, contextualised by the advertising and print design of the day… At least, that’s if you can find something. There’s a very limited set of records available so far, although what there is proves compelling. The experience of seeing the microfiche translated to the browser is hugely seductive, and one could be tempted to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief that this is another element of your intellectual and professional life that you’ll soon be able to outsource to those well-meaning boys on the West Coast.
With an antitrust suit brewing around the proposed Yahoo! Deal (which could result in Google controlling (80 per cent of the online advertising market) it’s easy to be distracted from the monopolies which Google are already creating. Major universities are outsourcing their email to gMail, Google Apps is providing free groupware software for major organisations, tools such as the News archive are revolutionising the way in which research can be carried out and they are sole custodians of personal data the likes of which governments and credit agencies only dream of holding. But whilst the chirpy altruism of Page and Brin has propelled the company from student project through ten years of startling growth, the ‘no evil’ mantra surely can’t sustain it for a great deal longer. Even disregarding the concerns of the fiscal monopoly, we are becoming intellectually and professionally dependent on this extraordinary company. Google became a verb some time ago, through its suite of services it’s now graduated to being an entire workplace.
Google are software pioneers changing the landscape of the way we work and learn, but we shouldn’t forget what their business model and only major revenue stream is. They are brilliant ad-salesman.
Happy birthday Google!
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