Steven Levy, one of my favorite technology authors (see Hackers, Insanely Great), has an article on Google in the Dec. 16, 2002, issue of Newsweek. I have to admit I did not know Levy was a Newsweek editor. I have always associated him with his books.
The Levy article provides interesting insights into the business, technology and social phenomenon that is Google.com.
Google is the 4th most popular destination of the web. It contributes to searches offered by the 1st (AOL) and 3rd (Yahoo) most popular sites.
Google makes money by licensing its search technology and from ads targeted to searches. However, the ads are delivered in a separate screen area and in text so as not to annoy searchers. Web users seem to be annoyed by ads in general, but tolerate and may even find the Google approach of value.
The major advantage of Google is the ability to quickly offer the answers searchers want. Sounds obvious – but this objective is difficult to achieve. The goal might be translated as the hits at the top of the list generated by the search must satisfy the question users have in mind (see Get Lucky option – take me immediately to the top site on the list). Major contribution to this success seems to be PageRank – using information about other sites linking to target site to assess usefulness.
The article identifies many applications of Google I would not think of. For example, check out the background of a potential date. I found http://googlefight.com/ kind of interesting. Enter two search phrases (e.g., people) and see which has the greatest online popularity. I tried Mark Grabe vs. Cindy Grabe. Any guesses? Google has become a what of doing things.
