Google Power

At the teenagehood of the internet age, a giant superpower is emerging, called Google. It has coined the expression "google it". It is able to deliver comprehensive and accurate search results in less than seconds which rivals all other search engines. But is Google, for all of its benefits, becoming too big and powerful?

The majority of internet searches are conducted through Google, which has made it Australia's most popular website. But behind this populism lies a hidden danger. That being as more people become reliant on Google for their information and interactions with websites, Google becomes the 'Key to the Web'. This firstly causes the extinction of smaller search engines, which could deliver 'niche' results, such as blogs, news, images, articles, books - all of which google has incorporated into its 'sub' search engines.This has already caused the merger of Yahoo and Live (Google's main rivals) into a new search engine, Bing. But secondly, it means that Google has has the power to turn our eyes in any direction on the web. If a website doesn't appear on Google, will people still visit that site, or be able to find it? This power that Google has gives it a massive advantage over the market that attempts to regulate it (free market theory). Google has the power to destroy a business if their website doesn't appear within the first page of a Google result.

But moreover from this, Google has become more than a search engine. It is a highly profitable business, as their small ads which are placed beside search results rake in millions of dollars. Their adsense program, which places ads in private sites (such as Blogger blogs), to which both parties split the profits, is also a good cash cow for Google. These large profit margins have helped Google launch into other technological pursuits.

Google is becoming less of an internet based search engine (or advertising company, depending on how you view their business model). It hosts a range of other services, from Google Earth to real estate, and now cloud computing. But Google is stretching (and has stretched) even further, and has developed and continuing to develop software, such as its internet browser Chrome. Google now aims to create a open source computer platform to challenge Linux, Microsoft and Apple. But they don't stop here, as Google has already launched a rival mobile (and mobile platform) in the US to steal sales away from the dominating iPhone. These software pursuits are going to radically change the computing and internet landscape.

So while Google has its many benefits, it has also become its own driving force for web domination. Whether Google becomes too big and starts to causes the demise of the internet age (some would point to Microsoft and software domination as an example), I'm not sure, maybe you should just "Google it".

 Links

Google Monster - The Age

Bingoo - The Economist