Sometime this month — the exact date is disputed — Google Inc. will turn 10. And I think it merits notice of just how deeply Google has wormed its way into everyone’s life in the last decade. Perhaps most tellingly, it’s achieved that Valhalla of influence: it’s a verb. To Google, or not to Google. Not an easy feat, that.

(And of course, my e-Hamlets, the answer is always to Google.)

But Google has revolutionized things, yes indeed. If its push into mobile — the first Google Android phone is going to be seen next week — does for wireless what it has done for the Web, who knows what the landscape will look like 10 years hence.

Take a look at the 10 years past. For one, it made the explosion of content on the Web possible because it bringeth the eyeballs like no one else. It took the phrase “crawl the Web” and made it non-arachnid-y. And for me I fondly recognize that it settles those bets I’m always making over cocktails about half-remembered song titles or whether David Hasselhoff’s shirt blinked when he was performing on the Berlin Wall (answer: of course it did. Ah, me. You’ve got to love the Hoff. That and the hamburger thing ... but I digress).

There’s the dark side of Google, too. Privacy concerns. The fact that it seems to just know *so* much about me. And as I told a friend regarding another matter, you’re only paranoid if you’re wrong.

But for some reason it doesn’t bother me. You see, I almost feel like I know the Goog personally. It’s ... my friend.

Ahem. OK, not really. Um, I didn’t mean it like THAT. Honestly. True that I am a sad and lonely wireless beat reporter, but really, I have people, you know, to talk to. I have peeps. Really.

I do revel in how cute it is that it changes its logo to recognize key dates — even Marc Chagall’s birthday. Cheered me up that day. Thanks for that, Googie.

Anyway. And it’s made news reporting a much more touch-and-go kind of exercise because fact checking has become a lazy man’s enterprise. Take, for instance, the recent reposting of a report from six years ago that United Airlines was going bankrupt. The Internet sphere picked it up (Google hits) as being current and the next thing you know United’s stock was dropping and mainstream television news was reporting it as fact and it was all quite the snafu.

So, good and bad and verbal, Google has arrived. Happy birthday friend. I think you should get a Facebook page. Really.

User Comments !

Happy B'day Google and thanks for making Search Engine Marketing a real big hit without which hundreds of related jobs and online money making would not have been possible.

(However, I feel that the Chrome has to improve a lot)

Nice write up, Tara.

Posted by: Ajith Edassery | September 24 2008 02:51:06

The google chrome is fantastic, but on safari the browser still needs some improvement like addition of toolbar and the main program Icon sucks

Posted by: best data recovery software | September 24 2008 23:09:56