Friday, March 12, 2010

Will Google Really Take Over The World?

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So in a departure from all things websites, I want to take a look at the glorious all-encompassing company that seems to unwittingly invade every aspect of our Web 2.0 lives. This company is your friendly Google from down the street— or across the country, depending on where you live. Regardless, Google is here to stay, and the more knowledge you have about how big Google really is, the better equipped you will be to deal with life itself. So let me take you through a story of a world that is now Google’s:

You wake up via an alarm from your new Nexus One and then quickly take a look at the local weather, using the GPS of your Google phone to determine your current location. You get up out of bed and check your Gmail, email which Google scans to give you the ads you see on the right hand side of the web page. You search for the email for the interview that you are going to and look up directions, using Google Maps on the Google Chrome browser of course. You then move those directions to your Nexus One so that you can have the directions on the go.

So you get to your interview and ace it: awesome. You have left Google Latitude open on your phone, and you see that you received a message on Google Talk from your friend. She noticed that you were near her and asked if you wanted to get lunch. (And yes, in case you didn’t know, Google Latitude can tell your friends exactly where you are and is a part of Google Maps for Mobile.) You get an email that your friend also left you a voicemail, which Google Voice has already gone through and transcribed for you (as well as saved the contents on their servers). So you have lunch with your friend, first looking up a good spot using Google Maps for Mobile, and plan on going to a birthday party that weekend. You don’t want to double book, so you add your plans to Google Calendar so that your computer and your phone will have the same info.

Looking at your Google Calendar, you see that you have class in a couple of hours and need to head back to school, but you realize that you didn’t read the book or finish your assignment. You don’t have the book on you but you don’t stress: you break out your laptop and go to Google Books where luckily, Google has already scanned the complete contents of the book you need and made it available to the public. You complete your assignment on Google Docs so you can go to a school computer to print it out.

Since you are done earlier than expected, you spend the rest of the time you have going on Google Reader for your news, Google Product Search for your gear, YouTube for your video fix, and Google Buzz to tell your friends how awesome you are. After that, you head to school. You get there on time and coast through class. During class you are wondering how your sister is doing, since she is dealing with some medical complications. Luckily, she is avid about updating her health information in Google Health, and she has shared access to her records with you. So you check it out, and see that everything is going well. So great, you’re happy and now off searching on Google to find out what gift you should get for this party on the weekend.

So hey, I’m not saying that Google is evil… yet. Nor am I saying that you should not use Google products — I definitely use my fair share of them. All I’m saying is when you do use them, beware of how much information Google has about you (which they do give you a very convenient way to find out), and of course, beware of their underlying agenda, Google Purge.

Trifecta Tech is not responsible for the pandemonium that may be caused by taking the Google Purge article seriously.

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