The NY Times has a great article today about Google, everybody's favorite search engine (or at least the most hyped). Google, which is the most popular search engine, logs about 200 million searches a day. The Times reports that Google is different things for different people, "a dictionary, a detective service, a matchmaker, a recipe generator, an ego massager, a spiffy new add-on for the brain." Whatever it is, Nielsen/Net Ratings reports that 60 million people used it in January. That's more than 20% of the U.S. population, not even Internet users (I used Google to find the U.S. population, which was 281,421,906 in 2000 according to the Census).

The article includes crazy Google "miracles", like when Orey Steinmann found out that his mom abducted him when he was a young child. Or like Robert McLaughlin, who found his stolen guitars on an online auction a day after they were stolen.

Of course, there are many Google detractors as well. Google indexes web pages by popularity, not accuracy, so the more links a page has, the more popular the page is. The Times gave the word "apple" as an example, saying that a person would have to pass dozens of results before finding anything relating to the fruit.

While Google may not be perfect, it provides users with results, accurate or not. There is no intrusive advertising, no pop-up windows, no clutter. While people may have to sift through the results or refine their searches before finally finding what they need, it's a great resource. People just have to know that Google isn't the be all end all.

- NY Times: In Searching We Trust

Posted by tien mao in Tech at 10:36 AM