I was thinking about the first chapter of "The Googlization of Everything" I read earlier today and took a moment to imagine what my own Internet usage would be like without Google, and without any type of similar search engine (like Yahoo!, Bing, etc.)
And I couldn't.
Probably 98% of the websites I visit are found on Google. Aside from the specific sites provided to me in my classes and the few mainstream sites I frequently visit (Comcast and Amazon, for instance), Google is my map to the information super highway. I don't know how else I'd be able to find the information I was looking for on the web - I feel like "web surfing" wouldn't really exist.
As was mentioned in class, perhaps I might find myself relying on bloggers' recommendations for websites, like how it was back in the early days before Google and similar search engines existed. Still, there's nothing quite like typing out the exact words you're looking for, and having Google spit back a bunch of applicable sites at you. It's fast, convenient, and relatively brain-less. Finding information through other bloggers would be far more tedious. First, you'd have to find bloggers covering the topic you're searching for; then you'd have to see if any of those bloggers have any links to the specific information you're seeking.
The Google as we know it today certainly has its pros and cons, but I for one, would find the Internet virtually unnavigable without it.
No comments:
Post a Comment