Google Gets Big[ger]
I personally don’t recall the first time someone told me to “Google it”. Prior to studying communications I was always a later adopter of new media technology. I still consider myself as lagging behind my peers in the thorough understanding of cutting edge technology and trends in the communications/media market. Lately, I can’t make it through the day without Googling something. In fact, moments ago, I Googled “number of Google searches 2007”. Unfortunately to no avail, I was not successful in finding a specific number. In Battelle’s book, published in 2006, he discusses the discrepancy among what the company reports and what actually is fact. In the Playboy featured interview of Brin and Page (Google’s founders) released in August 2003, there were reports that the Google site was a host to 65 million visitors daily (later that was corrected by the interviewees as being 65 million monthly) (Battelle, 2006, p.224). I had difficulty grasping the number so I tried visualizing what 65 million people would look like. The population of Illinois in 2005 was 12,763,371 (Factmonster.com). Then again, what does a million people look like? A standard school bus seats 66 kids (3 kids per seat). Many of us can relate to jamming into a school bus seat 3 across and 22 benches deep in grade school. Even at around 4’ give or take a few inches tall, we felt crowded. There you were among 65 kids traveling to your school, visualize that for a second. Multiply that by about 15,151 and that is how many busses it would take to facilitate one million kids. Google boasts 65 million, that’s roughly 984,848 school busses loaded to the maximum with passengers. Humor me one more time on this; Soldier Field holds a max capacity of 61,500. If each visit to Google represented one seat, it would take nearly 1057 soldier fields to house all of those site visits.
The big deal about 65 million Google site visits is that all of those people are curious about something or perhaps multiple things. Therefore, the inquiries accrue from site taps to a number far greater. In 2001, what once was this specialized and unpopular search tool became the curiosity cure for Americans in a time of catastrophe. As Battelle explains it, the servers for television news websites simply could not facilitate the swarms of people inquiring about September 11. And thus, people more than ever before Googled. People tailored their search to result in personalized news (2006, p.143). The search results that were returned to the user were controlled by the algorithmic style that catapulted Google to contemporary notoriety. The basis of citation rank underlying it and described as, “…given [a] paper’s [web page’s (including any form or content)] importance can be ascertained by noting how many other papers [web pages] link through to that paper [web page] through citation” (Battelle, 2006, p. 71). Seven years ago, Google was bolstered to superiority and today it is going further with its capacity to bring people customized news.
As today’s Topix weblog “Welcome to the Neighborhood, Google” appropriately acknowledges, Google is embarking on Zip code level targeted news. As Google has proven a capacity to capitalize on and be the ringleader of the internet market, Topix should undoubtedly feel threatened. The affiliate and writer of the blog (tolles) of the company, asserts that Topix is ignoring the buzz about a potential bully. Topix claims that to date, citizen media strengthens its capacities. Loyal visitors to the site lend themselves to the larger scale services provided by Topix with the option, and self-administered responsibility of adding to the news. Topix provides the latest news information from mainstream press, government sources, weather sources, industry sources and blogs. Two years ago, in response to a mass overflow of information administered to Topix via feedback forms, Topix forums were created. These forums are the holding pen for citizen posts, the essence of citizen media and local news. These forums now comprise 60% of the articles deemed as original news sources. Uniquely associated with various news articles, is the ongoing commentary that Topix facilitates for its site users. People openly express their ideas and thoughts on the stories featured on the site. Tolles, on behalf of Topix, closes the blog with confidence in saying, “ And hey Google- if you ever decide that you’d like to add more content around localities (since we feel your pain around the lack of news in small towns), we have a couple of ideas for you…” (http://blog.topix.com/archives/000193.html).
