Last Updated on: 27th September 2013, 01:45 pm
I’m trying to write this without sounding like a paranoid nutbar. I will probably fail. Oh well. I’ve probably sounded like many different varieties of nutbar before, so what’s another kind?
I want you to think. think of when you first remember hearing about the Google search engine. Can you remember? Can you remember someone telling you about google, or talking about googling someone, or maybe you saw it as someone’s startpage? The reason I ask is that I can’t.
One day, it was like the word was planted in my brain. I don’t know where it came from. It was back in 2000 or early 2001. I’m not sure. Steve was hanging out with me in my little residence room. I was sick of all the other search engines like Mamma, Dogpile, Altavista, Yahoo, etc. So, I said to Steve, “I’ve heard of this thing called google. I think it’s supposed to be good! I don’t even know how to spell it! I’m not even sure if it’s google, or what, but the word Google comes to me.” Steve asked me where I’d heard of it, and I honestly couldn’t answer him. So, we typed Google’s address into the address bar, and miracle of miracles, there was a search box! And we loved it! But how did I hear about it? I really don’t know! I didn’t know then, and still don’t. It was like the word just appeared out of the clear blue sky.
I find this especially freaky, since Google is everywhere now. It’s *the* search engine, and because of that, googling has become a verb. How many search engines get that status? I’ve never heard of anyone yahooing or altavistaing someone or something. Maybe I’ve never heard of altavistaing because that is impossible to say. But anyway, no other search engine was ever turned into a verb.
Add to this that Google runs blogger, without which there would be no VC in its current form. It owns Feedburner, which runs our feed. And, of course, it runs our ads! On top of that, it has Google Mail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Earth, a bunch of other stuff, and a whole wack of dough. How did Google get so big? Is it just because of the sheer awesomeness that is Google, or…is it something more cynister? Have the folks at Google figured out how to mess with our heads and make us think stuff without us even knowing about it?
Na…*shakes head.* What am I talking about? I really do sound like anutbar. But the fact remains. I don’t know how I heard of Google, and I remember all kinds of obscure things. Why is that one missing?
