Google Earth? It will be soon

An explanation of why Google is going up in the world

by Rupert Sharp
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 17 Sep 2007

Google's race to total world domination seems to be taking a lengthy sprint, Google has acquired the Wiki website www.Jotspot.com which was and is a very successful site and isn't the first of its type Google has snatched, social network sites? Media giants? What's next, Google Banking? My personal opinion on the acquisition of JotSpot.com is that they want something to finally outrank Wikipedia in their own search engine for every Search Term under the sun. Wikipedia seem to be quietly planning Google's demise with Wikipedia 3.0; with its own search algorithm boasting to be a lot more logical and usable than Google's current engine could possibly handle the modifications for, but only time will tell on that one.

But after reading up on this the general belief is that they both have different agendas i.e. Google in itself is more intent on allowing its users to find information, while Wikipedia are more concerned about creating a colossal amount of information to find. I have a feeling Google is starting to come into its 'golden years' as they are now shoving every little finger and toe into a different application pie every day; the speed and precision of Google's expansions have threatened even companies such as Microsoft. Microsoft, the metallic shiny giant of software, isn't something many companies have truly stood up to. From the start Microsoft have had their customers under the thumb by using the 'first one's always free' method, controlling what they see and use out of necessity, but because people enjoy their freedoms the idea of a sweeter alternative is a very attractive proposition.

The simple attitude of 'lets fix that now' that Google has adopted is a very serious threat to Microsoft and this has become obvious. Problems that Microsoft have left to fester have suddenly started to be repaired and services improved - for example the MSN search engine has started to decline as Google has been dominating the market by about 3/4s, the choice for searching anything big or small lies on Google, but now MSN has been jolted into improvements such as their sponsored links system. They even put forward a contract to Yahoo to display sponsored links beside their organic results presumably to muscle in on the enormous amount of income Google inhales from this method. The bottom line is that Microsoft only gets off its comfy pedestal if there is a threat to the company, otherwise they just sit and bat their eyelids while Google are constantly trying to expand and improve.

The recent purchasing and development of different companies by Google seems to be very calculated; a widely varied video archive website (YouTube), a social networking site in China (Tianya), a wiki encyclopaedia (Jotspot), a weblog client (Blogger), all aimed at you, me and everyone as the trend of all of these has reared its head up high in recent years and does not look as if it's going for a rest any time soon. Google's view is blatantly customer-oriented from the moment of conception to the moment of completion - why give people things they don't want? That seems to be, as said, companies like Microsoft's problem, bind things up to be too complicated and don't allow for user-friendliness or Google's alternative of “it works, it works well, it does what you want ... is there anything else we can help with?”. On another note, an interesting little thing Google have developed is a flight simulator for Google-Earth which just shows you how much Google like to give their customers things to play with (or how much time they have :-P) You can get info on it at...
http://earth.google.com/intl/en/userguide/v4/flightsim/index.html.

Even now it is still early days for Google but its future looks bright. It's surprising to think that a company that was started in September 1998 has in 9 years stuck its foot/knee/leg in the door of online and offline dominance and can hold its own with companies 18 years older than itself. A word for all successful companies, beware the diamond-studded glove of Google.