March 17, 2008

 

The Almighty Algorithm

Out of curiosity I thought: what would happen if I googled “Google”? Would it be like in that scene where actor John Malkovich goes through the special door in the movie Being John Malkovich (IMDb) into a world where everything is John Malkovich? Would I go to a place where all things equal Google, the final ultimate perfect algorithm.

Instead I stumbled upon another google with a .org instead of a .com. (.net just takes you to google.com). Google.org is the philanthropic arm of the company, and its designed to be focused on global issues such as confronting climate change by supporting alternative energy and rechargeable hybrid vehicles, and other issues such as access to public services, support of small business, and so on. It seems when people or companies make so much money they aren't quite sure what to do with it, they tend to seek out altruistic ways to use their massive financial wherewithal. Such as is the case with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The almighty search engine intends to utilize solar energy to power its Googleplex and as a company intends to be carbon neutral in 2008.

I think this fairly well crafted video does a good job to parody the growing omnipotence of Google. Thanks to my friend Joy who shared this with me. She found it by subscribing to the free podcast “Best Of Youtube.”

Note: at the time of this blog post there were 1,218,964 views for this YouTube video (which is a company acquired by Google). According to wikipedia there are 16,805 full time employees at Google. Thats, an average of 72.53 views per employee – and thats just one video on YouTube. Considering all the ad revenue, its no wonder that Google is dominating the tech industry.

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