Are you there Google? It's me, Kristin

I think Google is a great search engine. You can find, not only what you are looking for, but related items. A search engine Long Tail. However, when I use Google apps. like Gmail, I feel like it's 1984 and Big Brother is watching. Yesterday I looked at past emails and noticed ads on the right hand side. I sent an email to my aunt about a Mardi-Gras themed party (for a 1 year old) that a friend of the family had over the weekend. There were ads for mardi gras products and birthday party invites....it freaked me out a little! The BBC article about Google keeping track of what people search for is a little off putting as well. It's kind of scary that the US Department of Justice wanted access to this information to see what people were searching for. What's to stop them from not only see what I'm looking for but also look into e-mails I send to friends and family. Not a pleasant thought! 

One of the articles (I believe it was from BusinessWeek) talked about Google clouds. I never thought of how Google or other search engines actually worked until after reading that article. I think it's an interesting, and apparently effective, idea since Google's system never ages and when parts die, engineers can easily replace them.  

In one of my classes Monday evening, Dr. Bergen talked about an article in the Economist about Google as God. I tried to find the article and found one about Google as a religion...they wanted me to pay a subscription to read the article - and I didn't want to pay - so I "googled" Google as a religion...there is a Web site called "Google as a Religion".  I't's called Googlism and there is a church newsletter, Google prayers, a holiday (Sept. 14 - the day Google was founded), FAQs, and a collection of hate mail...

I do like the applications Google has, like iGoogle and Google scholar. iGoogle has headlines about different topics I'm interested in like entertainment and finance. It makes it easier to find stories about these topics. Google Scholar is nice to use if I can't find information on the school's databases. I think these applications make it easier for us to find things we need - like driving directions and quick access to shopping, videos, etc....we're able to save a little bit of time. I feel like Google is the future of search engines - supplying apps and aggregating news and other information to make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. 

Fortune lists Google as the number one best place to work: they have onsite gourmet chefs, ski trips, a sauna, company movie day, massage therapy, and many other perks...I think this is where I want to work!

As for the Microsoft - Yahoo thing: I'm not too sure about that...I think it's an attempt for Microsoft to stay in the search game and try to overtake Google.