What truly connects us as people? The romantics would say love was the reason, the cynical claim money made the world go round. For me, the answer would have to be Google. Connected to some 8 billion Web pages, Google has more accessible sites than the world has people. Google is the common thread that ties us as well as the most efficient way to find material on the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand or wacky experiments you can do with your microwave oven — which garnered a frightening 34,000 results.
More and more, I've noticed its presence in our everyday vernacular. We've all heard some variation on the following exchange: "Hey did you check out that band?" "Dude, I'm gonna Google them when I get home."
Though Google is actually a play on "googol" — a mathematical term which refers to the number one followed by one hundred zeros — I always thought that it sounded like "baby's first made up word." Of course it could be gurgle that I'm thinking of. Regardless of its background, there's no denying the power behind the most widely used search engine around. The quest for information is so effortless, how can you not love it? I know I Google at least once a day, as I'm sure many of you do. There are always the services of Yahoo or that snooty Ask Jeeves, but you just can't beat Google's simple, clean Web page and sly tempt of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
And who hasn't Googled him or herself? A search reveals a Texan artist, a public information officer from Boise and a Seattle-area midwife all share my name. It may take a little spice out of being an individual, but what's in a name?
One day, I thought, "what if I turned the tables?" What if I Googled Google? Moments later I found a site that chronicled the two Stanford graduate student inventors Larry Page and Sergey Brin and their rise to acclaim.
Not to be held to the same nerdy image of a certain Microsoft mogul, these two opened the company doors in the late 1990s to large rubber exercise balls which functioned as office chairs, lava lamps and chef Charlie Ayers, who offered up the healthy dishes he created for his previous employers, the Grateful Dead. Page and Brin even took the fun outside where twice a week a section of the parking lot became a designated roller hockey rink.
Today the company is much larger and probably more in line with business convention, but I would guess that it still has the same sense of vibrancy. After all, when it comes to the search for fun, who can tell you more than Google?
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Dec. 7 2004.
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