Archive for May 2003

Google – a failed approach to information management

Google claims that its mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful. At first look this seems to be a valuable goal. However, it is important to keep in mind that this mission is subordinate to the primary goal of any public company which is to increase the wealth of its shareholders by paying dividends and causing the stock price to increase.

Plagued by this paradigm Google adapted a business model in form of the AdWords and AdSense advertising programs that in its consequence led to the development of an entirely new industry: Search engine optimization which in its various forms – such as content farms – has caused an explosion of digital content that is essentially marketing copy disguised as information. In short: Google consequently organizes mostly the world’s ad copy rather than the world’s information. It is hence an utterly failed attempt to effectively organize information. Unless the search giant is willing to radically change its business model there seems no way out of the corner the company painted itself into.

I am working on an concept for building a better search engine that addresses the inherent conflict while attempting to put the challenge of information organization into a wider scope than simply ‘search’ and aim to push out a minimum viable product out this year.