Do We Really All Work for Google Here?
by
on August 31, 2008,
No doubt, Google is the largest internet giant that determines exactly how the market operates and how other players behave online. What’s more, acquisition by Google is certainly one of the most appealing exit strategies for many of the newly-launched startups - this exit strategy is often the most financially rewarding one and it offers a huge opportunity for further growth of a product with the help of Google’s engineers, servers and money. And even though many startups have been completely (or almost) forgotten after acquisition by Google, many still think it is the best possible scenario. Today I have seen an interesting tweet that got me thinking heavily:
Is it really true that anyone launching a startup or in any other way profiting from an online business actually works for Google in the end? And you know what, my opinion is that mostly yes, anyone does.
First of all, we all generate content here that gets indexed by Google and adds to its search power. For any single person who is even relatively active online Google must be indexing hundreds of pages - while those that are engaged in numerous online activities easily generate thousands of pages without even thinking of it.
For example, for me Google indexes a few thousands of pages on Profy plus a huge number of my profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and dozens of other social networks I am registered with. Then I have microblogging/lifestreaming pages on Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce, Jaiku, MyBlogLog and tons of others I have created accounts with out of curiosity or to test them for Profy. I also offer my photos on Flickr for Google to use in image search (along with logos and screenshots I upload to my posts on Profy). All of those generate thousands of pages - not to mention all those comments on Disqus, coComment or the new addition to the blog commenting game BackType.
And while my own name may not be among the most popular search terms for Google, I also tend to generate content related to quite popular search terms - and these pages often appear in the search results. And what does Google do with all those enormous numbers of pages appearing in the search results? Obviously it sells ads along those results - and generates revenue that allows the internet giants to make all those acquisitions startups aspire to.
What’s more, many bloggers generate further revenue for Google by placing ads from Google AdSense alongside their content. And even though Profy as a publisher only uses Google’s ads as defaults here in addition to better-paying CPM ads, I am perfectly aware of all those sploggers scraping our content and making money off it - usually with AdSense as well.
And I don’t even want to mention all the information that Google now has about all the internet users: from what our homes look like and to our interests reflected in our search history as well as in the terms we use Google Alerts for and articles we share on Google Reader. We have already heard enough theories on how Google could use the information and they are mostly scary.
Many of us end up heavily relying on Google and helping the corporation gain strength with our content and money we earn for it. Is not it scary that any internet user serves as a human input device for Google? I think it is but I also believe there is nothing any user can do avoid it completely. And while the situation may change eventually if (or when) an equally powerful competitor will arrive, in the meanwhile we will all continue to help Google further grow its enormous empire.
T-shirt image credit
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
After reading the article, just to show an example of it. When I used my PPC for the first time on the internet after a year of use, Google auto-detected all my profiles on almost all services I had based on email or profile url, that was done by backtracking my ‘Google Storyline’ so obviously those who work online has that automated study generated for sure.
I always did the day I signed up for Gmail by invite on the 7th of July London Bombings and chose to have ‘terrorism, terror, U.S. Government, London, RFID and Iran’ as my first GoogleAlerts’ tryout test (my account still has those - around 10K+ emails since) for my /propaganda media storyline shift with time/ study I did. It was just too intense to do alone though.
@Elijah Bailey: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about - Google definitely possesses all the information for just about any internet user and I don’t think I know anyone without a Google account.
I guess, in a sense, that many of us do work for Google directly or indirectly. It is pretty amazing that it come to dominate the Web in such a short period of time (relatively speaking!).
Mark
Great post! Now wouldn’t it be just a fantastic leap forward if that made us all feel like we were in it together. “It” being the world. However the old cynic in me tells me that we’re not quite ready for this yet.
@Mark Evans: Yes, it is definitely amazing how such a complete domination has formed over such a short period of time. And now we all just help make the domination stronger.
@Ponor: Thank you, really glad you have enjoyed this one. Unfortunately I also don’t feel that we actually participate in success - instead I have a feeling that we help someone else’s success grow even bigger. Let’s see if eventually we will enjoy the fruits of helping Google grow as well
Indeed, it is scary that we all in a way work for google. I have tried to live w/o the dependancy on Mr G, but unfortunately, not possible. Will just have to wait for another player to move in so we can have “a choice”
@diTesco: True, we have already seen some bloggers experimenting with avoiding Google for some time but they have all confirmed it was near impossible. And now that we also have a Google browser, we are facing the possibility of an even deeper dependence on everything related to Google.
If we all do in fact work for Google then we all get payed well for our meager work.
Google provides it’s users with a priceless search engine that grows in capability daily, amazing online office tools, nearly unlimited e_mail, they allow you to explore and innovate (i.e. Google code and Google labs), There’s Google sketch up(wow!!!),all for FREE. Google pays it forward in such a way that it’s historical, I mean what other company in history has given away such invaluable tools and services, simply to see a link ad while using there main service(s){a link that be just what your searching for anyway}.
I for 1 am proud and honored to work for Google, if that is the case, as the benifits are never ending.
Sincerly ,
Life Long Googler
Jowers: Good to see Google has such loyal fans. The only thing is that Google definitely does not lose anything by giving all the great tools away for free so it is still a deal - they earn money off us using the products so I would not feel too grateful to the company
That is a great t-shirt slogan. You should get someone to make a proper design and sell it on CafePress or something.
Hm, never thought about the title as a text for the t-shirt, sounds like a good idea to me
A win win situation never hurt anybody.
In addition how could Google possibly use any of the gathered info in a negative form, it in fact it helps them to realize what they can create for us next, as well as helping to improve the accuracy of our searches. We can’t possibly expect anyone or any company to exist without profit and revenue, we simply owe Google our gratitude for finding such an innovative way to provide such a rich experience free to it’s users.In short Google’s company format and privacy policies truly hurt no one as everybody profits from their existence including their critic’s (Who use them more than the average user{in fact it’s probably how they found this website and this post}). That is Like saying I shouldn’t be grateful to our U.S. Soldiers for protecting freedom because they get payed for it, ludicrous. :-}
Sincerely ,
Life Long Googler
Jowers: I can feel you are really a big fan of Google and somehow avoided any of the conspiracy theories around the company - some of which have plenty of options explaining how exactly Google could use the information it collects about its users. And when I am talking about gratitude, I just mean that it has its reasonable limits and I am grateful to Google same as I am grateful to Flickr that provides an excellent hosting for my photos: I pay for Flickr and I appreciate the great service they offer me and I don’t pay for Google but I would not appreciate their services simply for the fact that they have chosen their services to be free. In fact, Google’s politics of offering everything for free damages the internet economy as some services that other companies could charge for (office applications, for example), they don’t charge simply because Google does not charge and free is a very difficult thing to compete with.