How Google Shapes Us

Posted by Terence P Ward Oct 3, 2009

Today I published my one hundredth article on Suite101, a review of a book about Google, and it got me to thinking about how much Google influences my own life. It's definitely the first place I usually look for information (with Wikipedia coming in a close second), and I know I"m not alone in this. I learned in my marketing class that the median age of the person who reaches for the Yellow Pages before looking up a number online is in their mid-seventies. Much of the reason this is possible is because of Google's search power.

I do most of the marketing for my business writing by building an online presence via Google. My income from these articles is based entirely upon Google's ad network. Indeed, my collected business book reviews wouldn't get much traffic without the mighty Google. The SEO industry rises and falls on the search engine's mysterious algorithm. The company wields tremendous influence and has gigantic sums of cash. It will certainly be interesting to see what Google does next.