Google: World Domination

Originally published by Matthew on August 25, 2005
Last updated on May 4, 2006

The search company that spawned from a couple of college kids has been busy. Busy making sure that they’re not just known as a search company, that is. Google’s recently released Beta (that means experimental) version of Google Talk is a latecomer to the IM wars, the field of battle already crowded with AIM (41 million users), MSN Messenger (14 million), and Yahoo! Messenger (20 million). However, every clue points to what will eventually become an awesome piece of the incredible fabric Google is weaving across the web and your desktop. What? Well, let’s have a look…

GTalk vs. AIM

“Why do I want this?” “What makes it better?” “But it doesn’t have [feature]!!!”

Ah, the inevitable questions of change. And truthfully, all entirely valid. Here’s what we think the high points of GTalk are:

• Clean interface. There are no ads, no goofy buttons everywhere, no ads, slick menus, no ads, and did I mention no ads?
• Easy on your system. Resources, that is. On all observed systems so far, GTalk takes significantly less resources to run than AIM.
• Integration with GMail. GTalk automatically uses the same contact list you have for your GMail account! This means no more maintenance of separate user/address lists. And, you can have the “GName” (Google screen name) or the person’s real name displayed in GTalk.
• Window docking. Chat windows can be grouped together and can slide over top of each other to save screen space. It’s hard to describe, but just get two or more chats going and you’ll see how it works. It’s cool.
• Voice calling. Simply click the “call” button on any IM window, and if you have a microphone you can talk to your buddy. GTalk automatically adjusts microphone levels.
• Custom away and available messages. Every IM client has customizable away messages, but available messages? What’re those? Simple: you can have a message underneath your name even when you’re there and chatting. Kind of like a tag line. I use it a lot.
• No crap. No stupid news popups, stock tickers, banner ads, indecipherable options, gigantic menus, or a plethora of confusing and ultimately useless icons like certain programs from AOL Time Warner

There are tons of tiny little thoughtful items throughout the program that you just have to use to discover. The two most noticeably absent features are emoticons and formatted (colored) text. However, those are rumored to be coming in a later release (remember, this is BETA software right now).

The Bigger picture

Why is this so significant? Well, Google Talk itself, while a very nice program, is not. What makes it special, and what will drive Google to new heights and truly break it out of being just a web-search company, is Google Talk’s integration with Google’s other services. And GTalk is just one example.

How do these services connect? What is the central hub, the backbone? Simple: Google’s incredible search technology. We know Google all but axed the early search engines like AltaVista, AskJeeves, and DogPile with its efficient, fast, no-frills searching, and the company’s name has become synonymous with “to search.” Off of this foundation Google has begun building a series of interconnected tools designed to leverage the power of their search technology to do much more than just scour the web. GMail was Google’s first well-known foray beyond web searching, and it has been wildly successful. And what are GMail’s most attractive features? Its enormous storage space (currently 2GB), fast and clean interface, and the ability to search your emails with the same speed and accuracy with which you search the web. Which, when you get around 5,000 emails per year (like yours truly), would be a wonderful feature to have.

OK, great, you say, that’s nice. But so what? Well, the picture really comes together once you try out Google Desktop 2. This nifty little program resides on your desktop, in your taskbar, or, what I prefer, docked at the side of your screen where it can display the most information. Once installed, Google Talk and a number of other little applets (news, weather, automatic RSS feeds from the sites you visit [that’s über-cool]) are integrated right into it. It also indexes just about everything under the sun, according to your preferences, so that with just one little innocent-looking search box at the bottom of the screen you can simultaneously search your documents, pictures, music, movies, web sites, web history, email (GMail AND Outlook accounts), chat transcripts, everything. And it’s instantaneous. And I do mean instantaneous. You type, and there it is. No waiting. It makes poking through your My Documents folder for some long-lost file a thing of the past. Looking for that research paper on human spaceflight from 2002? You know it’s in there somewhere, but trying to decipher your own organization system after three or more years just isn’t your idea of fun. Just type “NASA spaceflight 2002” into your Google Desktop search box, and instantly your document is available.

The real power and importance of this technology will probably be lost on most people until they realize they’ve already been hooked. Not many think they need this, or know that they want it. But let’s look back to the mid- to late-90s, when there were a bunch of different search engines, each of which had different strengths and none of which were especially fast. Then Google came along. Today, most of us take Google for granted and don’t know what we would do without it. The fast, aggregated searching provided by Google Desktop 2 will now do the same for all of our documents, media, and email. It has the power to relegate the very act of browsing for files to the same distant corners of our memory as rooting through piles of CDs for a certain song. We just don’t do it anymore; we have massive digital music collections (usually) neatly organized on our computers and iPods.

It should be clear by this point that Google’s search technology touches every one of their products in a significant way. Now let’s look at your typical day on the computer and you’ll see that Google is slowly but surely starting to touch every part of your daily life as well. Web searching? Google.com. Email? Gmail. Instant messaging? Google Talk. News? Google News and News RSS feeds in Google Desktop. Searching your own documents and files? Google Desktop. There’s not much more most of us do each day than search the web, read news and email, and work on some sort of document on our PCs. There’s other tools I haven’t even mentioned, like Google’s photo database software Picasa.

Suddenly, Google is no longer just a search engine but an impressive presence on our desktops that leverages the power of interconnected tools and simplicity to deliver a truly revolutionary experience. None of these software programs by themselves are astoundingly innovative, and none of the technology is new, but combined with Google’s search technology and connected with each other, they really start to shine. Do yourself a favor and try some of them out. You should be able to find at least one feature that makes you say, “Oooh, that’s cool!”

Forget Microsoft. Google is going to rule the world.

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