Presentation for ARIN 6912 on the hidden story of google search, with reference to articles by Nicholas Carr and Randall Stross.

1. Google Search – the Hidden Story – Andra Keay - ARIN 6912 Google (ˈɡuːɡəl) means search: — n1. a popular search engine on the internet — vb2. to search for (something on the internet) using a search engine 3. to check (the credentials of someone) by searching for websites containing his or her namefrom the Collins English Dictionary

2. Search has always been Google’s mission:“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people – or smarter. For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.” Larry Page 2002

3. Google’s first front page - from Google’s interactive timeline Google research project began at Stanford in 1996as PhD project “BackRub” which was published as the “PageRank” algorithmIncorporated/Domain purchased in 1997 Launched privately, funded by Sun in 1998Developed click through optimized advertizing revenue model 1999-2000Provided services to Yahoo 2000-2002Went public in 2004

4. "If you’ll walk around with a Bluetooth headset hanging from your ear, you’ll probably walk around with a Google chip in your brain.” From Computing the Cost - The Sun, March, 2009 “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” From Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic, July-August 2008

5. “Each epoch is a co-production between its forms of memory practices and the engaged activities of the people concerned, producing a particular time and space in which humans and their information technologies are synchcronised.”from Turnbull on Bowker & Starr Butler develops a theory of the formation of the subject as a relation to the social – a community of others and their norms – which is beyond the control of the subject it forms. wikipedia on performativity We are just pattern matching monkeys!

6. Vietnam Veterans Memorial in memory of 58,261 soldiers

7. "ONCE upon a time, the most valuable secret formula in American business was Coca-Cola's. Today, it's Google's master algorithm.” From The Human Touch That May Loosen Google’s Grip – NY Times 2007 “Google contends that its search engine relies on humans and machines. Matt Cutts, a software engineer who heads Google's Webspam team, said users who place links on their own Web pages pointing to other sites provide the raw information about valued sites that is incorporated into Google's PageRank algorithm. How best to utilize that information requires continuing work by human engineers. ''Algorithms don't leap out of Google like Athena from the head of Zeus,’’From The Human Touch That May Loosen Google’s Grip – NY Times 2007

8. “When you are in the business of organising the world’s information, what is learned in one domain often finds practical application in another.” Randall Stross “We don’t have better algorithms,” said Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig. “We just have more data.” Google’s Early Page Rank Algorithm

10. The data is still available on some websites. More recently, Google’s wifi data collection has also caused breach of privacy complaints. In 2006, AOL was heavily criticised for breach of privacy when they released some ‘anonymous’ search strings for research purposes.

13. We’d like to think that there’s a direct path from us, via Google, to all the information on the internet. Just like this 2004 attempt to map links between European universities. The reality is different. There’s too much information and an estimated 1/3 of the internet is not accessible.

14. Google doesn’t have all the answers.

15. But it does have a different answer for everyone.

16. Not everyone agrees with Google.

18. Personalized search with ads PLUS all the books, maps, docs, labs, images, movies, goggles, power, earthengine, streetview, android, chat, mail, speech recognition, voice, translate, google squared… what next?

19. Google would like your genetic data too.

20. Bibliography Agger, M. (10 Oct 2007). ‘Google’s Evil Eye: Does the Big G know too much about us?’ Slate Magazinehttp://www.slate.com/id/2175651/accessed 7 August 2010 Arrington, M. (16 July 2008) ‘Is this the future of search?’ Techcrunchhttp://techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/is-this-the-future-of-search/accessed 11 August 2010 Bowker, G. & Starr, S. ( )Bowker, G.C. & Star, S.L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Campbell, H. (28 June 2010). ‘23andme stumbles into an ethical gray area and why that’s good’ Science20http://www.science20.com/science_20/23andme_stumbles_ethical_gray_area_and_why_thats_goodaccessed 12 August 2010 Carr, N. (2008). ‘Is Google making us stupid?’, Atlantic.com. Washington DC. The Atlantic Copeland, M. & Weintraub, S. (29 July 2010). ‘Google: The Search Party is Over’ Fortune. CNN.Money.comhttp://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/29/google-the-search-party-is-over/accessed 29 July 2010 Dash, A. (2007). ‘Google Web History – good and scary’ Anil Dash: A Blog About Making Culturehttp://dashes.com/anil/2007/04/google-web-hist.htmlaccessed 7 August 2010 Derene, G. (2008) ‘20 (Rare) Questions for Google Search Guru UdiManber’ Popular Mechanics http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/4259137accessed 11 August 2010 Dibbell, J. (11 Jan 2009). ‘Randall Stross’s Planet Google Reviewed: Building the mind of God’. http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/planet-google-review/accessed 9 August 2010 Doctorow, C. (2007). ‘Google Video robs customers of videos they already own’ BoingBoinghttp://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/10/google-video-robs-cu.htmlaccessed 11 August 2010 Google Corporate History http://www.google.com/corporate/history.htmlaccessed 1 August 2010. Kawamoto, D. & Mills, E. (7 August 2006). ‘AOL apologizes for release of search data’ CNET Newshttp://news.cnet.com/AOL-apologizes-for-release-of-user-search-data/2100-1030_3-6102793.htmlaccessed 7 August 2010 Mayer, M. (2008). ‘The Future of Search’ The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/future-of-search.htmlaccessed 7 August 2010 Mills, E. (14 July 2005). ‘Google balances privacy, reach‘ CNET News http://news.cnet.com/Google-balances-privacy,-reach/2100-1032_3-5787483.htmlaccessed 7 August 2010 Mills, E. (14 March 2007). ‘Google adding search privacy protections’ CNET News http://news.cnet.com/Google-adding-search-privacy-protections---page-1/2100-1038_3-6167333-2.html?tag=mncolaccessed 7 August 2010 Munroe, R. (2006). ‘Search History’ http://xkcd.com/155/accessed 7 August 2010 Salih, S. & Butler, J. (2002 ) The Judith Butler Reader Routledge London Shirky, C. (2004). Folksonomy.Corantehttp://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/08/25/folksonomy.phpaccessed 10 August 2010 Shirky, C. (2005) ‘Ontology is overrated: categories, links and tags’ http://www.shirky.com/accessed 10 August 2010 Shirky, C. (2008) ‘Search’ Salon.comhttp://www.salon.com/books/writing/?story=/books/feature/2010/07/09/clay_shirkyaccessed 10 August 2010 Stross, R. (2008). ‘The Algorithm’ In Planet Google: how one company is transforming our lives. (pp 63-88). London: Atlantic Books. Sturtz, D. (2004). ‘Communal Categorisation: the Folksonomy’ http://davidsturtz.com/drexel/622/communal-categorization-the-folksonomy.htmlaccessed 10 August 2010 Vorhaus, D. (2009). ‘Crowdsourcingvsopensourcing in consumer genomics’ The Genomics Law Reporthttp://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2009/08/25/crowd-sourcing-vs-open-sourcing-in-consumer-genomics/accessed 11 August 2010 White, K. (28 Nov 2007). ‘Google’s Next Frontier: Renewable Energy‘ Reuters http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/technology/28google.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rssaccessed 10 August 2010