There's something about Google

I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, but I still don't know exactly why I love Google. But I do. I am obsessed. I read articles about it every day, I use all of their software products, and I even find myself promoting them relentlessly to my friends and on my blog. Rachel thinks I love Google more than her, probably. WHY am I so obsessed? I think half the reason I read all those articles and possess two books about Google is because I'm searching for the answer to that question. I find that I sometimes arrive at answers when I type steam-of-consciously here... so let's see what comes up.

First of all, even though it is a dominating force among technology companies today, it has and continues to be a little bit of an underdog. It's a victory story about two nerds who had a genius idea about how to organize information on the web, and how they brought that to the masses and made life easier for just about everyone who has opened an internet browser. Once they established themselves in the search domain, they started slowly branching out. That's one thing that attracts me: Google found its niche in search, then realized it could use its position there to start exploring other areas. And then they started dominating those areas, shocking companies like Microsoft and Yahoo!. I mean, seriously, think about this. Less than ten years ago, there were two grad students at Stanford that were working on a thesis. Today, they run a company that deals in:

• email (Gmail)
• photo organization (Picasa)
• blogging (Blogger)
• desktop search and internet portal (Desktop)
• instant messaging, and maybe soon VoIP (Talk)
• mapping and satellite imagery (Local and Earth)
• video (Video)
• news (News)
• and more.

I hate to sound like a PR person for Google when I do stuff like that, but is it only me that finds that incredible? And that's just their direct consumer side.

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Theoretically, just the organizing part is supposed to take 300 years, says CEO Eric Schmidt. But the universal access part doesn't have to take that long. I am not aware of any theoretical timeline for that part of the mission, but steps are being taken by Google to get started. They are supporting the $100 laptop project being run by MIT, which is producing a cheap, WiFi enabled laptop that is powered by a hand crank. These would be sold directly to governments or other entities operating in poor countries to give children and adults alike access to the world of information that is currently mostly enjoyed by rich countries. They have saturated Mountain View, CA with WiFi access, and have submitted a proposal to do the same for San Francisco. They have invested in a company that provides broadband internet access via power lines. Can you imagine the impact? What if every person in the world had access to the internet. Imagine the self-empowerment.

There are political hurdles, of course. Take Google's latest venture into China. A lot of people are mad because Google is complying with the PRC's demands to censor "sensitive information": keywords such as human rights, Tiananmen Square, etc. They would rather have had Google fight the request (and ultimately be denied permission to operate), or just drop the venture all together. Some others, on the other hand, which I count myself a part of, are supporting Google. Those who oppose Google's move are asking too much. Would you really rather have Chinese men and women flailing around on the internet using the American Google site, which is slow and choppy due to the physical distance of the country from the servers in America? Or, rather, let them have quick access to information by establishing servers in their own country. Yes, the results are filtered, and this does compromise their mission. But as Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy council at Google put it, "Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely."

Google isn't just censoring results and letting it stand. Now that they're in China, they're going to work at it. Critics think Google is "being evil", despite their motto to never do any such thing. Well, here's the deal. There are some evil things in this world, such as political censorship and suppression of information and denial of basic human rights. Google, as anyone can see through their mission statement, does not support it... but if it's ever going to make progress, it's going to have to do a little evil to eventually do a lot of good. "Don't be evil" is obviously an ideal that cannot be maintained at every step.

To resume to this point, I love Google because it was an underdog that rose to the top, and because it wants to do good by bringing its service(s) to the world.

Another reason I love Google is because its revenue is not derived directly from its consumers in exchange for the use of its services. What I mean is basically this: have you ever had to pay to use Google search? Google Maps? Google Earth? Blogger? Nope (You do have to pay for some videos in Google Video, but that goes straight to the content provider). How does Google make money? Advertising, and smart advertising at that. No annoying ads about health magazines, sex pills, or other things you don't care about (unless you care about those things). Google bases its ads on what you've searched for. Or, through one of the many many webpages that it partners with to display ads, based on the content of that page. It caters to your interests. This makes them a lot of money, and saves you a lot of annoyance. Google also uses non-intrusive text ads only. No floating animations that fly across your screen and block what you're reading, or noisy, flashing boxes. Now compare this revenue strategy to Microsoft. That's right: Microsoft gets rich by making you pay $200 for its operating system, or its productivity software, or anything. This isn't absolutely evil, but it's one reason that I love Google. It doesn't want money to be a barrier to information.

I like Google because they're community oriented. This shines through in their workplace philosophy, where employees get free food, time off to play, etc. They not only suggest, but basically require their engineers to spend 20% of their time (i.e. one day per work week) on whatever interests them. This is where some of Google's greatest ideas have come from. It encourages productivity without forcing it. But they are also focused on the wider tech community. They publish the code for many of their products, so that developpers from all over the world can improve it, create enhancements or extensions, etc. They want to collaborate with other companies, even.

Take Google Talk. The image is this: you can pick up your cell phone, which let's say is on a Cingular service plan, and call anyone from any other cell service: Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, whatever. You can write an email in Microsoft Office to a friend with Gmail, no problem. But if I'm on AOL Instant Messenger and you're on MSN, no dice. Yahoo and Google Talk? Sorry. They are some programs that let you manage your identities in these different services from a single window, but that's having to go get a cell phone that offers specifically access to people using not only your service, but others as well. Google wants to make it so that you can download any software client, but talk to anyone using any service. It has already "federated" with some smaller instant messaging services so that it doesn't matter what application you're using, you can still talk across networks. It's reaching out to AOL and Yahoo! and Microsoft and others to do the same.

Finally, I love Google because it's involved increasingly in relevant current events. China, intellectual property, privacy, economic development, the stock market, the future of information. Something is happening with Google every day that challenges the way I think, and that makes me learn.

So I guess that's it. I like Google for all those reasons, and just because it's exciting. It is challenging multiple sectors of the business, communications, and technology world by saying: "We think we can do this in a better, open way. Watch." What other company in any domain does that? This is a massive enterprise with major stock market success, but it's still sticking to its mission. Yes, it has to wander off track a little to continue making money, or to set its course for a greater good down the road. Companies need money to stay stable or to grow. Google is hiring ten new employees a day.

Google is not evil. There are more than a hundred millionaires among its employees who profited from the stock opening, but they're still there working away. They believe in the mission, in the ideal. So do I.

So to anyone out there at the Googleplex who's reading this (I know you do, I read my site statistics), hire me. I'll do anything. I'd prefer to be the official "kid who sits in a cubicle and plays with all our stuff to see if it's cool," but if that's not open I can also wash dishes.

Seriously though, Google has opened my eyes to some interesting job possibilities. Law school has become an option for me again, and I'm starting to read about intellectual property and technology law. Maybe eventually working on how to get internet access blanketed across the country, and getting started on stitching it into the quilt that is our world. I don't even know, but it's been a while since somethings stimulated me intellectually as much as these ideas have.

So there you go. I'm not going to stop reading about and writing about and promoting Google. I think it is doing great, great things. There are critics, and I understand some of their arguments, but not all. I don't like to debate that much, I'm usually such a peacemaker... but this is something that I actually take a side on, which is rare.

On that note, I invite your comments. I want to see what people - not journalists who are paid to express their opinion - but just plain people think about Google. I won't get mad at you if you disagree. I might get mad at you if you make fun of me.

Take it away.