Whether you know it or not, there is a war going on. Google vs Yahoo vs Bing. They are engaged in an epic battle to control what can be sought and found on the internet.
Why should you care?
The Internet is the Future - Once seen as the great equalizer between citizen and conglomerate, the internet is in the process of being cut down, carved up, and paved over by corporations and other business entities and individuals who wish to establish a dominate place in this new world.
TV - Youtube (owned by Google) has transformed into a user created content paradise for video which is rapidly siphoning viewers away from traditional television. Traditional networks have started to move programming online as well to compete.
Facts - Students are told all the time that Wikipedia is not a viable source for information. But every internet savvy student knows Wikipedia is the fastest way to learn something about which they do not know. Faster than going to the library, faster than using those awful poorly organized and designed university databases that are supposed to be used for finding and qouting information.
Friends - From Yahoo mail to MSN messenger to Facebook, the internet has become the fastest and easiest way to communicate with anyone across the world.
Shopping - Amazon, E-bay, Esty, Buy.com, and various independent sites. Online stores usually have more and better stocked items than the ones in the real world.
In essence, culture has recreated itself online. Search engines are at the helm of all of this, and the way we are being socialized will be shaped by how easy or hard it is to find what we want.
Sooner or later students will begin to question the merit of going to school, paying thousands of dollars for textbooks and classes when everything they're learning can be found online for free. Want to know how to do graphic design? Start a business? Learn photography? Read about history? Write a book? Study mathematics? It's all online, and for free too. Tutorials, essays, books, and encyclopedias. Not only that, but it's all easily accessible. Children are now growing up with the world literally in the palm of their hands.
Yahoo Answers has got more answers than the average parent. The sites Bing brings up can teach you more than the average teacher. And Google is becoming more intimate with us than any other business entity has before, from search engine to cell phone, it's always there.
Search engines easily categorize what the bulk of the public is looking for. Have you ever noticed that if you search for something in a search engine that many ads change to what you were searching for? Try it.
Imagine if you knew what a million+ people wanted, and you could show a million+ people what they wanted...
Inspiration:
http://www.precursorblog.com/content/google-uses-21-times-more-bandwidth-it-pays-first-ever-research-study
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