What’s Google been up to lately? What hasn’t Google been up to lately, more like it.
Seems to me like the guy who started the googleworlddomination.com website might not be too far off, although his thesis is that Google will ultimately use its vast powers for evil because it’s a data-eating monster that knows everything about you, including your personal preferences, exactly who’s in your social network, where you live and the URL of every single website you’ve ever visited. Since 2004, he’s been sticking to his prediction that Google will take over the world within 10 years. There’s even a countdown clock on the site, according to which we currently (as of 10:45 a.m. on June 6) have roughly two years and 194 days to go before Google rules us all.
I ironically located the googleworlddomination website by Googling the words “Google” and “dominate.” It was the number one hit.
The “word” “Google” (all air quotes intended) is already embedded deep in the lexicon and it’s not going anywhere. Type “Define: Google” into Google, and this is what comes up:
Verb: 1. Use an Internet search engine, particularly Google.com: “she spent the afternoon googling aimlessly”.
2. Search for the name of (someone) on the Internet to find out information about them.
Google has already altered life as we know it. I’d find it nearly impossible to quantify the amount of times I look something up via Google in a day, the action is so frequent and reflexive. Information is more than power, it’s everything — and Google has the data at hand.
But whatever one thinks about Google and its supposedly evil inclinations, it’s undeniable that when we talk about Google, we’re talking about way more than a search engine. This is a rundown of some, not all, of the Google-related news from the last several weeks alone:
- Google and Samsung released the next generation of the lightweight Chromebook laptop, which doesn’t have a hard drive like other traditional laptops. Instead, Chromebooks rely on an Internet connection and a flash memory.
- Google seems to be serious about moving ahead with its Google goggles. Company representatives hit up a street fair in San Fransisco to test the waters with real potential consumers. This video provides a rose-tinted view of what the glasses will supposedly allow you to do by making the device look like a magical extension of your brain:
- Google bought social networking startup Meebo for a cool $689 million to help with its social media push. Google may be taking over the world, but Google + isn’t taking over anything.
- Speaking of acquisitions, Google’s also got its search-hooks into Motorola Mobility in a bid to make some headway with mobile computing.
- Speaking of acquisitions again, Google snapped up mobile documents solutions provider Quickoffice. Microsoft, watch your back.
- Then Google released a special business trends reports to help online publishers quantify display ad trends.
- Why stop now? Google announced a wide scale revamp of its DoubleClick integrated ad platform, which is basically a tool to help marketers and agencies streamline their digital marketing efforts.
- And finally, Google released its Knowledge Graph, which culls a user’s searches to provide, in addition to the usual series of links, a compact chart on the right side of the page with a more quickly digestible sketch of the info searched for.
And that’s just a sampling of what’s been going down with the Google machine lately.
Want more Google-related news and updates from deep within the Googleplex — as Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Cali. is known? Google makes it easy. Just queue up your Google Reader. Or set up some Google alerts for “Google” in your Gmail. Or simply search for “Google” through the Google News aggregator. Google will provide the results.
Allison Schiff is web editor at Direct Marketing News.
