Inevitably - and it doesn’t really matter in which genre of
media you appear - overkill can lead to a backlash. Graham Norton, for example, started out as a cheeky Irishman who happened to be homosexual. But now he just seems too gay. He acts like an E 120-addled leprechaun, perpetually tumescent, and until recently, perpetually on our screens. But of course, as I’ve said, overkill exists elsewhere and Google is no exception. With its cheeky irreverence and young vibrancy (scooters and lava lamps in their offices), is Google in danger of rapidly becoming Graham Norton of internet? Without homosexuality obviously – a gay search engine would be slightly surreal.
Backlashing is not peculiar to British, but dear god, we do it well. However, this isn’t really a backlash, per se. More a sense of apprehension because I am rapidly becoming tired of Google-this, Google-that. Could it be possible that others are?
The corporation is - rightly so - an admirable example of American dream. Start from bottom and work your way to top. After all, in 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google’s co-founders) were still working on search technology whilst students. Larry's Stanford dorm room became Google's data centre while Sergey's room was office. And inevitably there’s fun to be had on way, like seeing Bill Gates look paler by day.
Esquire magazine recently ran a feature on Google and there were Larry and Sergey. They still looked wet behind ears. Which of course they’re not. With Google, as reported recently now reputedly worth anywhere between $25 and $50 billion, there’s computer genius and astute business acumen going on there.
These two are fully aware of dangers, perilous way in which users of internet follow trends. As they say: “The competition is only a click away.”
It’s a double-edged sword of course. Google far outweighs competition if you’re going to use internet for research purposes. Silly Yahoo! Want to play games, find a date etc? Then go to their homepage. But they are of course a search directory, Google is a search engine. But is this search engine in danger of losing vision and direction by trying to become competition?
You wouldn’t think so. At first. Click on link for site’s corporate information and you can read their mission statement which clearly states that “Google's mission is to make world's information universally accessible and useful.”
