Google's pursuit: knowledge
To answer a question recently posed to me by CNBC host Ron Insana, Google's ultimate goal is to have a wire into our brains in order to have complete knowledge of who we are. Of course, I don't believe that Google's growing stable of scientists -- however brilliant and talented they are -- will ever succeed in having complete, or perfect, knowledge and information about the world even if every piece of information is broken down into quantifiable and measurable bits (but that's a philosophical story). Nonetheless, knowledge is Google's goal or passion, if academic reports published on Google is any hint. Here's one I like, authored by Monika Henzinger, Google Research Director, and titled: "Extracting knowledge from the World Wide Web."
For now, Google derives a lot of its knowledge from the queries typed into its search engine. Today, typed in queries, tomorrow, spoken queries, and the day after tomorrow, our thoughts. Will machines know us better than we know ourselves?
Additionally, there is speculation that Google is expected to unveil its own payment and classifieds business at Google Zeitgeist this week, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. In a statement, Google said it is working on a service that allows users to post their own content onto Google, but the company has no plans to make any announcements. Regardless if Google announces a classified business or not, it's a business I've always thought made a lot of sense. I wrote about it back in June.
Read Net Sense (6/21/05): Google listings, now that hurts
Read Google testing 'Google Base' on MarketWatch
Finally, why is AOL suddenly relevant? AOL's advertising sales are growing faster than the industry and AOL accounts for 10% of online ads in the first six months of this year. Additionally, it has a declining dial-up subscriber base. These dial-up subs are ripe for picking if you're a broadband provider. AOL has 49 million IM subscribers - a good platform for emerging communications portals. I can't list all the reasons here, but read Net Sense on MarketWatch for the rest of the story.
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