At ten years old this month it is hard to imagine a better mirror for the vacillations of digital’s rise than the growth of Google. For better or for worse, the West coast search giant is the defining narrative of the Internet age. From ambitious, altruistic start-up and poster-child of digital cool, determined to democratise the world’s information – motto: “Don’t Be Evil” - to publicly-listed media behemoth, Google’s maturation reflects all that is right, and for some, wrong, about the digital era and the world that has evolved around it.
For an industry that, arguably, struggled for credibility in its embryonic days, battling for space alongside the slow-moving giants of traditional media, Google bought a level of business, and financial, maturity that other dot.coms conspicuously failed to muster. With admirable determination, interpreted by many from the old-school as a dangerous bravado - a characteristic that to many epitomised the dot.com boom of the late 1990s - Google has been built with what now feels like fearless, and fearsome, calculation into conversely one of the most respected and most formidable brands in the world. What is indisputable is that during this evolution they have dragged digital with them from precocious upstart to a major player at the high table of media and marketing.
That this has all happened in such a short space of time only serves to make the story more remarkable. In the time it takes most corporations to squeeze their latest widget through development, Google has revolutionized a whole market, if not an entire generation. It now reaches deep into every recess of modern life and, in the developed world, and much of the developing one, there is no brand that wields such an overwhelming influence. Even language is not immune, with billions around the globe now “googling” every day, as the OED will attest.
And yet, perhaps, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to get too worked up over the Google-isation of modern life. For, really, how different are co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page from the newspaper, industry and even technology barons of yesteryear? Our own, real life Charles Kanes and Daniel Plainviews? Or just two more Bill Gates’? Is this not merely the latest manifestation of centuries old Capitalism, one that like our forbearers we must and inevitably will, however reluctantly for some, embrace?
Amidst all the fog, controversy and divided opinion, in just a decade, Google has transformed the way we live. Hyperbole? Absolutely not. In an age saturated by information, billions of images, sounds and data-bytes circulating cyber-space, only one company has the ability to harvest what we need, and what we don’t, whenever we want it. Now resolutely in every corner of the planet, it may not necessarily be the vision of philanthropy that many expected, but it is here to stay. And as each day passes there seem to be fewer and fewer companies able to challenge its dominance.
The challenge for Google over its next ten years will be to remain true to the values that have driven is astonishing growth over the last ten years.
Comments