July 2011

There isn’t a day go by, when most of us don’t use Google at some stage.  It is simple, reliable, its maps feature is great, and it is constantly coming up with new and nifty ideas – some work and some don’t.

So many people start, and finish, their searching with Google, that publishers and researchers often hear the comment – “it’s all on Google”.

If it’s not already – will it be shortly?  Google’s “mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

For content providers that want their information accessible, such as newspapers, government, businesses, organisations, celebrities, bloggers and twitterers –– Google is driving readers to their door.

Many content providers, newspapers being the classic example, love the accessibility that Google provides to some of their content.

Increasingly, they are now teasing readers to go beyond the content available to everyone, and to read the content behind the closed door which can be opened with some money and a secret password.

There is still a long way for Google to go in its mission to make information useful.

Spelling tips, suggested directions, and very quick results help to make Google very useful for common day to day searching.  I have previously written on when a Google search is enough  and why you should occasionally pay for more information .

For searching that requires advanced filtering or expanding, downloading options, storing and editing search results and reviewed content parameters – Google has a lot of catching up.

For many of us, it will never all be on Google, but it is always a challenge convincing others that there is a world of information beyond quick search results.