Subscribe by EmailWhat would you do if there was no Google?
August 8, 2008 by Mark O'Neill |By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Google Operating System poses an interesting question, one I’ve asked before as well - what if we temporarily lost Google and had to go without it for a while? What would you miss the most about it? Would you be able to cope?
It was back in March that Google here in Germany crashed for 90 minutes. For those 90 minutes I had no Gmail, no Google Reader, no search… all Google services were completely gone. I couldn’t even watch any funny videos on YouTube. It made me realize how much we depend on Google and how much of the Internet the Web giant has taken over either by wealth or by stealth.
We design our websites specifically so the Google searchbots will like them and we even put Google’s analytics code in our HTML templates. We rarely think about how Yahoo or MSN will look our sites. As long as Google likes it, that’s all that matters. Why is that? Why are we so focused and obsessed on Google over all other search engines? Why does Google have such a stranglehold over us?
So I guess my question is, if Google were to suddenly blink out, what Google service would you miss the most? Plus what would you do? What service would you switch to instead? Would it be a big disaster for you or would you get over it?
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I only use google for searches. You tube is fun but there are alot of other good sites like it too. I could cope just fine. I would miss the seauch engine though… but there are others that would do the job.
Don’t joke about that kind of thing, it’ll give me nightmares
Probably Google Reader. I wouldn’t be able to read the blog. I’d get over it quickly by using another RSS reader
I would die. Well, not really, but all my email is forwarded to gmail, and it is all stored there. It wont be so bad if i lost all these emails, but it would mean that I cannot receive some email, and other emails will be lost untill i reset the forwarding on my other email account.
Also, I would really miss Google Reader, and google calendar. for search and youtube and the other services, I can manage with other services.
It’s funny you ask this. I had this fear earlier today when Google wasn’t appearing when I first logged on this morning. Turns out I had forgotten to open Airport and wasn’t, therefore, linked to the interweb but still - the fear was there.
it’s been so long since I’ve used another Search Engine I would have to really think about my choices - really, which one is the one to use after Google? And why do they take so long to load?! Thinking does not bode well… at that time in the morning anyway!
Mostly it would be the Search Engine I would miss but without YouTube I would have to go hunting for funny clips and arseholic behaviour!
I use Gmail the most as my only mail service. If google search and calendar died, I guess i could live without them, but not gmail probably.