What would you do if there was no Google?

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?