Everyday billions of people go their computers and begin a search, many of them use Google because it is fast, it has a clean front page and it was institutionalized by many teachers. Let start with google, although their are other search engines in the marketplace. Have you ever wondered how Google became the search engine that it is? A book called The Search – How Google and its rivals rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed our Culture by John Battelle, published by Portfolio Books, NY, 2005 will give you understanding of how we go to where we are.

When Google was being built the founders had to scrape for every machine they could find to support the early service, they were forced to optimize Google to run off-the-shelf parts- cheap hard drives, cheap memory chips, and cheap CPUs. Essentially they created a massively parallel formation of cheap processing and storage. The beauty of the system was it was very scalable – the more computers added, the better it ran. If a component part broke, it was swapped out. This approach is now called distributed computing, and since Google has evolved the system to its own operating systems on tops of its servers and even customizing and patenting its approach to designing, cooling, and stacking its components. In the server business, heat is an enemy. Sometimes having all the resources in the world, does not make you successful. Sometimes the less money you have to throw at a problem, the better it is. Although with Google’s credit rating and cash in the bank it can now afford to throw money at problems.

The distributed computing helped Google to become one of the largest data centers in the world, and when crisis happen, people turned to Google. This extraordinary asset is the ability to cache any information, at any time and show it to anyone on demand. This asset plus when the press used Google it worked and their lives were made easier. Since their lives were easier, the reporters used Google more than any other search and would mention the name Google when they did their reporting.

If you are curious or just want information, the ability to use Google search is limitless. This ability has changed all professions and reduced barriers to entering many businesses. Search is the new interface of commerce which allows for people to do many new and interesting things. It is also based on trust and fraud which is easier to do. In the past, many people only had access to certain amount of information and it was easier to find out if you can trust them. With search there is a great deal more information one can find out anything which can lead to fraud. It is easier to fraud someone, because you can find out about the person or their company. Google has to walk a strong line to trust the information and how the information is sorted. It also has to work on keeping the fraud to a minimum.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, with every endeavor there is an element of trust and fraud. The more dependable the information the more you trust it, but the more you trust it, the easier it is to do fraud. If you want an example of movie thinking of Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. In the movie the information to bring down the bad guys was misinformation. The bad guys thought they had information from the government sooner than everyone else, but they were wrong and lost their money. Buying or investing is often the trust and fraud element.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.