the art and observations of Ranjit S. Mathoda

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Edufire.com founder Jon Bischke asks a great question: How close is Google to attaining their mission?

There appear to be three components to Google’s mission: (1) getting access to all of the world’s information, (2) organizing the world’s information in a useful way, and (3) making sure everyone can access the information.

How much of the world’s information does Google access presently and how can this be expected to change in the future? Google faces a number of problems in getting access to the world’s information. These challenges vary based on where the information is stored (in the Internet cloud, on a computer, or generated in real life but not stored), the privacy of the information (public, private, secret), the legal status of the information (public domain, copyright but shareable, copyright but illegal to share), and the type of media (text, audio, video).

According to a paper on Google’s storage system (pdf), as of November of 2006 Google stored approximately 850 terabytes of information for its search crawler, 70.5 terabytes of information for its maps software, 4 terabytes of information in terms of what users search history is, 2 terabytes in Google Base, and 9 terabytes in Google’s Orkut. This sounds like alot, but as of today, the Internet is 3,000 to 5,000 petabytes of Internet traffic (with about 3 gigabytes of that data being monthly American usage) (see MINTS survey). Even accounting for the discrepancy between 2006 and 2008, and for traffic generated versus actual content of websites, that’s a more than 3,000 fold gap.

One significant problem Google faces with the Internet are that there are significant parts of the Internet that it is prevented from accessing. For example, Google is not allowed by Facebook to crawl most of the information on Facebook’s pages. Google doesn’t know your click history on Yahoo’s websites. Also, alot of our usage of the Internet isn’t actually captured in the Internet very well. Patterns of mouse movements and web page navigation, for example. Furthermore, as Jon Bischke points out, Google is also not very good at indexing audio and video files (although they certainly are working on such problems; see NYTimes on Google’s new image search).

To Google’s benefit, the utility of the Internet keeps pulling more and more information into it. Yet there is a tremendous amount of information that is generated every moment that is on only personal computers or mobile devices, and that amount of information is dwarfed by the information that is not on any computer. While these challenges can be tackled with new tools (like Google’s book scanner, or Google desktop search, or a Google backup service for your computer), Google is far from having access to all of the world’s information. There’s plenty of information companies generate each day that they do not put where Google’s tools can reach the information, from oil company geological data to a consumer products company’s internal documents. For Google the solution likely lies in helping create new tools to capture (life recorders) and manipulate (personal computer software, Google enterprise search) that information, even if the information is never put into Google’s cloud infrastructure.

Will Google be the place people go to find the world’s information organized in a useful way?

The second problem that Google faces is that no matter how useful it is in creating easy to use methods to organize information, there are new ways of organizing information that Google won’t control (Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.). To some extent Google is trying to route around this problem by encouraging software developers to create programs that interface easily with Google’s systems (Google Apps Engine) but such a solution seems limited at best. Like Apple, Google can try to create powerful interfaces that have the best utility for users, but they will be competing against the whole world, including their own former employees. They will never have the best system for accessing all information.

Can everyone access Google’s services?

The third problem Google has is that as ubiquitous as it is, and the Internet allows it to be, Google is not the most commonly used search system everywhere. Google has taken a number of steps to make sure it is easily accessible, from placing their search box wherever they can (including on Dell computers, the Firefox web browser, and the iPhone), to creating their own cell phone software (Android). Although much of the world is not on the Internet yet, technological development proceeds, wireless technology is proliferating across the developing world, and Google may have a shot at being the mobile device of choice in the developing world. The challenge for Google will be to create the best tools, both on the Internet and off it, both connected to Google’s overall architecture and stand alone so people can maintain their privacy, in a world of consistently expanding choice.

For all of the utility that Google provides to people every day, their mission statement is beyond a stretch goal. They are far from achieving it, and likely never will. Perhaps the economics of storage and access mean that it’s not worth storing certain kinds of information at all. Yet it is great that Google has such an audacious goal. Without trying to solve significant problems, no great accomplishments would ever be made. Clearly organizing and making useful even a small portion of the information generated by the world can be fantastically worthwhile and rewarding.

For a few hundred dollars the Apple iPhone provides a multi-touch display you can control by touch and the Nintendo Wii allows you to control video games from a distance by gesturing with a wand like remote control. What if you could combine the multi touch gestures of the iPhone with the midair gestures of the Wii for $39.99?

Sure, Steven Spielberg showed such a device in the movie Minority Report (see video), but researcher Johnny Lee has created a super cheap system that works by buying the Nintendo Wii’s remote and using it’s infrared light sensing abilities:

He’s also used the Wii remote to make a low cost multi-point whiteboard and a head tracking virtual reality display, all of which you can see demonstrated in his speech at TED :

You can examine a variety of his hacks, and download free software to make your own input devices, at his website. Mr. Lee has also developed a number of other interesting projects, including a $14 steady cam and a novel way to win a paintball match.

The Financial Times reports:

Apple is in discussions with the big music companies about a radical new business model that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices

While the music industry appears to be asking for a $100 premium, Apple is bargaining for a $20 premium (see the Financial Times article).

How much would you pay up front to have unlimited access to music on the portable device you carry around every day?

Most people have their personal devices for about 2 years.  A subscription service of $8 a month costs $192 over the life of the device, and is a lot more complex to use.  Thus by one measure the music industry’s price seems very attractive to customers.

Yet the average amount of songs sold through iTunes for every iPod is about $20. Any amount over $20 is bringing the music industry revenues it doesn’t have now. And as bands make more and more of their money from live events, it makes sense from an advertising perspective for their music to be distributed broadly, listened to frequently, and consumed with abandon. So while the music industry may hold out for more, at anything over $20 they are gaining revenues, usage and exposure.

Contrast one up front fee to the current system. Buying each song individually on Amazon.com or in iTunes requires many more purchasing decisions, which reduces the total amount of music listened to legally.  Downloading free music from the Internet is fraught with legal risks. Since many listeners to music are children or young adults, with a choice of asking their parents for more iTunes money for song purchases or downloading songs illegally, a device with an unlimited access to music also solves a significant problem for parents.

The future of media. The future of the music industry could be bolstered by such a deal. A steady form of legitimate revenue that its users will actually use, supplemented by ancillary revenues from greater live venue attendance, could make the industry stronger. The future of handheld media devices, particularly devices connected to fast wireless Internet networks, is looking fantastic. They are rapidly becoming the most powerful form of distribution for any form of digital media, from music, to books (see the Amazon.com Kindle), to software (see the iPhone software keynote). What’s next?

Here’s a quote that struck me for how really wrong it was:

“[According to Steve Jobs] Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.”
John Sculley, CEO of Apple from 1983 to 1993, incorrectly understanding the potential of Apple, as stated in his 1987 memoir “Odyssey”

You can find my other favorite quotes at http://mathoda.com/quotes