Hi,
I'm Sherwin.
Please email me at: d.huang@student.qut.edu.au
-OR-
sherwinh@gmail.com
So I thought I finished last week, but then I discovered that my research was too general, and I had to start all over again. But its ok. I'm pretty sure that this time it's done. :)
The chosen topic of research for my annotated bibliography is as stated below:
This annotated bibliography covers the history of Google, and its many successes as well its recent difficulties with privacy advocates. Included are also articles that discuss how Google works, both as a company and as a search engine. All the articles have been organized and divided into a few subsections, each subsection holding the annotated bibliographies relating to the headings.
Google is often just seen as the popular search engine with the plain index page. It is hoped that after going through the articles in this bibliography that the reader will be able to gain a better understanding of how Google works and how it is used. There are actually enough resources with which to construct a Google Wiki page here.
An interesting point to note is that 80% of the sites here were gathered by searching through Google. Proof that Google really works!
The figures, provided by Nielsen NetRatings, which according to the site is “one of the leading internet and digital media audience information and analysis services� serves to prove the popularity of the search engine by providing figures pertaining to both popularity in terms of web user’s destination of choice, as well as the time spent by users at the search engine.
Why this is interesting and important, is that it cements Google’s place as an internet innovator, providing a site indexing service that many internet users turn to when they want accurate search results.</dd>
It reveals that a seemingly “free-reign� approach to running a company coupled with motivated employees working with the mind set of “the user is in charge� and the passion of a perfectionist result in a company being able to constantly strive for greater heights in innovation in an industry where many of the great ideas seem to have already been taken. Basically it is a case of employees being left to manage themselves, and in most cases, do what they do best, which is push bits and bytes. By leaving its employees to work on pretty much “whatever they want�, along with room for failure, Google finds it products are being constantly improved. The working environment created by the aforementioned ethos spawns a breed of employees who are willing to constantly come up with new ideas and experiment with them.
Google’s use of its users as a testing ground for the feasibility of its products also means that it creates products that people will actually use. This also means that the final fate of a product is decided by the people that really matter: the users.
Reading the article you really come to realise that Google’s success comes from its ability to make the most out of its employees and its user oriented product development and testing. It creates what users will want to use, not what it thinks users will want to use.</dd>
The ingenuity of the Google system, it seems is its ability to harness the power from many individual desk-top entry systems to perform the tasks that would normally be allocated to Multi-processor “higher end� units. This method of setting up the computers allows Google to run the search index in a highly decentralized manner, giving it a buffer against natural disaster or massive failures. Who would have thought that Google would be able to run off desktop computers?
The set up is guided by clever economics. In part, for the price of a few high end servers, Google would be able to purchase a large number of cheaper mid ranged desk top or commodity PCs that would afford a greater amount of computational power and storage. There is also the issue of factoring in the devaluation of the computers to the cost of powering them, but that does not seem as significant to the article as how the computers are set up.
This set up coupled with the decentralized and random distribution of workload makes for a very stable platform from which to host such a service.
By far, this has been the most interesting article yet, due in part to the unreal amount of computing power that has been discussed.</dd>
Much of the article deals with the intricacies of working with the search engine, giving descriptions of what to make of the results of a search, like what you might expect to see in the result, and talking about how the results are ordered.
Terminology used in the site seem daunting to users who are new to the web, but it provides simple enough explanations for it the article to serve as a starting point to pick up on the finer points of searching the web, so besides just acting as a review it serves as a possible instruction manual of sorts as well. Apart from the basics, there are also more complicated search methods documented as well, giving testament to the robustness of the Google search engine.
This piece makes a good addition to the bibliography because it deconstructs the use of Google, which would be very useful as a supplement to a Wiki entry.</dd>
This page explains with very simple English how Google ranks pages requested during a search, so that only the most relevant pages are displayed for the user, so that even the layman will be able to understand the very basic concept that PageRank is built upon. I have read other articles talking about the PageRank system, and found them to be too technical, and too difficult to digest, which is why when I stumbled upon this page I found it particularly interesting.
A Wiki entry on Google would not be complete without describing the workings of Google, and the information available on this page will make it easier to explain it to people in general.</dd>
As a GMail user myself, I have watched with great interest how this new service has generated a massive amount of interest. Some people are obsessed with getting their hands on the service, whilst others grumble about how Google is violating the privacy of users who subscribe to GMail.
The article is an interesting read because it puts across very simply the change in attitude that many people are experiencing towards Google because of this new service and tries to put these people back into perspective. I have no problems being a user of GMail, even if it means sacrificing some of my “privacy�. I don’t use it for anything but light hearted banter. I don’t trust the internet to let it hold any intimate details anyway.</dd>
It is interesting to see how a technology like Google has mutated into something of a psuedo culture. The founder of the online church is quoted to have said that Google "is certainly all-knowing and it can provide immediate answers to nearly all of your questions, which is far more than can be said for many of the popular deities of today." It is proof of how important Google is to people, and a testament to its effectiveness.</dd>
First Updated:
Sherwin Huang 22:53, 9 Aug 2004 (EST)
and then on:
Sherwin Huang 02:09, 11 Aug 2004 (EST)
and most recently:
Sherwin Huang 11:24, 12 Aug 2004 (EST)
At this time 95% complete I'd say.. Sherwin Huang 15:17, 22 Sep 2004 (EST)
