Virginia Heffernan writes "The Medium," a weekly media and technology column for The New York Times Magazine. Awhile back, she did a column about Google, specifically about the algorithm the search engine uses to "guess" what you may be looking for when you begin typing in the search box. She went through the alphabet, one letter at a time, and reported on what Google's "guess" was for each one. When she typed in 'a,' the search engine returned, perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon.com; 'z' brought back Zillow.com.
Presumably, the algorithm utilizes data compiled by gazillions of user searches to extrapolate what it thinks one is most likely to type in next. We assume this program also takes into account the physical location of the searcher. Thus, when Your-Not-So-Humble-Correspondent just now typed in 'b,' he retrieved the website for BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, the public transportation agency of the San Francisco Bay Area.
A friend of ours once told us that good writers are original, and great writers steal. In that spirit, then, we got to wondering what would happen if we typed the standard journalistic questions-- who, what, when, why, where, and how--into Google's magic box. Herewith, the results:
WHO won American Idol?
WHAT is my ip address?
WHEN in Rome (2010) IMDB.com.
WHERE the Wild Things Are (2009) IMDB.com.
WHY is the sky blue?
HOW I Met Your Mother?
So, if we may draw a hasty conclusion, Google thinks Americans are a bunch of entertainment obsessed geeky kindergartners. Sounds about right.
The other night I typed in "Is Google taking..." and the response was , "...over the world."
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting! In my experiment from zipcode 60130, when I typed "why" these were the top responses:
ReplyDelete1-Why are crickets good luck
2-Why
3-Why lyrics
4-Why is a Raven like a writing desk
5-Why is the sky blue
So I am fascinated by this and also wonder how those magic code letters are chosen...random? Sometimes they are actual words...I've even mis-typed them and still my response was accepted...go figure?
Why ARE crickets good luck?
ReplyDeleteI work closely with the SEM industry so this is interesting on the American side of things. I'd love to see what popped up for the Australian population.
ReplyDelete