Rise of a religion
iA provides me with some good arguments why I shouldn’t sell my Google shares.
The four central aspects of a religion are 1) the power to shape one’s daily rituals, 2) the influence to become a reference for truth, 3) the ability to mirror human nature, and 4) the aspiration for absolutism.
1) Google has become a part of most Internet users’ daily online ritual. They are occupying increasing amounts of touch points within the process of information gathering. 2) Google has become the reference for truth—not as a single infallible answer, but as a series of possible answers to our prayers (i.e. search requests) from which we choose. 3) Google has become a mirror of our human nature: it adjusts its search results based on our profile. Currently it’s still subject of techie irony (such as Vint Cerf’s title “Chief Evangelist�), but it’s only a matter of time before a couple of wackos really start praying to Google. 4) Google has become an aspirant of absolutism. They are occupying more and more central points of the Internet and your desktop. Google is becoming a search monopoly, forming an online ad monopoly, invading mobile platforms, conquering the domain of online identities, developing into a central mail service, and continuing to plug-in new services (recently, we hear, they want to compete with Wikipedia).
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