Internet minus Google? Well, google it!

The internet democratised the knowledge world by breaking all sorts of barriers– geographic, linguistic, social and economic – that restricted one’s access to the best books, magazines, libraries, people and what not. Search engine giant Google led this democratising process with its innovative and user-friendly search engine, maps, mail service and many more for the general user community, and various types of analytics for enterprise requirements.

Last Saturday before the day broke in India, when we were yet to wake up from slumber, panic gripped the people in the United States where the Friday’s sun was yet to set. Reason: Google went down for four minutes!

Disruption of Google’s services brought down the internet traffic by 40 percent. It means nearly half of all internet traffic was affected because something happened to Google.

Netizens who had never heard Google blackout for over a decade were shocked and the panic spread in waves on Twitter and Facebook. “Did u srvive d gr8 blackout of 2013?”, “Wil u alwys rmembr whr u wre wen Goog went dwn?”  - people poured out on social media. When Google was finally back, they heaved, “please don’t leave me again.”

The enterprises that utilise various applications like Google Analytics, AdSense, AdWords as core of their business model too were greatly alarmed. The companies and website users went numb, because when Google goes down, it is like not being able to breathe oxygen.

Outage is not an issue in terms of revenue loss. According to a calculation, the outage cost Google around $545,000. The company generates around $100,000 in revenue each minute when it is online and functioning correctly. To the average person, losing half a million is losing a fortune but to a multi-billion dollar company, it is a penny.

The idea that Google could go down is unsettling to the people. Most people think it is impossible. But it is just like any other web-based service company.

Those four minutes revealed the vulnerability of the internet world as well as the web-based business houses that largely depend upon the internet giant. The fact that the search engines like Yahoo! and Bing were not able to capitalise on Google’s outage only highlights the dependence on services Google provides. Google enjoys a whopping 67% market share and continues to grow.

Not just that. Not just the huge cash reserves, the genius company is sitting on a massive repository of user-generated knowledge that no other company in the world can even dream at the moment. The company that played a prominent role in democratising the generation, dissemination and consumption of information has monopolised the internet world.

It shows how great ideas can enslave the world. Also, the fact that one company can become so massive and affect our lives is unsettling. Concentration of power in the hands of a few, only one in this case, weakens the integrity of the entire system.

(Published in my column As It Happens in City Today on August 22, 2013)