The program is complex, but the proof is in the results. Since discovering Google a few weeks ago, I've been so impressed with its usefulness and accuracy that I've made it my first search stop. Google isn't a finished product yet. Page says the current version of Google, which has indexed about 60 million pages, will continue to be improved as the company expands. If the portals themselves don't generate innovation, smart people elsewhere will.
Commerce is a big driving force in how the Web evolves, but creativity is another.
Just as imaginative marketers will keep finding ways to sell us more stuff, inventive programmers will keep finding ways to reduce noise and confusion online and help us all find what we're looking for. Meanwhile, they're failing to drive forward the technology at the root of their business. That a couple of grad students could build a better search engine than a whole raft of media and technology companies with stock-market valuations in the billions does not speak well of how these firms are spending their budgets. Which is one more reason to distrust the conventional view that the portals have the future of the Web sewn up. All rights reserved.