Is this Google telling us what they really think?

I’m not sure how much of the following is conspiracy versus coincidence but you can take a look and decide for yourself.

You’re probably familiar with Google’s predictive search feature. It offers suggestions to complete your search phrases for you as you type them. For instance, start typing ‘what is‘ and you’re offered suggestions like ‘the meaning of life?’ or ‘the date today?’, based on the popularity of those searches.

You might also be familiar with Google’s recent animosities with Apple (and Apple’s animosities with Google, and Apple’s animosities with Adobe, and Apple’s animosities with Microsoft but I digress).

Anyway, my point is try typing “Steve Jobs is” into Google and note the suggestions it offers. Then do the same for Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer (“Steve Balmer is”) or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. See what I mean?

Whether this is the product of some creative coding by a mischievous Google engineer or it’s in fact just a true and accurate reflection of demand based preemptive search, you will note that funnily enough Google CEO Eric Schmidt as well as its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin all receive a rather different treatment.

wade@wadelaube.com

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