Technically Incorrect

Rumors have begun to trickle from Googleville that the Jolly Search Giant is beginning to change its mind about those fickle fellows who espouse creativity.

You know, the sort who don't necessarily think you should research 41 different shades of blue. The sort, indeed, who sleep under their desks at ad agencies.

Which leads me to wonder whether a certain rebalancing might shortly occur in the tender relationship between the left-brainers and right-brainers of product selling.

The Web largely began as a functional experience, where everything you looked at was created by those who felt that what it does would always be a little more more important than how it looks. Partly because these people had no idea, nor did they really care, how to create something that actually looked truly inviting.

Few might agree that Google and YouTube, despite the fact that huge numbers of fingers populate them daily, are the most aesthetic of locations. Utilitarian would be the polite way of describing their sense of design.

A 10-year-old mathematician's idea of pulchritude would be a less charitable version. Somehow, every time I go to YouTube, in particular, it feels like the crummiest of Blockbusters, with DVD boxes that are fraying at the corners.

A little like a crummy video store?

(Credit: CC Original Hamster/Flickr)

Ad agencies, very heavy on pretty and very light on engineering, at first tried to mimic print ads and billboards and squeezed them into a medium that was far more individual, far more personal than any seen before.

The Googlies thought ad agencies somewhat risible relics of a disappearing world--like a bunch of Don Johnsons trying to deal with the brainy world of CSI.

Yet while the Web is still very functional, it is also the place where we increasingly live far too much of our lives. We watch TV on the Web. We read papers on the Web. We find lovers on the Web. And we continue to tell them how much we love them on the Web.

I know that some people feel that the pages of, for example, Yahoo Sports and the Huffington Post have been occasionally enhanced by wallpaper ads that add energy to the home pages without taking away from the content.

So advertising, done right, surely has a chance to make Web pages more attractive, more involving, and more inspiring.

There was a time in the U.K., for example, when the TV ads were actually more interesting than much of the programing. It is possible. It does happen. Brazil is another country where advertising can be far more involving far than the latest soap opera.

As Google decides that display advertising is where the new money will inevitably be, ad agencies might just think about creating work that makes Google's pages a little more inviting, a little more, dare one say it, exciting.

How strange it might be, in some optimistic future, if advertising created by outsiders actually helped Google with its business as well as advertisers with theirs.

The advent of Bing has shown that just a little aesthetic sense might, in fact, help to attract real people out there, those scouring the Web for anything that might brighten their day.

Just imagine if Google's and YouTube's pages were adorned with ads that offered wit, charm, and design sense as opposed to little blue words offering last minute vacations or little yellow words promising erectile function.

Might that be good for business? Might it even encourage YouTube, in particular, into a redesign?

Should you be one of those who believe that men are neanderthal, socially awkward hairy animals while women are socially aware, smoothly sensitive beings, then I have some statistics that might increase your estimation of your own superior judgment.

According to research by Brian Solis, sourcing his data from Google's Ad Planner, the majority of functioning beings on almost all social networking sites are women.

Published on Information Is Beautiful, the numbers might create an encouraging belief that if social networking is the future, then the future is female.

Solis's figures suggest that there is only one major social-networking site that is predominantly male: Digg. I know you'll recoil uncontrollably when I tell you that Digg appears to be 64 percent male.

(Credit: Information Is Beautiful)

On the other hand, LinkedIn and YouTube seem to enjoy an equality of fraternity and sorority. While Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr and MySpace, to name but a few, are all, like the population of Brazil, queendoms.

Perhaps the most extraordinary numbers come from MySpace. Somehow, the rather messy nature of the site, the tradition of an excess of spam and porn, might suggest that this was a male-oriented (slightly sleazy males, some might imagine) haven.

These numbers, however, suggest that MySpace is 64 percent female. Which makes one ruminate as to why the home page currently has so much blue and so little fuchsia.

It will be tempting, indeed, for many to put these figures down to traditional psychological differences between the sexes: women like people and men like, well, peeing in public.

However, one might also conclude that women simply resort to more virtual contact because their real world physical everyday life leaves them rather more dissatisfied than it does men.

Lately there seems to have been much evidence that women are increasingly miserable.

Celebrated and, one might have imagined, happy women such as Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (The Sad Shocking Truth of How Women Are Feeling) and Maureen Dowd of The New York Times (Blue is the New Black) have lamented the lot of Lot's Wife, Mother, Sister and Daughter.

Might misery be driving women to MySpace?

I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly. High. I feel it coming together.

And, thankfully, so does celebrated large brain and, who knows, maybe "Kids from Fame" aficionado Ray Kurzweil.

In an article reported by the Telegraph, Kurzweil says that our technological and genetic know-how is marching at such a furious pace that in 20 years' time we should be holding in our sweaty, excitable hands the nanotechnological secrets of our existence.

This charmingly optimistic view is but another string hanging from the nano-forecasting bow he's been wearing for years, along with his rather singular vision of the way men and machines will cohabit happily ever after.

Extraordinary nanotechnological secrets should allow us, according to Kurzweil, to replace our kidneys, livers, hearts and, hey, what about minds, with functioning vital organs made by human hands.

They say Kurzweil is 61. He doesn't look a day over 43 to me.

(Credit: Null0/Flickr)

Kurzweil's contemplations, first published in The Sun, offer us these vast nuggets of hope: "I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogram our bodies' stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, aging. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever."

Yes, you can be 28 again. You can drink yourself stupid and let those nano-nano folks just slip you a new liver. You can have sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and still be able to perform Whitney Houston karaoke better than Whitney herself can these days.

"If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go," said Kurzweil. "Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram-like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening."

One can only hope those hologram-like figures don't resemble the chaps from Google too closely.

And I am not entirely sure I am persuaded by the concept of virtual sex. Perhaps worse would be the concept of some Googleperson-like hologram talking one through virtual sex. And whispering to one after it.

Still, Kurzweil's passionate certainty offers us all hope for a very different future from the one we might have imagined.

I can't wait. No, really. I can't.

It has been said, not least by senior people at Google, that the company dreams of the day when we have Google search implanted in our brains.

Some, mainly human beings, chuckled at the prospect. Perhaps they should stop chuckling.

It must be very difficult to stay interested when you're running the world's largest small ad company, so the appearance of a couple of alien-related doodles suggest that Google's management has finally spaced out.

The latest doodle, which appeared Tuesday, reveals a similar spacecraft to the one that supposedly commemorated the Japanese video game Zero Wing. However, this one seems to be flying over crop circles.

(Credit: Google.com)

To accompany this mystery--or perhaps the selling of the majority shareholders to the rulers of another planet--Google offered these coordinates on its Twitter page: 51.327629, -0.5616088.

The worldly wise have suggested that these coordinates point to a town called Horsell in Surrey, England.

This is the location where the first aliens floated to earth in H.G. Wells' 19th century masterwork--and, for all I know, the Jeff Wayne concept album of the 1970s--called "The War of the Worlds."

It would have been Wells' 143rd birthday September 21.

However, I think they are fooling everyone. After all, crop circles are clearly the creations of alien beings who are merely toying with our farms, the very elemental organizations that prop up our ailing, stomach-stuffing society. And National Geographic is reporting that many new crop circles have appeared overnight.

Aliens are saying to us: "We can take you any time you like."

And, in an attempt to show just how far they can take their dominance, there is every reason to suspect that otherearthly beings have already implanted their own thought-processes into the brains of Google's leaders. Hence, the declarations about brain-implanted search.

We will soon discover that 'google' is, indeed, the Planet Bunga's word for "We own you, dummies."

And we will all be subject to the Bungans rather esoteric way of thought and deed.

I know some, especially those who hug singularity to their bosoms, cannot wait for the day.

Microsoft has responded swiftly to suggestions that its Bing search engine seems to throw up ads alongside the keyword "pornography".

In a post Thursday, I outlined some of the suspicions that surrounded the appearance of ads for Bing next to searches for fleshy entertainment.

A Microsoft representative declared in an e-mail: "Microsoft has not purchased the keyword 'pornography,' and this term has never been in our AdWords account."

This will serve as a considerable relief to many upstanding citizens.

I searched 'pornography' on Flickr and this picture is what I got.

(Credit: CC Kessiye/Flickr)

The company representative continued: "It is our policy on the Bing marketing team that we do not have any adult content as part of any of our keyword buys or other marketing campaigns."

However, Microsoft has vivid views about how this alleged relationship between "binging" and films featuring somewhat less talented actors naked might have come about.

"The keyword that seems to be triggering these results is 'free videos,'" the Microsoft representative explained. "We are following up with Google to understand why this ad is showing up in these types of queries."

That should be a very interesting conversation. One looks forward to reading a transcript.

I tend to believe that life's pleasures should be experienced with real human beings, relatively sober, and free of excessive chemical content.

However, I understand there are those who make use of search engines to fuel their various needs, including those of pornographic succour.

Which brings me to Bing.

There seems to be some agreement among the cognoscenti that Microsoft's fine search engine offers optimal results for those who are seeking the filmic freshness of the flesh. Blocking such freshness can also be a difficult maneuver.

You see, Bing has excellent video search properties. And you might be astonished to hear that one of the major types of video for which humanity's needy search is video of a pornographic bent.

However, TechCrunch claims to have encountered evidence that Bing has entered an entirely new realm of raunch.

An enterprising TechCrunch employee decided to google the term "pornography" and was perhaps simultaneously astonished and elated to discover a sponsored link from Bing.

No, there is no suggestion that Bing is the better search engine for drug paraphernalia.

(Credit: CC James Wheare/Flickr)

The artful ad was headlined "Free Video." It then extolled Bing's remarkable access to "thousands of videos."

Somehow, I feel there may be more than thousands.

I know those of a technical leaning might suggest that sometimes when you do quite a few searches in succession the ads don't seem to keep up, so the ads that you see for your second search might have been generated by your first search.

I was still dissatisfied. I could not understand why anyone would search "pornography" when the very simple "porn" would have clearly sufficed. Is the suggestion that only those of a elevated snootiness, those who refer to pornography by its full name, get the Bing ad?

Then I stumbled into a blog post by Aaron Goldman, who seems to be quite au fait with the digital marketing world.

Goldman claims that he googled "Google porn searches" and immediately encountered an ad for Bing. Now the minds of those of a suspicious disposition must truly be wandering and wondering.

I would never be the one to suggest that Microsoft deliberately seeks out porn business.

However, business is, indeed, business. So one wonders just how much awareness there is among bingers of this alleged arousing serendipity?

I know there are some people who have not slept for fear that Google had finally committed itself to some alien culture.

Well, some outerworldly alien culture. Well, some outerworldly alien culture where all beings were green and no one used phrases like "market segmentation" and "41 shades of blue."

You see, a mysterious doodle appeared on the Google home page. It showed an alien spacecraft making off with the second "O" in the word "Google."

Were we really expected to merely gogle now? Didn't that sound uncomfortably close to ogling?

Though there were no references to the Church of Scientology, Google's first pronouncement on the subject did not quell the concern.

The questionably benign company declared: "We consider the second 'o' critical to user recognition of our brand and pronunciation of our name. We are actively looking into the mysterious tweet that has appeared on the Google twitter stream and the disappearance of the 'o' on the Google home page. We hope to have an update in the coming weeks."

The world continued experiencing the occasional shudder, until Google's Twitter page produced this revelatory tweet on Friday: "1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19."

Well, it was revelatory to those who think in a certain way, one to which I can only aspire.

"Yes, of course," those who think that way said to themselves, while simultaneously slapping their heads with a fly-swatter. "It's a reference to that wonderful Japanese video game of the 1980s, Zero Wing."

Now, look, I've heard of Vera Wang. But somehow Zero Wing passed me by, though I think it would be an excellent name for a fashion designer.

However, those on the inside (of the spacecraft) tell me that Zero Wing is terribly cool and features extremely characteristic English translations.

Apparently, Cats, a villain even greater than the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, makes this declaration at the beginning of Zero Wing: "How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us."

Well, when you take all those numbers in the Google tweet and turn them into the corresponding letters of the alphabet, you get: "All your O are belong to us."

Why would some Googlies want to feature Zero Wing now? Well, it's the game's 20th anniversary.

So there. The problem is solved. The world is safe. Google has not been taken over by aliens.

Or can we really be sure of that?

Few could imagine a more chilling tale of depravity than the story that has emerged over the last few days concerning the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

While her alleged kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, has now been revealed to have penned a disturbing blog, some commenters on Boing Boing have uncovered visuals from Google Street View that they believe show him in pursuit of a Google car.

One shot from Xeni Jardin's montage.

(Credit: CC Xeni/Flickr)

Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin has posted a series of Street View shots in which a van is seen progressing from Garrido's address in Antioch, Calif., toward a Street View car.

At Boing Boing, Jardin gives precise directions on how to follow the van on Street View and believes that its driver may have been suspicious of a Google Volkswagen that was filming for the Street View site. Jardin describes it as "the creepiest thing I've ever seen on Google Street View."

No one viewing this footage when it first went live would ever have considered it suspicious. However, some have pointed out that had police viewed this overhead shot from Google Maps, perhaps it might have made them search Garrido's home with a little more vigor.

Google must be used to having its neutrality questioned by now. However, when the alleged home of neutrality comes after you, perhaps you wonder if all this questioning of your motives is ever going to stop.

Not so long ago, it was the Greeks who decided they weren't too happy with Street View's prying artificial eyes. Now, according to the Associated Press, it's the Swiss who are getting nervous about their much vaunted (and much-profited from) privacy.

Hanspeter Thuer, the federal data protection commissioner of Switzerland, accused Google of not doing enough to blur faces and license plates. And he demanded that "Google immediately take its Google Street View online service off the Internet."

Ah, Switzerland. I have no reason to believe the man on the bike is a member of Parliament.

(Credit: CC Robert Thomson/Flickr)

A Google statement to the Associated Press said that the company would discuss the matter further with the authorities in order to "demonstrate our industry-leading applications for protecting the private sphere."

Perhaps the most interesting snippet of this governmental request is that it appears to coincide with the Swiss newspaper NZZ espying a member of Parliament, Ruedi Noser, on Street View in the company of a lady who was not his wife, but was, praise be, his assistant.

Noser's reaction was charming in the extreme: "There is probably no problem for my wife, as you could also recognize my companion in the picture." Somehow, the use of the word "probably" offers a hearteningly realistic view of humanity on the part of the Parliamentarian. I think he will go far with such a sanguine view of the world's workings.

Whenever countries in Europe raise objections such as these, it appears that Google finds an appropriately European solution: discussions and talks, followed, no doubt, by the parsing of a few nuances, until the issue seems to recede from the public eye.

Then the Google eye can happily go back to work.