Google and the art of maintaining relevance

Google is stuff of folklore now. It is more than a brand and a company, it is more of a movement, it is synonym of "search", to me it is Internet! Over the last some years i have observed, often awestruck of how this internet giant is moving from one success to another. From "just" a Search domain to an Operating system and Browser to maps to applications and more Google is ubiquitous! (While i try to stay away from singing eulogies, it is difficult to stay away from the influence of Google, if you are on the internet)

There is limited or no advertisement that Google engages in and it probably doesnot need to. Viral and word of mouth communication has taken the brand places already. How does it do it? For starter, i think Google makes headlines more than anyone else in the internet space. Whether be charges of monopolizing the web by US government, or Carbon footprint of its search engines, or the launch of Blackle, or Google Earth or Android or Chrome or Latitude or U Tube or Blogs or the outages on its email server, GMail or the bug on its search engine, there is no shadown of doubt on the fact that Google creates a headline every day almost.

Sample the latest from Google in terms of discovery of Atlantis.

Keen Observers had spotted what appeared to be the remains of a vast city under the sea, the size of wales on the floor of Atlantic Ocean. Thus the Atlantic Ocean was spotted on Google Earth! It was only explained later that the lines were the artifact of Google's map making process! These were the paths made by the boats using SONAR to record the sea floor terrain data. Atlantis or no Atlantis, Google was the news maker! Another very impressive application of Google Earth was the toad crossings mapped by Google Earth to avoid the number of toads killed by Motorists in accidents! Thats something that PETA would be in for... Amongst others Google Earth in reality has helped locate pristine forests in Mozambique, a house of a previously unknown species and ancient roman villas.

All said and all done, such discoveries, outages apart from its technology and innovation keep up the prominence of Google amongst people and populations... It keeps the buzz going outside of the internet space as well.