I’m not sure if what you’re predicting is true or not, because who knows what the future holds for anyone, including the mainstream media and Google, despite their hopping into bed together.

Still, your comments raise an interesting topic regarding power. He who controls the information has the power. There is no question that we have all given ourselves over to Google in so many ways I’ve lost count.

People used to complain about Bill Gates and Microsoft taking over the world. While Microsoft still controls the spigot of online information because of the prevalence of its operating system, Google is the well from which that spigot is drawing information.

I was celebrating a Passover Seder recently and the lines that always make me shake my head read: “In every age, some new freedom is won and established, adding to the advancement of human happiness and security. Yet, each age uncovers a formerly unrecognized servitude, requiring new liberation to set man’s soul free.”

I’m not sure if everything is as conspiratorial as you have suggested, but I can see us all looking back one day and saying, “When did Google get all this power, and from where?” And all we’ll need to do is look in a mirror.

We were all ‘introduced’ to Google in early the 90’s. I remember my ISP guy in the Mercantile Bank building in downtown Corpus Christi checking my first ever non-dialup connection with Google’s home page. I asked him “who’s that?”.

I quickly adapted to the ‘little guy’ (basically anyone NOT AOL) at that time and grew to trust most anything the outright geniuses in Mountain View, CA churned out.

I read a couple of blogs a few weeks ago regarding Google’s updated algorithms on “trust” and “brands”. Without incisive knowledge in SEO, page ranking, tags and other tools of the trade, I shrugged my shoulders and thought “that seems like a pretty big deal, but what do I know?”.

I agree with Eric regarding your post as “eye-opening”.

All titans began as infants and most infants never become titans let alone adults! Survival of the fittest? Adaptation to remain relevant to the “audience” will always prevail as emerging AND traditional media become more about engagement and participation; less about control and one-way communication.Michael Torano
@TexanAtHeart

I really enjoy your writing style, and appreciate the voice of concern that has otherwise had what appears to be little coverage in the blogosphere.

There was, however, some depth of discussion back at the end of February, beginning of March, around the time the “Vince” update came out, and Eric Schmidt was spouting about the brand being so important.

It just hasn’t yet garnered the volume that, say, the DiggBar incident has this past week.

Personally, I really have no major worries about the evil intent of Google and loving the “brand”.

One of the golden rules of success in business has always been building your brand – becoming known in your market as the leader, or one of the leaders.

Another has always been – who can turn on a dime and adjust to changes in market conditions?

Personally, I’m not worried much. It hasn’t ever taken long for the steerage to get back in a position of strength in the 14 years that the web has been used as a marketing medium.

People need to adapt. We’ll adapt. With or without Google.

No matter how much money the big players throw at it.

Like Microsoft – they’re rolling out Kumo.com in June. The next MS search engine. Spending $100,000,000 to advertise and promote it.

Yet even MS is going into that knowing they have little chance of taking over search. They’re keeping MSN Live going. And still trying to do a deal with Yahoo.

And to be sure, they’ve already stated that we shouldn’t think of Kumo as a competitor to Google or Yahoo. That it will provide LESS results, just more refined. Sure it will…