Whatever happened to ten blue links?

---

Google search has become so ubiquitous that it's hard to believe that in its earliest days (which are after The Boidem started) I actually got paid to teach teachers how to conduct a search ... because they didn't yet know how. Considering that one of the objectives of this column has been to examine what's changed over these thirty years, examining how Google has changed seems called for. Without a doubt Google has undergone numerous major changes, and one major change is a very new one. As TechCrunch put it in May of this year, Google Search as you know it is over.

The change in Google search, however, is also, and primarily, a change in how we relate to information. We no longer search in order to gather information from numerous sources - information out of which we then attempt to make a coherent whole. We no longer have to evaluate that information. Google's AI does that for us, and instead of offering us possibilities, serves us with ... dare I say it? ... answers. This is a major change in how we relate to the internet. But it hardly shows up in The Boidem, since even if parts of this change were already taking place while I was still posting Boidem columns, this very significant and major change took place only recently.

---

Go to: Even back then ..., or
Go to: There's no chance that I'll find them all, or
Go to: Sometimes the tie-in is obvious, or
Go to: It was thirty years ago today