G for Google

If F was for Facebook, then G must be for Google! Young people these days may not really appreciate the value of Google as a search engine because they have used it ever since they can remember. For older people like me, who have lived most of our lives in a world without Google, it means that much more!

In the old days, information was hard to come by. The process of finding information itself was both tedious and time-consuming. Nowadays, if anything we are groaning with an overload of information. The use of Google as a search engine has become so common that the word has now become a verb! “Google “It Can’t Be You” by Prem Rao” is what I tell people when they ask where they can find information about my book and about me. Like Xerox in earlier times became a generic name for photocopying, Google has become a generic name for search engines.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two graduate students in Stanford in 1996. Today it is one the world’s most respected tech companies.It’s mission: to organize the world’s  information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google has gained an enviable reputation for being a great place to work in.

Millions of people the world over can vouch for the fact that Google has made them better informed. Even if they don’t know something, they know where they can find it! I have found it invaluable as a resource in my research while writing .

Spoiled as as we are by these resources and facilities, I can only admire the authors of older times all the more. How much more difficult it would have been for them to research their subjects. Some of them seemed to bring to bear huge amounts of research in their writings.

A case in point is Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. He wrote so much without the help of Google. How much more would he have written if he had such tools to assist his research!