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Sloppy Google Shows Us Google, Unlike People, is Hardly Sloppy
For all it's faults, Google's still better than people.
Remember the first time you Googled something? That mostly blank screen. A word for a phrase, no need for “+” into a simple box. Sure, right, no way is this thing going to work out. And then you went back to your Ask Jeeves screen?
Before you knew it, Google was verb and a world leader all rolled into one indispensable icon on your browser. Our kids will never know an Internet without Google. And we could hardly imagine one. Even though the search engine is imperfect, it’s fast. People are even more imperfect and, as information gatherers, pretty darn slow in comparison.
To appreciate the beauty of Google — and maybe to show your kids what life with a less powerful and lazy version of the behemoth — send them over to Sloppy Google. See if they don’t want to tear their hair out.
Alexis Tsotsis writes that Sloppy Google is as lazy and incompetent has a human (hey! That hurts.) Writing for Tech Crunch, he describes the lackadaisical version as “a reminder that for all its foibles, Google is still way better at its job then we are, never sleeping, making careless mistakes or being half-assed (unless you include Adsense).”
Sloppy Google, created by Yuin Chen, an MFA student at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, is an attempt to demonstrate how Google would behave if there were actual people, instead of algorithms, retrieving information. Sloppy Google messes up spellings, gets distracted and could often care less about your needs, just like customer service representatives we often encounter.
Go here to try it yourself, or watch this video:
The Search Operators from Yuin Chien on Vimeo.
Image: photopedia via creative commons
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1 Comment
Duane Seigler commented on Mar 04 11 at 3:28 pm
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