Googled again

By now most know that Google has googled up blogger.com as an appetizer to it's voracious feeding frenzy. This has all come as a surprise to me. Yep, a surprise. I recall the early days of Yahoo and Google. When I found Yahoo and they offered to supply all the news and weather "right here in one place" and even an email account, all for free, I wondered, "Now why would I want to do that? I already have a "nerdmail" account and know where the news is." On top of that, I know what the origin of the word "yahoo" is (from Johnathon Swift in "Gullivers Travels") and the name isn't referring to any thing nice (a sub-human animal)." However, little by little they became more attractive, adding maps, groups, a larger email box, good web presence, lots of news sources, and variety, variety, variety. Soon, it became the place my web surfing began and I really had a "personalized" site to check news, sports, weather, and much more.

Then, Google came along and there wasn't much reason to use it. After all, there were lots of search engines and another was pretty redundant (do you still remember the one named "dogpile?" But, then, Google got really good at finding any site I put up. If I looked for a search, Google always found my sites. Just try that with dogpile. Or many of the others that have faded away. Soon, google became an important place to go to search and to make sure your web pages were listed. Now, their "have all your news and weather in one place" is even better than Yahoo and it's my surfing start page. Add their docs and spreadsheets, calendar, maps, and so much more, and now blogger; and the web is gradually becoming "googlized." Makes me wonder just what little nerdy site promising odd stuff is wriggling into our lives in such a way that we will be surprised again when we suddenly find it wrapped around our surfing.

Any ideas on this? If you (any of you) have seen the next generation of surfing "can't do without" sites, please comment and let us know. Maybe this time I won't be surprised.