On Sep 30, the Mahashtami day, Google arranged Wordmasters challenge in Kolkata and several other Indian cities. It was a writing contest and when I joined the flock of contestants in the morning, the excitement was palpable. One could feel it wasn’t so much for the contest per se as it was for the fact that it was Google’s contest.
The test was a clever way to ferret out alert minds with good command in English. Clearly, much thought was given to test the skill, and Google’s meticulousness was on display when the terms and conditions for the participants included the minutest detail one could imagine.
Theirs was a team of 4 who conducted the whole affair, assisted by some hired locals. It was smooth in entirety, and so when their affable suave representative informed that Google hired only the crème-de-la-crème, there was no reason to believe otherwise.
The thoughts came flooding when yesterday morning it became known that Google made yet another high-profile acquisition, YouTube, the enormously successful web-video-sharing company started just 20 months back. Like everything it buys – for example this blogging-facility, Blogger – YouTube too seems a perfect match for Google’s overall gameplan. [Image on left is sourced from BRANDWEEK.]
If one looks at Google’s phenomenal reach of more than 60% of gross US search volume with Yahoo and MSN trailing at 23% and 12% respectively, it becomes clear what Google is doing is indeed right.
Google is a great entity, no doubt there. It aims to provide any information easily and effectively. “Google is the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine.“
Which is why there was no surprise when people rushed to be ‘part’ of Google on Sep 30, even if it was only for a couple of hours. It was like a favor asked to which people responded with unbridled enthusiasm.
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