google is god?

Thomas Friedman wrote his Sunday column this week about Google, based in part on what he saw when he visited the company three weeks ago. He describes his trip in his column:

"It is a mind-bending experience. You can actually sit in front of a monitor and watch a sample of everything that everyone in the world is searching for. (Hint: sex, God, jobs and, oh my word, professional wrestling usually top the lists.)"

Given my experience at Google, I've found that our users search for much more than just sex, jobs, and wrestling. We've gotten reports from a person who started sweating, having chest pains, and when he typed this into Google, he realized after reading the first couple of search results that he was having a heart attack and called 911. We've also had a couple of grateful users write into us that they were able to find long lost relatives by typing their names into Google. I've used Google myself to find some random and obscure things, such has how to install and wire a MP3 CD changer to the back of my car.

In any case, the most random (and interesting) observation Friedman wrote about Google was a comparison to Google and God:

'Says Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace, a new Wi-Fi provider: "If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too."'

To that I say, Google still has a long way from knowing everything or for that matter, knowing what I want. (I still can't find out how to generate the codes to unlock my cell phone, nor can Google figure out whether I'm looking for information on a car or on a celestial body when I type in the query "saturn").

But it's rather nice that Thomas was kind enough to write such flattering things about us in his weekly column.