Reading the first three chapters of Battelle’s The Search really brought back memories. I graduated college in 1992 and started out in the workforce as one of the few employees at my small consulting firm that had any computer knowledge.  This knowledge did not come from an innate curiosity about computers but from the mere fact that in 1987 Drexel University required that all students purchase a Macintosh computer (picture of cira 1987 Mac) and take two programming languages, whatever your major.  Sheer brilliance looking back on it  – we all graduated during a recession with unique skills that helped us land the few jobs available to college grads. 

When I showed up for work at that small consulting firm I remember asking for a computer and signing up for services like Dialog and Lexis Nexis to search for information.  It was during the next decade I would come across and use all the sites that Battelle talks about in his book like Excite, Lycos and Altavista.  Hard to believe I was considered cutting edge in my use of technology back then, especially since in the past few years new technology has been launching right under my nose without me even realizing it let alone knowing how to leverage it for work or personal use.  (although thanks to this class I am at least improving on that front a bit)

While the walk down memory lane was fun, what I found most fascinating about Battelle’s introduction was the correlation he makes between the evolution of search technology and cultural understanding.  I had never thought about this before, let alone realized the link between search technology and the notion of artificial intelligence.  All a bit scary and I must admit I remain in complete awe of the profound brain power to create and build out the search technology (says the girl who still doesn’t really understand how algorithms work).  Anyway, I think Battelle is onto something in analyzing the way our social and commercial networks have changed with search. 

Additionally, I think he is dead on about the privacy concerns.  We’ve seen examples of how email is retrieved to put the bad guys away in trials but I don’t think we often consider the use of our emails that transit through  hotmail or gmail.  I sometimes think about the risk of how often I put my personal data, including my credit card data out into the online world but the convenience of online shopping far out ways the risk.  That said, Battelle’s observations about how that data is stored and used are definitely food for thought.  Also, there was a recent article in the New York Times about privacy and the internet – it talked about building a new internet that would sacrifice some of the “open nature” of the internet for more protection of the data we put out there.  If you follow Battelle’s line of thought I am not sure the commercial sector would want this to happen – how else would they know what Japanese teenager’s thought was hot, let alone make the progress needed to make AI a reality.