Google
reveals its 300-year plan
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
October 10, 2005, 09:15 GMT
Chief executive Eric Schmidt estimates
that Google won't manage to index all the world's
information until around the 24th century
It could take 300 years to index all the world's
information and make it searchable, Google's chief
executive Eric Schmidt predicted on Saturday at
the Association of National Advertisers annual conference
in Phoenix.
"We did a math exercise and the answer was
300 years," Schmidt said in response to an
audience question asking for a projection of how
long the company's mission will take. "The
answer is it's going to be a very long time."
Of the approximately 5 million terabytes of information
out in the world, only about 170 terabytes have
been indexed, he said earlier during his speech.
Schmidt admitted to the audience of advertisers
that when he first arrived at Google four years
ago, he viewed ads from a sceptical consumer standpoint.
Shown ads on Google, he thought "You've got
to be kidding! People actually click on this stuff?
And they do."
He said he quickly realised, though, that "ads
actually do have value if you can figure out the
right ones to show."
Technology and the interactivity it enables, such
as the ability to measure an Internet ad's success
rate by viewing how many people click on it, is
shifting power in the advertising industry from
executives at corporations to consumers, he said.
"The power is moving from us to the end user;
it's occurring by the power of the personal computer,
by the power of the cell phone," he said. "Thirty
years ago we would make the decision [about ads].
Now, that person, that individual makes that decision."
Advertising is increasing on the Internet and cable
television, and showing modest to no growth in newspapers
and magazines, Schmidt said. "The cost per
revenue dollar of online ad systems is so much lower
than [for offline advertising]," he said.
Of the estimated $283bn spent on advertising in
the United States, $11.3bn is spent on the Internet,
with Google taking in about 1 percent of that, Schmidt
said.
Despite the slowdown in print advertising, Google
is testing a campaign in which the search giant
is using its audience targeting technology to help
customers place ads in magazines, he said.
Schmidt predicted there will always be ads on the
Internet but that there may be an "ad-free
subset" of the Internet that might offer a
different way for people to pay for things, such
as using micro-payments.
During the question-and-answer session, audience
members turned to social, ethical and legal topics.
One question dealt with criticism Google and Yahoo
have received for cooperating with Chinese government
censorship efforts.
"The technology is neutral. It can be applied
for good or evil," he said. "Overwhelmingly,
the message of technology is a positive one."
Asked to explain why Google has submitted a proposal
to provide the city of San Francisco with free wireless
Internet service, Schmidt said the plan arose out
of work several engineers did on a system that would
allow companies to make money offering such a service.
"It's an interesting experiment," he said.
"If it scales and if it is successful, we think
it's going to be very good for the world."
Schmidt also responded to a question about complaints
Google has endured, including a lawsuit filed by
the Authors Guild over its plan to digitise books
and make them searchable online. Google's Print
Library Project adheres to US copyright law, he
said. A "fair use" provision under the
law allows for excerpts of copyrighted material
to be used and Google will only display snippets
of copyrighted text, he said. "That model seems
to be durable," he said. "We're very,
very careful if copyright is owned."
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