This post was originally written for and published on Google+ but this being a blog about search and SEO, it may be of interest to some of you search geeks and enthusiasts. There are a few other posts “in the oven” but not quite cooked yet and my October post is well overdue, so there.
Google Search to Become the Star Trek Computer Talk + Q&A
This post is my summary of today’s talk and Q&A by +Amit Singhal at Google +Campus London about his vision for the future of Google search and how it will become the “Star Trek” computer.
The pieces of the puzzle such as driverless cars, Google Now and Project Glass are some of the current experiments that may lead to a “Star Trek “ type computer, as are a few lesser known (projects and papers) such as: Robots Search Google Goggles to Pick New Things Up.
Amit spoke about his dream as child at the foothills of the Himalayas, about building such a computer and the journey to a PhD in search and Google.
Probably the most relevant part of wisdom in the all talk: “you need to be happy with yourself”.
I couldn’t agree more, without that it is hard to build anything let alone the Star Trek computer.
Then pretty quick into Q&A and the first question right into the deep end:
Q: Will the computer of the future have a heart?
A: That’s a question for 40 years time, we now teaching computers that the sky is blue.
My comment: I don’t really think we want computers with hearts and emotions!?
Q: Intention economy paper (by someone) is search the best way to fulfill it?
A: Adwords, is the most granular and targeted form of advertisement there is.
Q: How important is infrastructure to Google and the Star Trek Computer?
A: In a nutshell, speed is at the core of Google and data center design and infrastructure are essential to search and any future Star Trek mutations.
Q: Google deal with klout? Importance of social.
A: The social problem has been a hard one to crack, when we think about social today we think about identity.
My comment: at this point I wanted to ask about Google+ and Authorship and how important is it to the future of Google search, and more importantly as SEOs and future proof web agencies should we keep promoting and encouraging our own clients and blog readers to use Google+ and implement Authorship?
Instead I’ve gone silent and the question came cut short at the very end (minute 60 of 60) about the long term stickiness of Google+.
Q: The filter bubble problem and the validation of one sided views or beliefs?
A: Kind of ducked the question and that Google’s engineers are aware of it.
Q: How intelligent should Google be? Implying it may be/become too intelligent.
A: SERP answer for simple queries such as weather. The knowledge graph.
Q: How important is mobile to Google?
A: Critical to Google, any company and the world, we’re not meant to be seating at a computer. I agree with the seating part and also that mobile has more chance of democratizing the world!
Q: Project glass and the Star Trek computer?
A: At the experiment stage as the rest of the futuristic projects.
Q: A conversational computer, when?
A: Next decade!
Q: Something about: IR (information retrieval) stemming and morphology?
A: Who? Some Googling later arrived at stemming on wikipedia not perfect but will give you an idea of the concepts.
Q: Google vs IBM Watson? Something about one being better than the other.
A: We’re comparing apples with oranges.
Q: Google+ will it stick? ASKED BY ME (minute 60 of 60)
A: Compare with Google itself a few years ago. There’s your answer!
So who knows.
WHAT I REALLY WANTED TO ASK: Google+ and Authorship how important is it to the future of search and more importantly as SEOs and future proof web agencies should we keep promoting and encouraging our own clients and blog readers to use Google+ and implement Authorship?
No, nothing on telepresence or teleportation, so it seems we won’t be beaming ourselves to the moon anytime soon!
