Johnson is the author of the mind-bending but very accessible Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. His article, "Digging for Googleholes," aims to take Google down a notch or two. It's a good read, as one would expect from Johnson. Slate is, of course, published by Micro$oft, which has a vested interested in shaking Google's hold on the hearts and mouses of the global village.
While I have great respect for Johnson as an author and scholar, he (like Orlowski) is apparently not a very good Googler. He notes that a hungry surfer searching for "apple" will be inundated by Apple Computer and Fiona Apple. Fine. But surely a man as intelligent as Johnson knows that a search for "apple growers" or "apple fruit" would quickly solve the apparent problem.
On second glance, I see that Johnson has addressed this very concern in a comment way down at the bottom of the page, and offers a different example that makes the point more clearly.
"not a very good Googler"
The examples with "Googlehole No. 1: All Shopping, All the Time" may not be an unreasonable return. If someone is searching for "flowers," which is as you say, not good googling, then I wonder if the odds are that such a person is interested in shopping? Same with a make and model number of a DVD player. Just add "review" to get the reviews. I'm guessing (can't remember if this is true or not--suppose I should check PEW), but wouldn't shopping be one of the top uses among more casual Internet users?
Also, when he writes about "Book Learning":
"But almost no one is publishing entire books online in PDF form. So, when you're doing research online, Google is implicitly pushing you toward information stored in articles and away from information stored in books."
True. But almost no one is publishing books online in any form, PDF or otherwise. So why is PDF the issue here? And why is this Google's fault? And this is not a Google "blind spot," as Johnson categorizes these issues later. These are the texts present on the web. Let's have some books, and I'd bet that Google would index them, too.
I guess I'm not quite getting his point, other than he's dispelling the Google as oracle myth (which I don't think exists to the extent that this piece debunks it). Unless, of course, he believes that people think that Google is all knowing???
Charlie
cyberdash