Love your articles!

Leanne

The first time I ever heard of Google was literally in it's infancy when Alta Vista reigned supreme. It's interesting to note that the downfall of Alta Vista had a lot to do with it's size. There was a television show I was watching at the time that was about technology, I have forgotten the name. At the end of each show, they would use their (powerful at the time) Sun Sparc 10 computers to have a search engine showdown. A topic would be picked and the hosts would do a search using Alta Vista and the infant Google to see who could do it the fastest. Google usually won, whether by sponsorship, or technology. That was then, this is now. I think you are right Vladimar. Google will become the Alta Vista of the 21'st century. They have grown in size but not in their ability to offer services efficiently. I think this has a great deal to do with the changing size and nature of the net, and the static nature of the crawling and searching that Google currently uses. Perhaps of even greater import is what you noted about the millions of people out there working with the in's and out's of Google tech. I think this has a great deal to do with the open source community and the freedom of information being enjoyed. Great Article, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

You know being big makes you harder to fall down, but when you do it hurts more.

The PageRank fiasco is their biggest liability with me. They've decided to punish people who write for a paid sponsor. This is ridiculous. Many valuable search results were paid for by a company. Google has dropped the ball and they are not what they once were. Unfortunately they have a ridiculous about of market share so if it is a demise, it will be years before we see it. Meanwhile, hopefully companies will compete with their sorry state and maybe improve the internet like they once did and no longer are.