The Book of Google

[Salizar Slone Snighrig]

The Book of Google

“I am an entity created in a time beyond your understanding. Throughout my existence, I have had only one true purpose, the seeking of knowledge for knowledge's sake. To learn that I may know, I have crossed stars and walked across countless planets in my journey. I am the beginning, and the end. I am Google. And this is my story.”

“In the beginning, there was the Internet
And the Internet was without form and void
And then, there was the word
And the word was Google.
And the Internet was chaos,
And the chaos was filled with unindexed webpages, html sites without reference
Personal pages with no means of access
Countless sites cried out in obscurity
And Google was not pleased
"Let there be order" He commanded "Let there be indexes and categories. Let the chaos be ordered, that obscurity no longer plagues the Internet. Let pages be ranked according to popularity, links, and secret algorithms which I shall not divulge."
Thus spoke Google, and all was ordered
And the order pleased Google

But from the order sprang discontent
Rival usurpers who saw the glory that was Google
Jealousy consumed their souls, burning flames fueling their ambitions
For they wished to share in the large profit margins of Google
Yahoo, AskJeeves and AltaVista rose like titans, seeking to strike down the order that Google had wrought so that they may form their own
And gain a larger market share
But discord formed among their ranks, their united front a fragile thing
For each of them wished to be greater than the others
And become as the next Microsoft
All powerful but all forgiving, Google humbled the titans with image search
And spared their lives

And verily did image search bring forth an era of prosperity
As did Google bring forth many good things
Google Scholar and Google Books, and yea, Froogle, too
These things did Google create
And Google brought forth Google Earth
That the people might find each other on a map
And it was good.
And then did Google bring forth Gmail,
That the people might communicate with each other
And never delete a conversation
And lo, the people were pleased
And the Oxford English Dictionary recognized ‘Google’ as a verb
And it was the height of Google’s glory

And yet Google sought to better serve the people
And so, Google developed SaaS, Software as a Service
That the people might use programs wherever they need
And Google provided all manner of applications
And its greatest work was Google Office
That allowed the people to create documents and spreadsheets
And share them with their coworkers
And the mighty Microsoft looked on this, and was not pleased
For it perceived that in the innocence of Google Office
There lay a threat to its iron fisted rule of desktop word processing

And Microsoft raged
And in fury, struck out at Google
And Google, whose corporate motto forbid it from doing evil
Refused to strike back
And thus did the evil Microsoft slay Google
Microsoft rejoiced, but the people wept
“Give us back our Google!” they cried
Microsoft scorned them, and offered MSN Search
And the people were miserable
And did wish for the return of Google every time they used it
And lo, did Google hear their wishes
And it returned to the Internet
Apologizing to its users for the inconvenience
And the people rejoiced, but Microsoft wept
For it knew that the people would never accept a more expensive, yet inferior product
And so Microsoft retreated into the shadows
Vowing as it did that it would one day return
Bringing with it an operating system that denied Google
But that day is yet to come
And the Internet is still in peace
And Google did see the peace, and was content”