Google Teams Up With 17 Colleges to Test Searches of Scholarly Materials By Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle 04/09/2004

"Google, the popular search-engine company, has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 16 other universities around the world to provide a way to search the institutions' collections of scholarly papers, according to university officials."

GooOS, the Google Operating System kottke.org

"...So. They have this huge map of the Web and are aware of how people move around in the virtual space it represents. They have the perfect place to store this map (one of the world's largest computers that's all but incapable of crashing). And they are clever at reading this map. Google knows what people write about, what they search for, what they shop for, they know who wants to advertise and how effective those advertisements are, and they're about to know how we communicate with friends and loved ones. What can they do with all that? Just about anything that collection of Ph.Ds can dream up...."

The Secret Source of Google's Power Topix.net Weblog

"Much is being written about Gmail, Google's new free webmail system. There's something deeper to learn about Google from this product than the initial reaction to the product features, however. Ignore for a moment the observations about Google leapfrogging their competitors with more user value and a new feature or two. Or Google diversifying away from search into other applications; they've been doing that for a while. Or the privacy red herring.
No, the story is about seemingly incremental features that are actually massively expensive for others to match, and the platform that Google is building which makes it cheaper and easier for them to develop and run web-scale applications than anyone else."

The Coming Search Wars By John Markoff, The New York Times February 1, 2004

"At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, Microsoft, the software heavyweight, and Google, the scrappy Internet search company, eyed each other like wary prizefighters entering the ring."

WebSideStory Search Report Crowns Google, Leaving Yahoo! In The Lurch By Kate Kaye, Contributing Writer, MediaDailyNews March 31, 2004

"Guess who tops the search referral charts? It's Google, of course. The search engine king carries on its reign over Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, according to a report released Tuesday by Web analytics firm WebSideStory."

As Google's Reach Grows, Commercial Side Criticized By BRAD SMITH, TBO.com March 29, 2004

"Plenty of people wonder, however, about the wisdom of the Googling of America."

Google takes searching personally | CNET News.com By Matt Hines, Staff Writer, CNET News.com March 29, 2004


update: "As the search wars intensify, Google hopes that making a personal connection with its visitors will give it an edge.
The company launched a test version of its personalized search engine on Monday, part of its effort to tailor its search results to users' preferences. Google also plans to e-mail registered users of personalized search with the results of their queries."

Is Google telling lies? by Jennifer Laycock, Web Search Guide at About.com

Google Tops, But Yahoo Switch Success So Far By Danny Sullivan, Editor, SearchDay April 5, 2004

"New stats from web analytics firm WebSideStory highlight the news often heard before: Google's most popular, when it comes to search. But they also reveal that Yahoo's recent replacement of Google results with those from its own crawler-based technology doesn't appear to have cost it visitors."

Welcome To The Google Desktop? By Danny Sullivan, Editor, The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2004

"Will Google's new Gmail free email system be just the first of many things we begin moving to a new Google Desktop? If so, Microsoft might have a lot more to worry about than web search. But might concerns over privacy prevent Google's success?"

Google to offer gigabyte of free e-mail | CNET News.com By Paul Festa April 1, 2004

update: "Google, the company that made off with the search market, is setting its sights on free e-mail. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., on Thursday launched a test with about 1,000 invited guests set to try out a new e-mail service called 'Gmail.' Google, which made its name in search but has added numerous services, such as a news aggregation page and a newsgroup interface, says that Gmail is search-based e-mail."

Google Job Opportunities: Google Copernicus Center is hiring Google's April Fools Joke