Everybody talks about the Web OS that Google wants to build. However, by building the latter, there might be a “collateral damage” that few people talk about.
Currently Google is one of the entry points to the content of the Web along with other search engines or other types of homepages (e.g., Netvibes, friendfeed, etc.). There is also today an intermediary between the users and these entry points: the browser and its address bar that gives users the freedom to go wherever they want by typing Urls – the users’ space of freedom. The latter allows people to discover, select and ultimately organize their Web as they wish.
Everybody will have noticed that by typing a word in the address bar of Chrome, the corresponding Google search result comes up (or the historical activities), i.e. the address bar of a browser is becoming a Google search bar. That seems to be an improvement. After all, typing urls is not very convenient so one can easily imagine that users will gradually only type words instead of urls in the address/Google search bar. If that is the case, urls would gradually disappear (see also Jeremiah on this). After all, why keep them visible or usable in an address bar if nobody uses them? The above improves the users experience so what’s the problem?
Well, a search engine is not a neutral algorithm. It is a system that organizes the Web by selecting and ranking contents. In other words, by merging web surfs, surfs on Google sites and the device that allows to surf, Google is entering in the heart of the users’ space of freedom. To draw a parallel with another media sector, it is as if a TV network had a monopoly and put forward to all viewers the content to watch as soon as they put on their TV… thus replacing the remote control. By putting forward its own search engine directly and automatically in the address bar, Google is substituting its own view and organization of the Web to the user’s personal one. I don't know if Chrome will become the standard browser used by the mass of the Internet users (definitely “killing” other search engines along the way), but if that is the case, this simply means that Google’s algorithm would be the organizer of the Web with no alternative to it… A lot of “ifs” I admit but that would not be as funny as a comic book…
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