Google thinks its God like Microsoft used to

You know the feeling you get when you are doing something in Office and that silly helper thing pops up and asks you if you want to do something you dont't? I mean that Microsoft just stoppit feeling, stop thinking you know what I want because you just don't.

Well, that's the feeling I just got from Google.

I was searching for the Biblio Chair.

First I searched without quotes. Got Digg and some blogs, plus loads of links to bibliography pages.

Which is when I got that deja vue sort of feeling. Hey Google, if I wanted to search for bibliography, I'ld search for bibligraphy. Stop thinking you know what I want because you just don't.

I always used to think that Office Helper was a symptom of Microsoft having too much power and thinking they understood everything. Now its Google that thinks like that.

Which is part of the reason why I hate the idea of personalised search so much. I want to look for myself. I dont want Google censoring my results in the mistaken belief that it really can know what I am looking for.

That's the end of the Googlesoft experience.

But as a postscript, then it was just Google being annoying in its own particular way.

I put quotes around Biblio Chair. Got Digg and the blogs and lots of Digg derived pages without bibliography this time. Annoying. Wanted to find out how much it cost. Not read somebody elses tedious take/promotional efforts on it.

Anyway, clicked on the Digg link. Oh great. The Digg page was linking to Treehugger. More second hand commentary.

So off I trot and at last found my way to the company that makes the Biblio Chair (have a look at it. It is mighty cool).

Can't totally blame Google for absence of the source page. The product is actually called the bibliochaise. And the company who make it have a Flash website where you can only link to the home page and the website is not optimised at all.

But Digg? Treehugger? tumblr? blabla.blogspot and blablabla.typepad? Who in the real world wants them?

We are all leaping enthusiastically into this brave new world of transparency and consumer power.

Sometimes it just seems like all it adds up to is loads more verbiage to wade through.

And incidentally, none of it is any more trustworthy than old style company promotion. Sometimes, I long for a bit of simple promotional company fluff. At least then you know where you are.