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For some time now I’ve been comparing my usual search queries using this Google vs Bing tool, and the frank truth is that for a lot of the things that I search for, Bing gives me more accurate results that are more relevant to me than Google. This is likely only to improve when Wolfram Alpha is incorporated into Bing, but even now I can’t deny that Bing is the best default search engine for many of my queries.

But I haven’t switched, and I won’t. Google is still my default home page in every browser I use. There’s one simple reason for it– my online behaviours have become so enmeshed with Google that any sort of divorce is quite simply not an option. So what serves as the ball-and-chain? iGoogle and Google Apps, which have become products that drive me continually back to Google’s economic engine: Search.

Many years ago I began using Google Apps as a matter of curiosity and convenience. It started with Gmail, and some time later followed with Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. Now I have become so dependent on all of them that they effectively act as an impetus to continue to use good old iGoogle as my home page, even if better search results are out there to be had. Giving up easy and immediate access to my all-important iGoogle + Google Gadget-based Apps dashboard is simply unfathomable. The plain truth is that I am no longer simply a regular user of Google Search but rather a hooked user of the Google Platform, of which Search is only a part, and for me to give up my dependency on the platform would be a huge task.

The introduction of social features into Google products only tightened their grip on me. With the arrival of Google Talk/Chat in 2005 I was suddenly able to interact with my Gmail contacts in the immediate form of instant messages. Google almost overnight took on characteristics of a social network, and I found myself with yet another compelling reason to have Gmail and hence Google itself open on my desktop at all times. Even the fact that Google Talk uses open protocols and that I could use any XMPP client with it is not enough to dissuade me. And midway through last year Google introduced social features into Reader. The nefarious Google Grip tightened fruther. Social features tend to make products especially sticky for the simple reason that everyone wants to be where their friends are, and the cost of switching tends to be high (e.g. building up a whole new network of contacts in a new product).

Two things are set to draw my relationship with Google even closer. One is the emergence of Android. I have avoided adopting an Android handset for the same reason that I have shunned the iPhone: poor feature set. But this is set to change this year. Android will finally see handsets with good quality cameras, zippy processors and all the other high-end features we’ve come to expect. And because of Android’s fantastic integration with Google apps, these new devices will only serve to further the Google platform’s importance and dominance.

The other, of course, is the coming of Chrome OS. As Google Apps already acts as a sort of social and professional productivity platform, an operating system that supports and increasingly intregrates the products of the platform makes perfect sense, and yet will further indenture us to Google. Then, like the hive mind stretching its tentacles into the consciousnesses of all its Borg followers, so too will Google’s reach extend out to all of us via our mobile and desktop operating systems, with Search at its core.

So even if Google Search isn’t the stand-out it once was, ultimately Google and me look set to be partners for the longhaul. iGoogle & Google Apps have effectively bound me to using Google Search. Google’s operating systems will cement this relationship further. If Bing could match the ease and convenience of iGoogle + Google Apps with similar products, then they’d still have the enormous barriers of social software change to overcome. You’re fighting a tough battle, Microsoft.

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Recognize adverts from Facebook like the one at right? The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier today that they are in fact a scam. Victims are first asked to pay $1.95 shipping for information on how to earn thousands monthly or weekly while working for Google, and are later charged much more than this. Facebook claims to have eliminated all such ads, but they clearly haven’t as I captured this one just 10 minutes ago. That Lamborghini may prove to be as elusive as you first imagined..

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I’ve been following events at the MWC over the past several days and it shaped up to be a fairly interesting conference. Here I’ve summarised my thoughts on some topics of interest:

• Mobile broadband, as ever, is a hot topic. The promise of high-speed data over 3G has floundered a bit given that there can still be fairly high latency even if transfer speeds are reasonable (though I can’t say I’ve ever achieved even close to the 3.6MBit promised by Three anywhere in London on Three’s HSDPA network). The 4G networks due to roll out in 2012 that promise bit rates in the 1 GBit/sec (!) range certainly capture interest, particularly LTE Advanced, which seems to be the front-running contender for adoption by carriers.
• Green issues are being talked up quite a lot. Apparently a year of average mobile phone use generates 25kg of greenhouse gases.
• Mobile advertising is on everyone’s agenda, given that conversion rates are in the 7% - 12% range vs the pitiful rates offered by internet advertising.
• Product announcements were a bit lackluster. We have a new touchscreen Android phone, the HTC Magic from Vodafone, a new 12MP shooter from Sony Ericsson (which will run Symbian, thankfully), Nokia’s first 8MP shooter, the N86, and two new handsets from HTC: the Touch Pro 2 and TouchDiamond 2
• The INQ1 won best mobile handset, largely on the back of their deep integration with Facebook and other social software. It certainly wasn’t the mid-tier hardware.
• Verizon was demo’ing it’s new Novarra content adaptation system. I’m a little disappointed to see that the biggest carrier in the US is now using Novarra transcoders because they do pose real difficulties for mobile development, as I’ve blogged about previously
• Attendance numbers were down around 15%, from 55,000 in 2008 to 47,000 this year.
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Today marks Facebook’s 5th year of allowing us to get more digitally intimate with our friends, as sources across the web have noted (e.g. TechCrunch, ValleyWag, BBC). It has undoubtedly changed the way we interact with each other online, but for me and many others, one of the more resounding effects has been the way it encouraged us to move beyond the years of cultivating quasi-anonymous online personalities that reveal very little about ourselves.

My first taste of the internet came in 1993 when I used it primarily for chatting with others via Internet Relay Chat (IRC). At the time, the thought of revealing my identity to others was inconceivable. The IRC nick name restriction of 9 characters meant that we came up with all manner of short pseudonyms to represent ourselves. Over time one might let drop a detail or two about their “meatspace” existence, but certainly in my case, it was never much.

Because of a lack of trust, because there were sometimes nefarious things going on within these digital communities, because almost no one I knew in real life used the net, and because it was simply the digital norm, people didn’t reveal much about themselves unless it was for professional or academic purposes. Even then, it was common for this digital incarnation of someone to remain separate from the one used for day-to-day and personal net activities. For me, at least, my digital existence was almost entirely separate from my physical one, except for a limited set of personal data I kept online to act as my professional and academic web presence.

In the late 1990’s, web-based message forums were all the rage. These made it much easier to develop relationships with people online, as they allowed for a more media rich social experience than the text-based one of IRC. Still, it was not common for someone to use their real name instead of a dreamt up nick name, but it did become easier to trust people and eventually meet those on a local community forum than it had been previously. User profiles allowed one to indicate superficial data like age and gender. I still went to some effort to disassociate my real-world identity with my digital one, even if I did allow the two to intermingle.

As the 1990’s progressed into the noughties and blogging became more popular, the use of nick names began to diminish. But still, many people avoided revealing too much about themselves on social networks like MySpace. It was still fairly de rigeur to use a clever pseudonym or simply a first name on MySpace rather than your real name.

Not until Facebook arrived on the scene did I totally eschew using pseudonyms for my personal (vs professional) online existence and bother to input a detailed and accurate account of myself. I do remember feeling uncomfortable as I registered with Facebook and wondered if I would later come to regret exposing all this personal data. I haven’t, and in fact I’ve realised what a great joy can come from sharing so much online with my real world friends. Finally, my real world life and digital one are able to overlap in a way that is socially rewarding and fulfilling. Naturally, there comes some danger with opening up too deeply online, but as Facebook offers a plethora of privacy setting I feel pretty much at ease.

And now we are in an era where many new web applications don’t even ask for a nick name upon registration. Mobile, location-aware and proximity-aware technologies will only blur the divide between our digital and physical selves further, and Facebook will have played a key part in getting us there. Thanks FB! Happy Birthday.

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