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| Yes | 11% | 63 votes | Total: 569 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesOver the years Google has become a respected and popular search engine. Now there are some problems with the website. There are sites that are untrustworthy and full of nothing other than spam that somehow infiltrate the website. Still, it is a website many depend on from students to employees. There is a plethoraof valuable information that is stored throughout Google.
Now Wikipedia is also a potentially valuable website, but one that is open to anyone from an educated professor to a clueless individual interested in nothing other than planting false information in the minds of innocent victims. In schools, a majority of teachers discourage students from using Wikipedia. Thus, if enough teachers, students, and everyday people find the website encouraged by the Google search engine then more will frown upon Google as well.
This deterioration of the Google fan base could already be in progress. Numerous times when Google is used the first page that appears in response is Wikipedia. Therefore, it takes longer and longer to ravage the results and find the best and most accurate result. As a result, Google is becoming more of a frustration than an easy access first choice.
For a search engine guru, one may admit that that the implementation of Wikipedia is not the first time when Google's deterioration has become noticeable. A once powerful search engine was already going down hill before the creation of Wikipedia even took full effect. There is an increasing and frightening amount of unworthy websites that already appear with a simple click of the mouse. Spamming has become the most popular crime in the common time and Google appears to do little, if anything, to protect itself. So with the addition of another potentially unworthy website, Google might just set itself over the edge.
Now there are some people that will always use Google and will accept the information presented whether it is true or false. However, consider how the majority would react knowing that Google can not be any more dependable than Wikipedia itself. When people go online, they want answers and facts. In today's world, they also want those responses as quickly as technologically possible. However, there is also a very vivid line between speed and honesty. Quickness is an admirable trait, but the honest facts are always more important. Too many websites are already untrustworthy and hopefully Google will not allow itself to tread the same path.
Learn more about this author, Adam Alvarez.
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No
Wikipedia is not a threat to Google, and unless it re-invents itself, it never will be. Google provides an Internet wide search spider that can search for phrases or words in a variety of venues: books, scholarly works, images, maps, news, videos, finance, blogs, You Tube, and even your own desktop.
Wikipedia serves as a sort of on-line, non-authenticated encyclopedia. Some of the articles are well-written and well-referenced, but some of them are poorly written, contain no references, and may even be biased. When you search for something on Google, you get a list of various documents or references that you can personally explore. You are the one who clicks a link and makes a decision as to the document's authenticity. Google has the capacity to pull up every reference on the Internet to what you're searching for, not just the materials entered into one particular data base (like Wikipedia).
Here's a prime example. If you go to Google and search for brownie recipe you will get 1,190,000 hits as of May 15, 2009. If you were to look at the list of hits, you'll realize that nearly each of these hits is a recipe for brownies. Who knew there were so many kinds? Of course, some are duplicated - but that's the beauty of Google, you get a wide variety to choose from.
Switch for a moment to Google Images. There they are: 1,020,000 pictures of brownies. If you're not drooling by now, you're not human. Click Google Maps, and you'll get a map to the nearest bakery that sells brownies. Switch to Google News, and you'll discover that within the last two weeks, there were 96 new stores written about brownie recipes. Google Video will immediately pull up 870 videos demonstrating how to make various kinds of brownies. Click Google Groups, and every Google Group that's posted a brownie recipe in recent history will be shown. Google Books will pull up over 800 books so that you can see the brownie recipe as it looks in the book. Even Google Scholar has over 5,900 scholarly articles that reference brownie recipes! Google products will show you more than 4,600 cookbooks that you can order that have a brownie recipe. You might be surprised to find that there are 10 patents on various brownie recipe contents. 130,000 blogs discuss brownie recipes. Google Reader can help you keep track of all the new feeds on brownie recipes. Are you tired of brownies yet?
Of course, you can search for brownie recipes on Wikipedia. If so, you will get NO hits. You can modify your search, and search for brownie. If you do that, you'll get a grand list: brownie the fairy, brownie the girl scout, brownie the camera, and finally you'll see Choclate Brownie. Hot for the recipe, you click it - and get a great history of the brownie. You'll learn that an Alice B. Toklas brownie contains marijuana, but you won't find a single brownie recipe.
No, Wikipedia will never replace Google.
Learn more about this author, Nita Tyson.
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