Google Asks Us Not To Google

Have you ever googled something? Of course you have. Everybody has. I don’t even need to define what it means: It’s that obvious. The term has now become so common that it is teetering on the edge of becoming a victim of its own success, much like kleenex is now used to refer to a facial tissue (in my household, for example).

In a pathetic, almost sad post to the official Google blog, Google, Inc. has reminded us all to use the Google search engine to find information, not google.

Nice try, Mr. Krantz, but you’re not going to change anything. The vernacular is as the vernacular does, and nobody, not even Google, has the power to change that. Pay heed to Hormel’s continuing failure to attempt to separate the meat from the unsolicited email in the public consciousness. Note the enormous blowback from the Web 2.0 trademark nonsense. If you are destined to end up in the same basket as kleenex, then there isn’t anything you can do to realistically change it.

You cannot win this battle, or even affect its outcome. Don’t look foolish trying.

Link to the official SPAM® site withheld because it makes noise. Is it 1997 again? Google Kleenex photo modified from the original by June Traveler, used under a CC BY license and re-distributed under the normal terms for this site.