When I was typing email on my iPad at the airport waiting
for the flight to Houston, I never thought about what life would be like 10 or
20 years ago. While I was reading the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” I can’t
stop imagining the time when people used horses and carriages as transportation
tools and the time when people had to wait for several months to get a mail
from a far-away family member, and the time when people were helpless when they
found their hand-written library directories were ruined by fire or rain.
I am always fascinated by emerging technologies and how
these technologies can change people’s lives. Inventions such as steam engine
brought the society a new civilization. Technologies such as Internet set the
society a whole new standard of everything. When people were thinking what’s
next, Apple created a new market for music and entertainment. Technology
companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon.com give people’s life new definition.
The most obvious example will be Google search engine. Just like the stream
engine, Google brought huge benefit to the society. Tons of time has been saved
to design more world-changing ideas by just typing some words and clicking some
links. The best information and the most needed information are provided in
less than one second. People can quickly scan the results and pick out what
they want and then take their time to explore the details. If we view the
situation from the e-commerce aspect, Google provide companies a platform to
reach out their customers effectively and efficiently. This is obviously a
win-win-win situation. Customers, Google and businesses all find their ways to
achieve what they want. The rule is defined by Google; people take advantage of
the rule and gain benefit.
Go back to the article where the author talked about how
Google changed the way people read and write and think, I have to admit that I
agree with some of the points. Firstly, I like how the author can jump out from
the time he was in and the place he was at and consider the changes of himself.
Sometime nowadays I feel hard to concentrate on what I am doing and easily be distracted
by real-time update emails or links along side the web page that Google thinks
that I may be interested in. I like how
the author described people nowadays as “fickleness”. It makes me think about
the situation of myself. I am more and more used to the high speed of
everything and find myself losing patience in thinking deeper of a question because
it is just easier to find the answers online by a click.
Am I the only one that adopted this new habit? Are there
other people in the society who are also addicted to Google and Amazon? As a
marketing person, instead of thinking whether Google makes us stupid, I would
like to think more about how to market a product by using this change and how
to meet customers’ new needs generated by all these emerging technologies.
I really like the question you generate about our marketing people. We can obviously see that our promotion tools are changing also. In stead of spending much more money on TV for short ads, companies are discovering a new method--internet! I'm sure you can see plenty of ads on weibo everyday. And as I know, there are a lot of weibo marketing companies benefit from weibo marketing through past 3-5 years in China. As a marketing people, thinking about traditional methods is not enough at all. We have to follow the trend, and find another way through internet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion on technology substantially change our lives. Especially I like the example you give about Apple. Indeed, technology makes our lives convenient, simpler and better than before. However, as I mentioned in my blog that it also brings some negative sides to us, such as lack of creativity. although I cannot agree more with you on the marketing part for taking advantage of technology as Google, I still want to argue that information overload will cause the negative emotion for customers. Fianlly, they may switch brand just like what they did to Yahoo.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you are definitely not the only people adapted this habit ;)
ReplyDeleteI like the first paragraph best since you were writing like a poet!
It is very appropriate to describe the Google business idea as a win-win-win strategy. Indeed, customers, advertisers and Google gain what they want respectively with the Google searching engine. Therefore how can you say "no" to such a beneficial and harmless tool?
But is Google really harmless?
I think you suffered its poison already by stating that " I find myself losing patience in thinking deeper of a question because it is just easier to find the answers online by a click."
Google shaped people's thoughts by offering standard answers. That's why every student's paper seems to alike since everyone used the same searching engine!
At the end, very nice writing :)