David Pogue of the New York Times made a point in his e-column today that reinforces what I've said in earlier posts about search, specifically Google versus Naver . He begins the column as follows.
"Today's e-column is nothing but a computer tip, but it's a biggie. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I've got to tell you, it's totally rocked my world: Use Google search for everything. Let me explain."
Pogue then goes on to explain why it wastes time and effort to use the search boxes embedded in almost all web sites, when Google has already indexed everything on the web and you can get to where you're going faster by searching directly with Google. He gives several examples of how it "used to be," before he discovered how Google works. For example, "Used to be, when I wanted to consult Wikipedia, I'd go to Wikipedia.org, I'd click English; I'd click in the Search box; I'd type 'blu-ray', and click Search. Five steps. . . . . I've been totally wasting my time. Google blows all of this out of the water." I agree, and here in Korea the degree to which people begin to use Google, rather than relying only on Naver , will be an important indicator of the globalization process.