My 2013 Google Chrome Alphabet

What comes up when you type a letter and “Enter” into the address bar of your browser? I did this last year, and it hasn’t changed much, making this an even duller and more self-obsessed post this year.

a Amazon

b BBC News

c ComRes

d Daily Mail

e Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

f Facebook

g Google front page

h Huffington Post

i Independent

j my page at Independent Minds (the old Independent blog; the address is johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com)

k Facebook (Chrome picks up the “k” at the end)

l Labour Party

m goes to a private web-based email account (its address begins “mail”)

n BBC News (again, news.bbc.co.uk)

o Oxford Dictionaries

p Parliamentlive.tv (live feed of House of Commons)

q Google search for “q”: first item, Q magazine

r Google search for “r”: first item, the R Project for Statistical Computing

s London Evening Standard (www.standard.co.uk)

t Telegraph

u UK Polling Report

v Google search for “v”: first item V, code for Visa Inc on NYSE

w Wikipedia

x Google search for “x”: first item X, code for United States Steel Corporation on NYSE

y YouTube

z Google search for “z”: first item Z, code for Zillow Inc (NASDAQ)‎

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  Many of the results depend on the searcher as Google tailors them. For example, I get Ikea for i and John Lewis for j

• creggancowboy

  Banning Independent Minds was the worst thing Lebedev ever did. Second worst was firing Jody McIntyre for telling the truth. Third was hiring Dent & Jones as a discount comedy act.

• http://twitter.com/Jack_Johnson__ Jack Johnson

  we all know what really came up for p..

• Junius

  I am somewhat surprised to discover a journalist of the left-leaning Indy using the browser of one of those corporations which refuses to pay ‘a fair amount’ of tax. Mr Rentoul should be called before a Revolutionary Tribunal to explain himself. Were I a latterday Madame Defarge, I should be selecting a new knitting pattern in gleeful anticipation of a fine day out beneath the shadow of the guillotine.

  Grease the tumbril axle shaft, Jacques.

• SpartacusMars

  Since when is JR left-leaning? Or a journalist?

• Farweasel

  Would that have been some sort of container Jack?

  I’ll tell you something more interesting ‘though ….. Sad cynical obsessive that I am I decided to test the above report by shoving the letters into Google search.
  (In fairness I emphasise ‘ordinary’ Google, not chrome).

  The results?:

  A – ‘The letter A, the first letter of the alphabet’. But in case that was too linear I checked the next. That was ‘A* search algorithm’.

  B – Was B&Q. (How much did they slip Google for THAT one)?

  Whilst C – logically was ‘C’ a programming language.

  It may or may not be the case that John Rentoul (the writer) got the results he claims. But, if he’s playing a straight bat and reporting genuine results, the kindest thing to suggest is he may be overlooking some artifact of computer memory replicating his previous search results.

  Of course, being a top notch journalist …… As if.

  If anyone’s running G Chrome and would like to see what they get?