Imagine for a second, if you can, that you're not a computer-literate techno-wizard. Somehow, either through indiscriminate clicking, installing some free software or simply clicking "OK" when you meant to click "Cancel", you've installed the Google toolbar. Suddenly, your computer – while not malfunctioning – simply isn't doing what it used to; pop-up windows might be blocked, you might get taken to Google's search engine rather than the one you're used to, and you're generally in a state of mild confusion.
Evidently, the response of many is to type "cancel google" into Google, go to the first result on the page, type an angry message into the box that appears and press "send". For some reason, the first result of the search is a page from the blog of a techy cartoonist by the name of Kevin Cheng. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why his site is the top hit, although if he does know the secret I'm sure that marketing executives would pay him handsome sums to reveal it. But the page is now full of comments from disgruntled people who want "Google removed", and immediately.
"I WANT TO TAKE GOOGLES OFF OF MY HOME PAGE", writes Cindy. "I do not understand about Google at this time," says Dorothy. "take your page off of my computer," writes John, three times in succession. Others lay the blame for their many and various computing mishaps at the door of Google's Toolbar, and demand its immediate removal, somehow, despite not leaving any contact details. Not that Kevin Cheng has the ability or indeed the inclination to help them out.
By the end of the comments section, it's been hijacked by jeering finger-pointers, laughing at the stupidity of those further up the page. But while it's easy to giggle at their ignorance, and indeed at those who post on a random blog entry about US chatshow host Maury Povich, thinking that they're actually sending a message to Maury Povich, there's a serious issue here. While Google has a clear set of principles about software installation – ie you shouldn't be tricked into doing it, it should be clear what the software does and it should be easy to remove – some people, through no fault of their own, just aren't savvy enough to interact with computers in the way the industry imagines they should. Particularly the 81-year-old woman on the Cancel Google thread, who beseeches for someone to "take Google away".
As one person angrily posted on one discussion forum in response to the widespread hilarity that the Cancel Google thread has caused: "We should be talking about how we, as a discipline, have failed at making computers a usable tool for some of the people who most need the information the Internet can provide." It's so true. While software developers crow about their "intuitive user interfaces", they ignore the fact that the very act of using a computer is far from intuitive for many people. They should take heed of the fact that technology is rushing ahead at such a rapid pace that many people – not least Cindy, Dorothy and John – are having huge trouble keeping up.
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Have you seen the new script who show google ads in flash?
that script on http://flashsense.blogspot.com
Posted by: flashsense | Saturday, 23 February 2008 at 12:54 PM