In the early days, I really felt the pain of not being able to find information easily. I guess that helped me to develop an urge to write things like a search engine.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When in my writing lair, I have no access to the Web. Otherwise, I'm like one of those lab rats on too much sugar. To compile my Google searches would be to see my sludgy, allusive brain at work.
Google search was important - one of the most important applications ever on the Web. People accessed everything through a browser, and for us it was important for making sure we had an option there.
The Internet has got great tools. How we lived without Google all those years I don't know.
The largest issue with search is that we learned about it when the web was young, when the universe was 'complete' - the entire web was searchable! Now our digital lives are utterly fractured - in apps, in walled gardens like Facebook, across clunky interfaces like those in automobiles or Comcast cable boxes.
There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.
I think that ultimately over time we really should strive for a place where most information is available online and is searchable.
I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
When I find the right information, the Web is a blessing; when I don't, it's a distraction.
If you know what you want, you use Google. But if you don't know what you want, and you want to be surprised and find something you didn't expect, we want you come to StumbleUpon. Really, that idea of being a discovery engine versus a search engine.
I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be.