Well, Google has pretty interesting mission .."Organizing world's information" . Looking at the time they have spent on this mammoth task, I guess , they have been very successful. They have been able to, at least, search the web ...with high accuracy. The information,however, is not limited to web. Information is there in every bit of matter ..living or dead. To that extent the challenge is daunting and might be self defeating. And then there is a commercial aspect too. Hence ..the mission is not only organizing (world's) information but doing it in a profitable way. Discounting for commercial nature of beast, I think it makes sense to give credit to Google Engineers. Credit is due even for taking up such a huge mission and start working towards the goal (and not leaving it to hands of philosophers only.)
Since Google is (and many other search engines) are capable of searching better part of web , one question that comes to my mind is ,"why they are not organizing it ?" (Despite the stated goal)
For example, Google, with a little modification to their search engine should be able to (automatically) generate a directory of people. Depending upon web presence of a person, they should be able to create a gProfile (I hope this a new term) of an individual and then open it to individuals enabling them claim their true (web) identity. Same logic can be applied to schools, colleges, universities, companies, charities, temples and what not. This will not only enhance Google's traffic but also encourage everyone to enhance their web presence. This can also become a world wide trusted source of information in the sense claimed identities are more trustworthy and reasonable to do business with.
A slightly bigger challenge will be create a universal product catalogue. This is a difficult proposition for the fact that a product exists in so many different variables. A shirt can be so many sizes and colors and materials. Its practically impossible to define all the possible variants of a pretty small number of products. Leaving this to some future quantum technology, there is massive info organization that can be achieved with present technology and resources.
I hope Google will stick to its mission and channelize its synergy on this bigger aspect rather than replacing / packaging small applications to challenge Microsofts and Yahoo's of gone era..
Cheers
