The Manufacture of Relevance

Quick, who is the biggest global producer of "relevance" today?

No it's not the Philosophy Department at some Ivy-covered university hall in the the United States or Europe.

It's.... Google.

Day in and day out, in fact, every minute of every day, Google is churning out massive quantities of "relevance". No one else even comes close to Google's ability to pump out relevance -- seductive, addictive relevance that keeps users clamoring for more.

The massive brain trust that Google has built up is focused sharply on, among other things, the manufacturing of relevance. Google's famed search alogorithms continually fine hone the relevance of what Internet users are looking for, when they search for stuff.

Relevance works simple and powerful magic.

When people find relevance in something, they pay attention.

When people find relevance in something, they come back for more.

When people find relevance in something, they become admiring acolytes...

....Or should we say "addicts"?

Relevance is the dependency drug par excellence for the mind..... No, not the brain.... LSD probably has more punch for that silly, grey-matter laden organ... I am talking about that Cartesian-modernist idea... the mind...

The mind craves relevance and, when it finds it, the mind turns convivial... and supple... and effervescent... and elastic... and sweetly submissive...

As a global pusher of relevance, Google has left rivals like Yahoo, AOL, and MSN way behind... choking on the dust trail of Google's blazing fast searches.

Have you had your Google fix today?

Nik Dholakia