Google beat competitors like Microsoft and AOL to market with the release of its Google Desktop Search tool, which seamlessly integrates traditional Google web search with the ability to search the user's PC hard drive to find needed files and information. Google Desktop Search enables users to retrieve email from Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. It also searchs files in Excel, Powerpoint, Word and text files, and looks for information in chat logs from AOL and AOL Instant Messenger. It even provides quick search of cached web pages, offering a historical archive of useful information. With its Desktop release, Google is stepping squarely into Microsoft's turf by attempting to make Google the "central portal" for any type of web or PC search.

So, how does it work? The process is simple. Google Desktop is installed on your PC, and at initial set up, it scans your hard drive and indexes text folders and files, emails and chats and cached web pages. And to minimize disruption, the software waits until your PC is idle for 30 seconds or longer to do the scans. After that, new documents are scanned in real time. So, when you need to find information about your vacation to "Hawaii", you are presented with a choice of web and/or desktop results, all in the familiar Google interface. You might find a Hawaiian travel web page, a text itinerary to Hawaii, an MP3 file of Hawaiian music or an email chat with your significant other about your upcoming trip. Results can be ranked by date or "rank" as determined by Google's algorithms.

As you can imagine, Google's motivation is to "own" the customer's search experience, regardless of the sources searched. This presents the opportunity for Google to become the default home page for more and more computers worldwide. While Google will not collect personally identifiable information, there will still be privacy concerns, as the user's entire web browsing activity, online chats, emails, etc., can be accessed at the click of a mouse. Those who never lock their desktops or who share PC's will certainly want to pay attention to which items to hide or turn off in their preferences to avoid any uncomfortable situations.

The golden nugget for Google over time is that they can collect advertising revenues for both public web search and private PC search. For now, Google plans only to serve up ads next to the search results, as is currently done on Google.com, and to benefit from increased traffic. In the future, though, you can imagine being served up ads each time you search for your Outlook contacts or for your personal files on your hard drive. Somehow, having Google so much "closer to home" may feel a little "too close for comfort".

                 ← What is this?