Google Saves Dilbert
December 21, 2008
There are skeptics about Google’s impact, potential, and domination of search. Well, there’s one more believer. Scott Adams. The story appeared in the London Times here. “Google Was My Doctor” tells an interesting story. The creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert had a worsening medical problem. His doc was not optimistic and uninformed.
Mr. Adams created a Google alert and received useful information. The Google made it possible for Mr. Adams to resolve his health issue. For me, the most important comment in the article was:
I never would have found that path without Google alerts. It makes me wonder how far the Dr Google trend can go and what impact that can have on society’s medical costs.
The reason I mention this article is that the Google is slowly becoming a force in medical information. I know that librarians will point to the wonders of commercial medical information services. Heck, 20 years ago I was involved in Pharmaceutical News Index, and Google blows that system out of the water by accident. Are the commercial medical information companies aware of the Google. Sure, but I don’t most of these outfits think Google is savvy enough to master the mysteries of MeSH. The low profile health records test in Ohio is off the radar.
Just keep in mind that the Google saved Dilbert, and I think that in a year or so those pundits who ignore Google’s impact in medical information will regret their confidence that the Google has only a tiny role to play. The Web search market has lost its battle. Google in the enterprise is effectively over because Google need only sit back and let its demographic strategy play out. Now medical information. Do you know about Google’s patent document that makes the mobile phone a medical monitoring gizmo? Might be worth checking out before you write me and tell me that I am an addled goose ready for the oven. Conference organizers take note. Are you getting the “game plan” talk or are you getting solid insight into what the GOOG has in store for online information? My hunch is that dead tree publishers who run conferences have zero idea about this notion. Sigh.
Stephen Arnold, December 21, 2008
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