“Maps are an absolute necessity of empire,” writes Paul Ford, contributing editor for The New Republic. The explorers of the modern world knew this, and so does Google.
As Ford writes in this essay on how Google took over the world, Google didn’t develop the first online mapping program. But it developed the best.
Google, as a search engine, had built a fine business by ‘indexing’ … documents and making them searchable. The company was built on a principle of centralisation: If you take the chaotic Web and bestow order upon it, merge it into a single consolidated index, make it make sense, you can make users very, very happy.
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Editor
Eloise is an experienced business journalist and editor, who has held senior editorial roles at SmartCompany since 2014. Prior to joining SmartCompany, Eloise was news editor at Books+Publishing, the trade press for the Australian book industry. Eloise has degrees in media and communications, marketing and business management, and political science. You can follow her on LinkedIn, and Twitter at @ellykeating.
