Blog Post #6: EOTO Technology Presentations

Throughout these presentations, I learned things about technology that I never knew before. It was interesting to think about how many of these technology devices I use each day, yet knowing nothing about them. For instance, I learned about search engines and how they came to be. I learned that the first internet search engine was released in 1990 and was invented by a guy named Alan Emtage. He was a systems administrator in the information technology department at McGill University in Montreal. The first internet search engine was called Archie, and was developed for FTP sites before the creation of the world wide web, as we now know it today. It was built off previous existing platforms such as JumpStation, the World Wide Web Worm, and the Repository-Based software engineering spider, which used automatic programs, called robots or spiders to request web pages and then report what it would find to a database. Search engines made it possible to search through a site’s file directories. Although it was very painful to use at the time, it was a step in the right direction to advancing technology.

There are many differences to how the first search engine started compared to how it is today. Our search engines have become much more technological advanced than they used to be. One of the biggest differences is that we now have what is called Search Engine optimization which is known as “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.” For instance, we have what is called “cookies.” Cookies are “files created by websites you visit. They make your online experience easier by saving browsing information. With cookies, sites can keep you signed in, remember your site preferences, and give you locally relevant content.” We also have tools such as “backlines” instead of keywords, and we have things such as AdWords which is an “advertising system Google developed to help businesses reach online target markets through its search engine platform and partner sites.” Search engines have had a major impact on our society such as digital amnesia, which is also referred to as the Google effect, mobile searching, voice searching, school system change, and the revolutionized internet navigation. Overall, I learned a lot about technology and how it has advanced. Although the one that stuck out to me the most was the search engines and there were many things I learned that I didn’t know before.