<b>Ashish Sharma:</b> Ancient internet

GooGoo is a popular search engine today, but many do not know that it has been in business since 1880; the search engine achieved international fame only in the last decade.

GooGoo started off in a small wooden shack, rented from a local farmer, but soon needed larger premises due to its rapidly expanding collection of books — at that time, books were the only reliable method of storing data. This led in 1891 to the construction of GooGooPlex, which hosted 27 people and a horse — one of GooGoo’s very first employees to be paid in shares as the company did not generate enough cash then; the horse now lives in a 150-room stable and drives a custom-built Bentley.

Back then, GooGoo realised that information was a vital and highly valuable resource in a rapidly industrialising world. At that time, if somebody wanted facts on any subject, the only way to get them was to visit a library and look them up in a book. Public libraries were few and far between, so those without private libraries would travel overland, in many cases, thousands of miles, just to see a photograph of a squirrel in an encyclopaedia, and then all the way back again. The perilous trek — which took over two years to complete  often had to start out all over again. 

Wikimedia Commons

GooGoo, the search engine, realised that, if it were to provide copies of those images by mail for a small price to anyone, it could be rolling in money. Before long, GooGoo introduced pre-printed standardised search request forms, which were made widely available in neighbourhood shops and rough bars, and which looked similar to the GooGoo search engine homepage of today. Rough bars especially proved a fertile source of revenue as the request forms turned out invaluable for those seeking a speedy resolution to drunken arguments. All a drunkard had to do was affix a stamp, write his or her address on the reverse of the postcard form, and fill out the question in the allotted space, essentially a horizontal search bar similar to that of GooGoo today. In the early days, GooGoo searches took far longer than they do today. “Please allow 30 days for search results,” went a message below the classic GooGoo search bar on the postcard form, which also offered tick boxes for images, news, videos, and others, thus, effectively streamlining the service, and resolving drunken arguments.

Soon, it became apparent that nations required a method of checks and balances on its rowdy citizens in far-flung areas as well. 

Here, GooGoo was quick to spot another opportunity: it launched GooGoo Middle Earth, which made it possible for anyone to view photographs of the earth taken by a fleet of balloons. People realised the service also allowed them to spy on their neighbours; thus, it became quickly popular among interested parties from all walks of life, especially with governments.

However, there is a dark period in the company’s history. A number of documents show GooGoo received a very large number of search requests from Pakistan, most of them on “Bollywood movies titled surgical strike”. Records also suggest that, just after the surgical strike, GooGoo rival GazeBook activated its safety-check feature in PoK, allowing surviving terrorists to mark themselves as safe.

It is also disturbing to note that young terrorists shifted to newly-established platform, Titter, in order to further their war efforts. Unable to disappoint their legions of followers on Titter, they regularly provided updates on where and what they were doing, against advice by ISI, Pakistan's shadowy secret service. Mobile telephones had not been invented at the time, but Titter became popular. Rather than SMS messaging, tweets would be attached to the leg of a pigeon — jihadis would commonly keep two or three of these birds about their person at all times — and the message would be, via relay, swapped over from a tired bird to a fresh one, and eventually make it to their respective area commanders. When winds blew either way, tweets could pass in a matter of weeks; internal tweets could take under an hour. However, Titter soon came under fire for jihadis publishing spoilers that gave away future terrorist acts. Revealing ruined it for everyone, including Titter, which saw users and business drop off. In came LeakyLeaks, that allowed users to release top-secret diapers anonymously, placing enormous crunch on Pakistan’s limited resources, leading to diaper shortages across the country, and forcing diaper-clad jihadis out of their traditional modesty, as revealed by pictures from GooGoo Middle Earth.

ashish.sharma@bsmail.in