Climbing Mount Everest: November 03, 1997 issue of New Thinking

November 03, 1997 New Thinking:
Climbing Mount Everest

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November 03, 1997

Climbing Mount Everest

By Gerry McGovern

Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that by some act of magic I found myself at the base of Mount Everest, fully kitted out in all the proper gear. I looked at the mountain. It was so big. Awesome. Beautiful. Magical in the mist.

Someone touched my shoulder. “Would you like to climb it?” they asked.
I looked at them. I looked back at the mountain. “No thanks,” I replied.

Finding the information you want on the Internet can be a challenge like climbing Mount Everest. It will become more of a challenge. David Peterschmidt, president of Inktomi, recently estimated that there are now 100 million documents on the Internet and by the year 2000 there could be up to 800 million.

Let’s be conservative and say that each document has on average of two pages and that each page is on average one foot long. Thus, if you were to stand each page end-to-end, for the present 100 million documents you would reach 200 million feet in height. By 2000, the height will be 1,600 million feet. Mount Everest is located in North-eastern Nepal and stands 29,028 feet above sea level.

The mountain of data people are facing on the Internet makes Mount Everest look like a pimple.

Let’s say that as a result of some miracle we all found ourselves at the foot of Mount Everest, kitted out in all the right gear. How many of us would decide to climb? I doubt that many more would make the decision than had already being intending to make the decision.

Every time we log onto the Internet and go to Alta Vista or Hot Bot looking for information, we are faced with a similar challenge. Some of us are adventurers and enjoy the challenge of rooting out what we want from that ever-growing mountain. Most - the vast majority - of us want an easy ride. Searching is something we do when we’re lost and we don’t like being lost.

A mistake that an awful lot of commentators made was to assume that the pioneers who came onto the Internet first were just like everybody else. They’re weren’t. They were pioneers. By definition they like to chart new territory. They like to go where nobody has gone before. The unstructured, untamed, vast potential of the Internet was the very thing that attracted them to it in the first place.

It is not what will attract the vast majority of citizens to the Internet. The challenge and great opportunity for the pioneer is to tame and structure. It is to level the mountain of data and to create efficient transport systems which allow people get to the information they want in the easiest and quickest possible way.

Mount Everest is a thing of beauty. A mountain of data is not. The challenge and opportunity is to make the Internet an easy climb. We need a subtle but vital shift in focus. Instead of talking about ‘search engines’ we need to start thinking about ‘find engines.’ Yahoo is an obvious example. But we need a lot more. Because 800 million documents into one human being simply doesn’t go.

Gerry McGovern

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Mount Everest is a thing of beauty. A mountain of data is not. The challenge and opportunity is to make the Internet an easy climb.