I sort of think of Google as a channel changer for the TV. When I need to go from one place to another, I use the remote, but the bulk of my time is not spent changing channels - it's spent consuming the media that I'm interested in.
Agreed. The article implies that we all spent our time "hanging out" on Google before Facebook and Twitter came along. That's never been the case though. For better or worse Google has been and is just an extremely useful utility.
My dependence on Google kind of scares me a bit. I don't just use it for search, it's my calculator, converter (currency, temperature, etc.) and many more things.
And even if I chose to do those things manually (such as temperature conversion) - I could only think of going to google first to get the formula. I'm just glad Google is there to make my life easier.
It's my search engine, calculator, converter, stock-quote-checker, e-mail client, word processor, spreadsheet, chat client lately, local business directory, atlas, and employer. Hrmm. That makes it far more dominant than Microsoft ever was...
