For society's sake, don't make those search engines too good

Dr. Helen picks up a profound quote: Men talk to their search engines more than their girlfriends, work colleagues or even their families. (And alas, this trend is set to continue - due to search engines being as smart as this, and as easy on the eye as this.) Search engines, like dogs, offer unquestioning loyalty, uncanny perception and an ability to sniff out the most obscure things. However when they move from the means to the ends, we've got a big problem.

On a related note, I had a good chat today with someone who must be one of the most networked people in the networking business (he has over 600 recommendations on LinkedIn, and comes 21st on this list): Thomas Power. (OK, so there's another Tom with as of today 170m 'friends', but they're just kids, damnit). One of the interesting things Tomas P. said, and something he's based his career on, is that the abundance of digital communications and networking is actually paradoxically making many people lonelier. There's a real need to help people get up, out of their chair, and into the real world. That I guess is one of the messages of this blog, and happily it fits nicely into Nokia's remit too.

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And so here's a free business idea for Google (as if they need my charity): Allow wives and girlfriends to buy the right hand column on their partners' screens. Maybe something like a flashing "Come to bed!!" would remind the unremitting Googlers what the phrase I'm feeling lucky used to mean.