You are owned. Didn’t you know? I’m not talking about by your gracious God or by your pimp daddy- though both will strike at you when disobeyed. Instead, you are owned by a man who will never “physically” touch you. However, in the cyber world, you are absolutely owned by Google. But don’t worry, we’re in this together.
Google God

Google God

Google Maps will direct you home after being lost wandering in New York City. Type the lyrics to the song you heard on the ride home and Google will send you right to the You Tube video. Need health advice? Type, “tight chest” and Google will send an ambulance right to your home…well not exactly.

But as Google continues their steady sky rocketing of brand success, they’re getting increasingly hands-on. In fact they now want the bragging rights for taking the virginity of promotional tweets.

The social networking Q&A service, Aardvark was launched in March 2009. Only one year later, it’s created such a buzz that its the latest Google acquisition. If you’re unfamiliar with the site, check out Aardvark now to test it out. You type in any questions and within minutes, the service will search through its various networks for the perfect person to answer. It’s a real life Ask Jeeves.

Google Aardvark
Google Aardvark

The company was just acquired by Google in February, and only a month later they’re filing a patent that will get them ahead in the social media world. It reads, “A user of a web service is prompted to endorse the web service to the user’s friends or other connections by submitting a status message to one or more status messaging services to which the user belongs.”

If you’ve ever visited a website and been invited to, “Tell a Friend” then you’ve taken part in this web service. With just the click of a button, you’ll be promoting a particular brand in a tweet or Facebook status. Businesses all over the web are using this quick and easy service to build up their own social networks. However, if Aardvark Google gets the patent, will businesses become unable to use, “Tell a friend,” and similar services?

I predict a service charge in the future for this convenient feature. It’s got to be all about the money, or perhaps Google is just tugging at the reigns to show us once again, that we are all owned.