tedster - 3:26 pm on Aug 4, 2010 (gmt 0)

Slate has published an interview with Google's Peter Norvig that goes a bit beyond the usual piece of fluff that often gets churned out. Understanding what goes on at Google, right now, can be important for today's web marketer. Norvig shared a personal anecdote that happens to me all the time, both about the web as a whole and specifically about Google"

I was in a meeting a while ago and somebody was discussing a new project—this was in an area I hadn't touched for a while—and I said "Oh, isn't it the case that such and such?" And they kind of snorted derisively and said, "Yeah, well, that's the way the Web was four years ago, but that approach doesn't work anymore." I think that's happening constantly.

There's a lot here - for example, how Google plans for both hardware and software failures in the process of returning a set of search results. A hardware failure somewhere in the chain might change position #10 but they try very hard not to let it affect position #1

The Wrong Stuff [slate.com]