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This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

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Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#11

Post by kulkarnic »

selmnoo wrote: post #2

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

Maybe that is to ensure that the results remain stable after people start trying out those searches for themselves (and so Google doesn't endorse another company's services).

Wikipedia for results is definitely not the norm for Google searches in India---I just spent a month there and results can be anything from JustDial directory services (for phone numbers, since many local businesses don't have websites) to local newspapers (for reviews etc).

The utility of Google in India is that it provides you the best link across different websites. This is really important because India has a growing population of new Internet users (who don't have "go to" sites like Wikipedia and Yelp), and because it still doesn't have clear winners in many verticals (e.g. real estate)

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#12

Post by anigbrowl »

capex wrote: post #7

Behind the division of the sub-continent lies a great debate, that of Jinnah vs Gandhi. Was it the true aspiration of the people to get divided geographically while getting independence from British rule? It seems the divide happened because of some ideology driven people (Iqbal) who convinced other leaders (Jinnah) to pursue it. Today, this is a raging battle in Pakistan, did Pakistan ever need to be an independent…

For those interested in history, Freedom at Midnight is a great documentary book on the liberation and subsequent partition of India: http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-at-Midnight-Dominique-Lapierre...

It's a sad fact that the departure of the British Empire from various colonial possessions frequently resulted in a power vacuum followed by deep internal conflicts which remain problematic today - Ireland, Israel, and India being three obvious examples.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#14

Post by signa11 »

selmnoo wrote: post #2

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

> Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

isn't that true for most sites all around ? i, fwiw, normally just use site specific searches on almost all sites...

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#16

Post by staunch »

selmnoo wrote: post #2

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#17

Post by kunai »

For those that don't understand the ad, the partition was, and to be honest, still is a very sensitive issue in India. My grandmother experienced it first-hand: people lost their homes, were separated from their families, and many people died along the migration from Pakistan to Punjab. There was no way for people to get back in touch... until now, which is why this Google ad is particularly poignant. As much as everyone here has loved to hate on Google for the past couple of weeks, the ad shows everyone just how valuable their products can be. It's certainly worth something... and it's a lot more meaningful than whatever Apple is doing with their marketing.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#18

Post by Dylan16807 »

staunch wrote: post #16
selmnoo wrote: post #2

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.

Not at all. If you're filtering based on multiple categories, a search that understands them, even barebones, is better than a brilliant generic-text-search.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#19

Post by TheSisb2 »

devnetfx wrote: post #3

This is a beautiful ad and will make you emotional. As a person of Indian background I was able to relate to it easily but I wonder what others think of it? Are you able to feel the strong emotions based on reading subtitles or does language hamper the feelings and it loses its impact. Kudos to the team involved in this and thanks for posting this.

No Indian background in me but I still teared up. This ad would work in any culture, but the separation they talk about in Indian culture makes it a realistic plot. All you need to relate is to understand what a good friendship is like, maybe even less than that.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#20

Post by selmnoo »

staunch wrote: post #16
selmnoo wrote: post #2

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.

I didn't want to go to far on an off-topic tangent, but basically what I was getting at was that I increasingly seem to be interested in a very limited number of sites -- that is, mostly, sites that I already know of and recognize.

I use Reddit search more when I'm doing exploratory searching hoping to land on a site I've never been before, because it serves me already vetted/reviewed sites. In this way, Google is no longer a tool for me to do search, where I'm not sure where I'll end up, it's now a tool to get me where I know I want to go (which happens to be some wikipedia page most of the times).

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