10 Years Past: Remembering 9/11

Today is the opening day of the 9/11 memorial in New York City. Two simple, dignified footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. I grew up some thousands of miles away from the epicentre of the attacks, but even in Colorado, the middle of America, the fear rippled through the country as we watched our world shatter around us. I remember what I was eating, watching, wearing, and thinking that morning.

9/11 Memorial North Pool

I was young and at lunchtime during school I went online to find out a little more about the World Trade Centre; I was startled to see a message similar to the one shown below, for the first time that I could remember Google was admitting defeat and passing its users back to the other media. I can only imagine what the traffic  looked like in order for Google to post this on their landing page.

Google on 9/11

Social media was a no-go as it was limited to internet forums, a handful of dating sites, and the first social network, SixDegrees.com, had been shut down less than six months prior. Livejournal was up and running as the bloggers choice platform because the alternatives were slim to none. And although Friendster was on the horizon, with Myspace close behind, there was nowhere to go to find first-hand information on the events that were unfolding on CNN, NBC, and all of the other major news stations.

As we blaze further into the 21^st century, I cannot fathom ever seeing an event that would warrant a message like the one Google posted ten years ago. Search engine spiders are indexing faster than ever, updates that used to take months to appear in the search engine results pages now take weeks or even days.

There is an arms race between Google and Bing for the best real-time search results, integrating micro-blogging sites, news articles from all over the world, Facebook updates, etc. all seconds after they are posted. This free-flow of up-to-the-minute information has plugged the world into current events like nothing else in the past ever has.

What was immediately a scary thought of a smaller world has since dissipated into a kind of social neighbourhood atmosphere of education and good-will. Thanks in large part to the search engine giants for bringing us all together, the post 9/11 world is a much friendlier existence than I would have imagined that day as I sat eating my waffle and watching the Towers fall. This has to be a good thing. Who knew ten years ago what the internet would look like today? Who knows what it will look like on the 20th anniversary of 9/11? But now, as I sit in the middle of London, I can honestly say that my world is a better place in part because of the information received by Google, Bing, and the rest.