May Kasahara's Journal: When Google Failed

I noticed yesterday's Slashdot story called Is the Internet Your Source of Knowledge? and it reminded me of something that happened to me this week.

On Monday, I bought a remix album by Puffy (aka Puffy AmiYumi), a popular Japanese pop duo (the album I got was PRMX Turbo-- it's damn good). For my own convenience, I promptly ripped the CD in iTunes. Using the few song titles listed in English, along with my knowledge of some of the Japanese-titled songs, I was able to attach names to most of the tracks, but there were a couple I was missing. I went online and Googled the group's name (with English results only, of course). One of the first links listed in my search was to CDUniverse, an online music store. I checked it out, only to see that PRMX Turbo was listed as being a Puff Daddy album! Out of curiosity, I checked out Puff Daddy's discography on the site, and saw that most of the imports listed were Puffy albums!

I emailed CDUniverse and told them of the error, and got a response from them yesterday. Now, Puffy's albums are in their rightful place, but I shudder to think what would happen if someone had Googled (or Froogled) Puff Daddy in the past and accidentally bought a Puffy CD...

I guess if there's a lesson in this, it's that the internet, as a source of knowledge and information, is very much a work in progress. We need to make sure it can be as reliable and as truthful as can be. Therefore, I say if you see a factual error online, point it out (or, if possible, fix it yourself). The 'net will be a much happier place :)