GoogleFighting

I was reading through Zeldman's personal site today and noticed a link titled "Zeldman vs. Nielsen". Curious what the the competition was based on, I clicked the link to be taken over to GoogleFight.

Surely this is somewhat off-topic, but I find it quite interesting how much our online lives have come to center on Google. For anyone who hasn't guessed and doesn't want to look, GoogleFight essentially allows you to pit two persons, concepts, etc. against each other and see who the "winner" is. Of course, the winner, in this case, is the individual with the most Google results.

The thing to ponder about is this, I guess. If Google truly is the definitive index of the web (definitive in the size of its database and our own trophying of its superiority), and the simple number of references to one term as opposed to another can be considered valid (leaving out terms and concepts that are prone to duality), could this be an indicator of sentiment or public opinion? Sure.. I wouldn't base my thesis on it, but it's interesting none the less.