Google Gets a Caffeine Injection

No one ever knocked Google for not keeping up to date. Despite only indexing, like, one a month, I’ve always been pretty impressed with how well Google organizes the web. But what do I know? Apparently, that’s not nearly fast enough.

To keep up with the modern tide of user content (I guess ‘tsunami’ is more appropriate), Google has rolled out Caffeine, a new indexing system which updates layers of content continually, resulting in an up-to-the-minute web.

“Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks,” explains the Google blog. “With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally.” Thank god, because I need my YouTube Poop right the hell now.

Alright, alright, so it’s pretty cool of Google to jump into the future with the rest of us, and at the alleged rate of ‘hundreds of thousands of gigabytes’ refreshed per day, that’s killer. But why am I posting a news story about a search algorithm? Who cares, right? To be honest, it’s partly just an excuse to re-post the hilarious, less-than-helpful diagram Google put up to explain the Caffeine system. Upon seeing it, I flat out lold.

While I understand the point it’s trying to make, an image of content frantically orbiting the user doesn’t seem as immediately helpful as the nice, sturdy old index. Looks like Google’s on a Caffeine Buzz, indeed.

Oh, get it? See that double joke there? Caffeine? Buzz? Screw this, I’m gonna go make some coffee.

[Via The Google Blog]