Google Glossies

As part of its promise to archive all the world's information, Google has tried to scan every book in the major university libraries of America, map the earth, and slowly archive every photograph Life magazine ever took. Now, the search company has added magazines to its universe of perpetual information. Google has begun archiving old issues of select periodicals, allowing users to search through decades of Ebony, New York magazine, and Popular Mechanics. The company has installed a particularly clever bit of interactivity, allowing viewers to flash from any given issue to Google Earth to check out any city referred to in the magazine. (For example, click here to see Ebony's 1973 Hank Aaron edition.) But some critics are already wondering why Google couldn't have gotten a few more interesting 'zines under its belt before going public. "I couldn't find any Time Inc. or Conde Nast publications. There is no Fortune, no Time, no Sports Illustrated, no New Yorker, no Vogue. There is no Newsweek either," wrote TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld. "Hopefully, these magazines will be added eventually." Honestly, there's no pleasing some people.