By the dawn of the New Millennium, the Internet landscape was well on its way to becoming the situation we know today - millions and millions of web sites clamoring for attention. The directories we relied on, in our early years of surfing the early world wide web, were becoming obsolete. Search engines helped, of course, but our experiences were still somewhat limited.

The arrival and growth of a certain search engine, in 1998-99, changed everything for most Internet users. This is my story - about the fading memories of a favorite children's book and the experience of finding it online.

Like most of you probably experienced, a colleague suggested I try Google in 2000. "Hey, you gotta try this new search engine - Google.com - it's really good." People were buzzing.

I'd been OK with the search engines I was using at the time, but Google's results were clearly different, relevant and right. The more we used it, the more we figured out how to find stuff online. And not just web sites - but stuff. People, places and information. Unfortunately for the Super Bowl-advertising sock puppets of the world, individual web site addresses began taking a back seat to the raw information we could now seek and find. Looking for something for your pet? Forget pets.com, type it into Google. In this way, our behavior rapidly began to shift.

Later in 2000, I began using this new generation of search engine power to look for a favorite children's book I'd forgotten the title of. But I remembered the story, of two neighboring islands, one rich and one poor. As the wealthier island rulers enslaved the poorer islanders to mine for gold, their corrupt ways upset the balance of nature. Flooding and disaster followed, dooming the greedy islanders until they turned to their neighbors for help and cooperation. With each turn of the page, the books' illustrators had painted beautiful, full-page scenes of the islands as they underwent these changes. As a child, I loved these sequences and detailed images. I'd always remembered the story and its vivid images.

Sitting with my laptop computer, decades later, I searched for the chance to see these pages again. I started with the things I'd remembered: "children's story, islands, sea, changes to islands." And so on. Not much turned up in the first few tries, but soon a few obscure book reviews and write-ups surfaced. Based on my descriptions, which were clearly lacking details, I'd uncovered a few web sites that named the book in their articles or reviews: The Sea People, by Jorg Muller and Jorg Steiner. I'd found it and I began looking for a copy for sale. The book is out of print, so it took a little more searching to find a used copy for sale. But I'd found it nonetheless - and a slightly worn copy now sits on my bookshelf. A cherished childhood memory brought back in full color.

It was a moment that unlocked the real power of the Internet to me. The power we'd been promised when the web went mainstream in the late 1990's. The power to connect with people, places and merchants far and wide, across time zones and languages. The web was always a fun and useful tool, but from that point forward it became a central part of life.

Today, those types of searches - and results - are routine and getting better with new search engines and technologies. As a marketer, I like helping clients create opportunities to connect with customers at those moments when a search (reflecting a person's wants, needs, curiosity or nostalgia) is the perfect match for their products or services. It's a near-magical moment that users embrace and companies can use to establish great new customer relationships.

What's your search story? What are your customers' experiences when they search for you?

Thanks for reading.

Tags: Google