Competitive Survival in The Googloid World of Networks: Eat, Excrete and Procreate

Thanks to Charles Darwin for explaining the Origin of Species, and to Herbert Spencer for coining the mantra for evolution - Survival of the fittest.

But how do we understand the 'extinction of species' and the 'mantra for survival'?

The harsh reality of nature is that survival mainly depends on the food supply. The ecobiologists call it a food web - a vast network consisting of predators and preys. Till recently there was really no good way to study the co-dependences in the food supply chain. Simply put, if the survival of one species is important for the survival of the second, it has to be ranked higher than others as a survival factor.

Stefano Allesina of the University of Chicago and Mercedes Pascual of the University of Michigan wondered if the laws for survival in the food web are similar to those for survival in the world-wide web of internet. See Googling Food Webs: Can an Eigenvector Measure Species' Importance for Coextinctions?

They took a cue from PageRank, an algorithm Google’s search engine uses to rank importance of websites by analyzing its links. If a page feeds another page it gains importance for survivability on the planet web. Similarly, Allesina and Pascual found their modified algorithm was more effective than existing models in identifying the species that are important for the survival of other species on the food web. Recognized as one of the great ideas of 2009, The Google Algorithm as Extinction Model could be useful in analyzing other networks too. World is full of them. Think social networks, communication networks, financial networks, satellite networks and energy networks. Do you remember the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 caused by extinction of a single bottom-of-the-chain power grid?

In pharmaceuticals, consider intracellular networks and signal transduction networks. More and more examples of new therapies indicate that just like a disease can be caused by a small disruption in a critical link molecule, a cure can be obtained by reverting the balance back to normal. Survival requires controlled tweaking of the networks rather than a complete disruption and reinstatement of a specific component.

Food is however, only one part of the equation. The balance of species is also determined by the relative rate of reproduction and the disposal of excrements. These two factors definitely contributed to Google's escalation to the top of information web. While feeding off other's bytes, the world of information is having a population explosion and generating lot more garbage to be buried and lot more sewage to be disposed. Consider, for instance, the 'information overload' numbers reported in a new study from the University of California at San Diego's Global Information Industry Center that in 2008, Americans consumed about 34 gigabytes of information for an average person on an average day.

To a piece of information today, therefore, Google is not only a foster parent that asks to eat spinach, but also a teacher that grades its performance, and a God that decides its vital existence. Google is - the hospital, the nursery, the university, the restaurant, the waste management company, the utlity company and the funeral home.

Survival on Google and other PageRanked networks of life will rely on three basics activities that together, as Actor Dustin Hoffman once pointed out, is the main purpose of why God sent us to the earth - "Eat, Excrete and Procreate". You can be happy like fish in the Lake Michigan, but your survival still depends on these three activities of the Asian Carp. As we apply PageRank model to science, business and life, new Googloids will emerge that will determine the survivability of its network constitutents. Competitive Intelligence will entail identifying reproductive behavior, personal hygeine and, of course, dietary patterns of those constituents.

If you believe Dustin, make note of his other suggestion - "The two basic items necessary to sustain life are sunshine and coconut milk."