Time for a Little Spring Cleaning
In February, Nielsen Media Research reported that there has been a 55% increase in online searches and that this means people “like” to search online. As much as one must respect Nielsen’s statistical prowess, it’s a precarious leap to assume that this increased usage is based on some sort of pleasure the public takes in conducting online searches. After all, we’ve all spent plenty of time searching for our car keys or cell phone, and very few of us would claim to have genuinely “liked” that experience.
The reason for this increase in search engine usage more likely is the result of the public’s inability to find what they are looking for online. The harder it is to find something, the more time you spend looking for it. That applies online as well as off.
The evidence to support this hypothesis is visible on almost every page of the Internet. Search results pages are overcrowded with a dizzying amount of data. Publishers have embraced every form of new content imaginable and put it all on their home pages, jammed in between the articles, advertising, and (thank goodness) navigation bar and search box. Content is queen again, but what a messy mistress it has become!
The result of this “contentification” is an increasing degradation of the basic Internet experience. Our online experiences increasingly feel like searches in large, poorly organized closets. Only these closets are structured like mazes and have televisions with blaring sound. Users are being asked to make too many choices. And having too many options is just as burdensome as having none at all.
So how do we remedy this? Do we need to re-think how pages are designed? Are the current basic navigation schemes inadequate? Has the Web finally become too impenetrable to efficiently search? Is this what Web 3.0 really means? No doubt Microsoft will raise their hand at this point and tell us that VISTA will answer all of these issues.
The real issue that needs to be addressed is the inverse relation between the amount of content being added to the Web and amount of time we are willing to devote to wading through that content. And dispersing the content across appliances – away from the PC to cell phones, handhelds, and even big screen TVs – isn’t going to solve this problem. In fact, it just adds to it – more and more options to choose from.
The problem and the solution reside in the ever present need to Search.
To go out and get what we want, without needing to click through list after list of potential answers until the one correct response is found. We have lists of Favorites and now we can, “tag,” but at best they help eliminate a second search and nothing more. The Google desktop search function is a beginning, but it only moves the location from the browser to the desktop. Taken together, these “benefits” appear more like symptoms of the problem rather than the solution.
What we need is the ability to program our searches so that they anticipate the content that will appear on the web, keeping us ahead of the content. A simple application that we can program to retrieve specific types of content as it appears, automatically delivering it our desktops.
Doesn’t that boggle the space-time continuum a bit? What we need is a simple application that we can program to get specific types of content when it appears and then deliver it automatically on our desktop. Oh a bot? Well like a chimp is like a man, a bot- but one that will be given access to retail sites to collect sales on specific items that an individual wants. Or news items or just any special video on say whippet puppies and it works 24/7 can be re-adjusted and rewards sites for giving it access with our almost immediate attention and or sales..
Now that’s how I’d clean the closet.
