I was looking in the referral logs of my blog. Most of my search referrals are currently image searches. I used to get all kinds of crazy searches that would find Sad Salvation because of written content. Now random people find me because of images. I am not sure why that is. Have Google text searches got better? Are people searching for fewer crazy things? Are images really what my blog is about?
I am not sure if this is good for my blog or not. I am not sure how to attract people who have never read it before. I am not sure that people that do not know me would even like reading it. I would love to be a big time blogger, but I am not sure this blog is going that direction.
I was sent a map of the current Califorina Fire. If you zoom way out it looks like the whole state is on fire. According to what my parents are seeing on the news on the East Coast, the rest of the country thinks the whole state is on fire. Yes I have smelled the smoke and see the haze, but I have yet to see any fires this year. I am happy about that.
I heard a story today about Rushmore Drive from On The Media. Rushmore Drive is a search engine that is focused on Black people. Not only African Americans, but Africans, Afro-Caribbeans and Black people anywhere else in the world. The idea is that Google is currently a one side fits all solution. Minority have different ideas of what should show up on search results.
I am interested in the idea that different things are important to different people. Right now Google is the king of search. I am not sure if Google gives the same search results depending on who is searching. Do people with the same ethnic background want the same search results. I am not sure the best way to figure this one out.
There are two possible outcomes if this kind of search is important. Large search engines will let people tweeks the results that come to them. Letting people actively and passively edit the results that are served up to them. Smaller search engines will pop up that try to cater to people. I think that these search engines will not stop an ethnic ideas, but other lifestyle groupings. I think that gamers will get their own search engine, photographers will get there own search engine, and movie fans will get there own search engine.
I searched for Rich Thomas on Rushmore Drive. I come up second on this search, which is better than Google where I show up 4th. My photo comes up on the search, but my blog does not come up on the blog search. It is good to know everyone can find me if they are looking for me.
Search might not be the same in the future. There is an idea that we are getting to the end of Keyword search. Tagging has already had an impact on the way searches work. Who knows what search will be about in another five or ten years. It is possible that Google is something that is no longer important in 10 year.
I just want to say that Sad Salvation is now the number 1 search result for "wonder woman" burka. If there is an artist out there who would like to draw Wonder Woman in Burka, Wonder Woman in a Niqab, or Wonder Woman in a Hijab, I would be happy to post it here in my blog.
I am intersted in the idea of what a modest Wonder Woman would look like. If there was a female super hero, the most powerful female super hero would she show off her body or would she hid it? Maybe she would not want to b a sex symbol. What would that hero dress like?
For a long time I have known that Google Image search sucks. My recent searches have done nothing to change my mind about this. I am writing a blog post about Wonder Woman. While thinking about Wonder Woman I wondered if any artist has ever drawn Wonder Woman in burka. It is an interesting question because Wonder Woman is so powerful but always dressed is so little clothing. I wonder if anyone ever made a different take on that.
I did not find wonder woman in burka. I found images of wonder woman and images of burkas, but none of both. By the fourth page of the search I had neither wonder woman or burkas. I know they search the text of the page and hope the image they are pointing to is what the searcher is looking for. It rarely works for me. Is there a better image search out there? Can there be a good image search without humans looking at the image?
I am amused that a photo I took is in the top image results for the Google Canada search of pictures of sad people. It is the photo of Antwon at the top of the page. That might be why that photo has almost 700 views. I am happy that Sad Salvation and my Sad People photo set are both in the top five for this search. For a long time Sad Salvation would be found by people searching for pictures of sad people, but there were no sad people on my blog. I am happy that I have been able to fill this web nitch. Now people can find pictures of sad people because of me.
A recently Google launchedTrends. Trends are the searches that are showing big spikes. It is different than Zeitgeist which just shows the most popular searches. They are retiring Zeitgeist for Trends and Hot Trends.
Today I checked my referral logs and I noticed that my recent post about the Stanford Impostor, Azia Kim got a lot of hits from Hot Trends. I did not expect to get 50 extra hits just because of this post.
Since there is a list of Hot Trends every day, could I boost my hits by just going to this list and writing something? How would that effect the Hot Trends. This would be more important if I was selling ads.
I have been looking the Sad Salvation referral logs. When I first started to blog I looked at them all the time. I even did posts about crazy ways people found my blog. There used to be a lot of crazy searches that pulled up Sad Salvation.
Now looking at my referral logs, 80% of the searches that find my blog are Image searches. Most of the images they find are old images, before I used flickr for my blog. It seems that some images are more popular than others. That is why I picked the flower tattoo for this post.
I know that many people do not link to my blog. Many of my readers have gone away since I turned off my RSS feed. It just wonder what it means that images are the most found thing about my blog. I have the feeling this is saying something about how people use the web is changing.
Buzztwittered a story aboutdodgeball being down. (God that sentence shows what kind of geek I am). The story goes into the fallout between the dodgeball founders and Google. The founders left Google and many people think that Google will now let dodgeball die.
This whole story is interesting to me. I am a dodgeball user, but I do not find dodgeball to be all that useful. I think I can count on one hand how many times it has been useful twice in a month. I know part of this is because my friends do not really use it. If I knew more people using it, I might get more out of it. Of the 14 people on my friends list only about 6 of them use it regularly.
One of my pet peeves with dodgeball is that they never made San Jose or Silicon Valley its own city. Most of the time I get dodgeballs from people in the city going to bars. This is not very useful to me. I am not going to run up there just because I got a dodgeball.
Dodgeball had the feeling of a fad for me. In 2006 lots of people used it, but now it seems that people use it less often. Even if the people who do use it, use it sparingly. It is a service that one person cannot use alone.
Since I started using dodgeball I do not think they have added any features. I do not think it has become more useful. I do not know if that is a problem with the concept or if that is a problem with what Google was willing to do with it. I am not sure what social mobile computing looks like. What I know is that terrain has something to do with it. What you can do with social mobile computing is different in New York City and a rural area. It might be different in every city in America. I wonder if that scares a company like Google.
Twitter is an interesting idea to look at. I turn off the messages going to my cell phone, but it would kill my 500 messages a month. It is halfway mini blog/mobile social service/time waster. It is very much like the never ending cocktail party. It is not like you are really getting to know anyone, but you are listening to them try to be witty.
I am trying to think about what would make an interesting service, but nothing comes to mind. I guess if something did come to mind I would be working on it right now.
I have been reading about how NBC Universal and News Corp want to dethrone YouTube and Google as kings of internet video. I think this is pretty funny. I have the feeling that people at NBC and News Corp have no idea what makes YouTube successful. Google did not even have a good idea so they bought them. I think Hollywood thinks they can dictate what will be successful. I think that would be a big mistake. I have some advice for this new site. I know that Hollywood is not good at taking advice, but I will give it anyway.
1) On the internet Short is Big
There is a line from the story that jumped right out at me.
When it launches in the summer, the new venture will feature thousands of hours of full-length TV shows and videos for free on AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo shortly after they appear on television networks.
The networks have to remember that there is more than one way to show the same show. When it comes to shows like The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Family Guy, make sure you cut the shows into segments. It is often single joke of segments that people want to see. If there is a really funny skit on Saturday Night Live, let me see just that skit. Don't make me see the whole show to see it. This is why the Daily Show has been so popular on You Tube.
2) Viral is King
To be honest, the networks do not do a good job at getting me to watch network shows. They also do not do a good job of getting me to network websites. Let me do an exchange table for you.
1 conversation about a clip on the internet = 10 emails about that clip 1 email from a friend = 10 friends blog posts 1 Friends blog post is = 10 Strangers blog posts 1 stranger blog post is = 10 mentions in the media 1 mention in the media = 100 promos on TV.
As much as the promos during the Daily Show tell me to visit their web site, it takes people telling me about "The Internet is not a Dump Truck" for me to visit it. A friend telling me I will like something carries a lot more weight than some network shill telling me it is really cool.
The other important thing about Viral Marketing is that the public decides what is good. The site just puts the clips up and people get to make up their mind. The problem with network TV is that people feel they have no input into the programing. The site just needs to give the users the tools to decide what to watch.
3) Give me Something Special
Since you own the show you can give people extra content. A site like this is the perfect place for special features. Behind the scenes, director commentary, extra content, deleted scenes, alternate endings. All of those things you can try out here. As a bonus you can reuse this footage for the DVDs later.
4) User Control is Important
If I was to run one of these sites, I would give the users a lot of power. The ability to link to the content is really important. That is my biggest problem with the Comedy Central site. I cannot get to specific content.
You also need to give users the ability to embed content on blogs and other web sites. This will help your users find and share content. The long tale is all about users helping users find content. Hollywood should not look past that. This is a great way to leverage content.
If I was running one of these sites, I would give the users the ability to upload content. They should be able to upload their content and parody content. Content like Nobody's Watching would be perfect. It would be great to see Nobody's Watching 24 parody next to actual 24 content.
I would even give users the ability to upload my content to the site. If I was running a site for the Tonight Show or Late Night, I would let the users decide what clips should be up there. Let them be part of the action and they will market for you. I think this is one of the keys that makes You Tube compelling.
I know Hollywood will not take any of my advice. I know that the average marketer will not agree with any idea that is not their idea. Knowing all that, I am still willing to give my advice for free.
It gives me a sick thrill to see that my blog is in the top 10 for the search "i feel like there is something missing". The funny thing is that I know that person will not find that missing thing at my blog.
I am happy to say that I am the first person to come up in a Google Search of "Rich Thomas." I happen to be in a place where everyone know the other Rich Thomas. That is one of the problems of having a common name.
I saw this article about how Google is going through its job applications. They are asking the people who apply now to fill out a survey. I wonder if someone can Google Bomb the survey. If it takes 15 people to rig the survey, do you have to split the job between all of them.
I will admit that I am not happy about the way Google hires. I am from the tribe of people who did not do well at school. I would like to think that I am a good employee now. I know I have worked with good people who have not had the best grades. I am worried that Google is going to leave good talent on the table and set an example for other companies. I just wonder how it will effect the future of high tech hiring.
Of all the ways Google spends money, I think that a huge solar project is one of the best way for them to spend their money. I wonder if people could lease their roof space to Google for room for even more solar collectors.
I often wonder if it's not just a skill that we need to teach people - data mining, or searching. I can often find stuff very quickly when my wife has been looking for a half hour because I can think of ways to quantify the search better to find information that's useful. With more and more information that is available and the amount growing, searching is rapidly becoming less useful than it was even a year or two ago. If I find that I need real information about a single thing, I'm more likely to search Wikipedia than Google now.
I do use Wikipedia a lot lately. I use it as much as I use Google. I think I am starting to use them for two different kinds of information. It I am looking for a Fact, concept, or statistic I start with Wikipedia. If I am looking for a web site, data that is specific to a web site, or questions about a product I use Google.
Often I come upon a question I know that I will not find an answer using Google. I find that I want to be able to ask a question and get an answer. Now I have to ask the question of myself, analysis what kind of website would have the answer to that questions, and figure out the right combination of keywords that will bring me to that data.
I think that this means that Google can be beat by another company. Google was much better than the search engines that came before it. That does not mean another search engine could not be better than them.
I often wonder if it's not just a skill that we need to teach people - data mining, or searching. I can often find stuff very quickly when my wife has been looking for a half hour because I can think of ways to quantify the search better to find information that's useful. With more and more information that is available and the amount growing, searching is rapidly becoming less useful than it was even a year or two ago. If I find that I need real information about a single thing, I'm more likely to search Wikipedia than Google now.
I know lots of people who think that Google is perfect. They think there is no need for any other search engine. I like Google, but it is not perfect. It looks like other people are looking for better search also.
It is hard to describe what is wrong with search engines. A user needs to know how to make a better search them self. They need a better idea of what they want so they can find it. I know that a lot of this has to do with ranking search results and putting more work into search might not work for people.
I wonder if anyone will beat Google or if Google will offer more ways to search the same data.
I know lots of people who think that Google is perfect. They think there is no need for any other search engine. I like Google, but it is not perfect. It looks like other people are looking for better search also.
It is hard to describe what is wrong with search engines. A user needs to know how to make a better search themself. They need a better idea of what they want so they can find it. I know that a lot of this has to do with ranking search results and putting more work into search might not work for people.
I wonder if anyone will beat Google or if Google will offer more ways to search the same data.
I went to a San Jose Blogger meetup hosted by Steve Slone, AKA the Pizza Cast. It was a fun time. We talked about a ton of topics in the two and half hours.
Steve said that he owns the term SJSU Tech. He meant that he is the number one search that comes up for this term. I find this to be an odd claim. Even if you are the number one result for a search, it does not mean you own the term. You have almost no ability to control those results. You might find a way to game the search engine so you come up first, but the company who owns the search engine can change the rules.
Steve is the number one result for Google, but he comes up beneth the paid results for Yahoo. I know that lots of people will say that google is the only result that matters, but I think that is short sighted. Who knows what Google will do tomorrow. They could also take money for this term in the future.
Steve does have power over the term SJSC Tech, but I am not sure he owns it. It would be possible for other people to steal that term away if they wanted to put the effort into it.
Whenever I go through my referral logs I always find strange stuff. It makes me wonder how good Google is for the average user. People find Sad Salvation looking for all kinds of stuff. I wonder how often people can find what they are really looking for. I think search engines are still primitive. I wonder if they will be able to really develop or not? I know people say that Tagging might help with those problems. I just wonder how much stuff I am looking for but cannot find.
There was a big news story this week about Google refusing a Department of Justice subpoena. I think this is really interesting. I am not sure what the White House is thinking. This is on the heels of the domestic spying coming to light. I think this is a bad time to ask for data like this. They are giving Google a built in defense. I can see Google point to this as why they should not give over such broad data.
I will admit that I do not think Google is picking this fight because they want to protect their customer's privacy. I think they are trying to deep their business practices private. I am happy they are not just handing this data over. I just do not expect Google to always fight for me.
What is more worry some to me is that the government is trying to revive the Internet child protection law that was struck down by the Supreme Court. If the law was struck down, don't they need to go to congress to get a new law written? Can they just try to revive the law on their own? I think that is what everyone should be looking at.
I have been connecting up links over the last couple of days. I wish I had something to write about them, but I cannot come up with anything smart. Here are the links.
I think it is pretty big news that Google Set to Sell Video From CBS, NBA. I cannot think of anything else that Google charges end users for. I wonder where this is leading their business. Are we going to see a big shift in the way they do business? I wonder what kind of info Google wants to sell to us.
Ego Surfing - Looking up your own name in a Search Engine to see how sites mention you.
Reverse Ego Surfing - putting up a list of people, so that if one of them goes egosurfing, theoretically they may come across the bait page with your contact information.
Waxing an Ego Surf - Posting things on the Internet so your name comes up more often or higher up when Ego Surfing. (Comes from waxing a surfboard)
Googlewhack - Typing two words into Google's search bar, with the goal of obtaining a single result. seeing the words "Results 1-1 of 1" appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
I would like to add things to this list.
Inverse Ego Surf - Using the Referral logs of your web site to see how people are using Search Engines to find them.
Egowhack - Searching for things other then your name to see if you can get your web site or weblog to come up on the first page.
Someone recently searched for "Ain't Nothing Going To Break My Stride" and Sad Salvation came up on the first page of the search. I am obsessed at the ways people can find my web page on search engines. I always check it out when I see it in my referral logs.
