The goal of spam is to make money. But what about spam that is there just to get eyeballs? Maybe its goal is egoism, vanity, a need for attention, or a desire to share information. But nonetheless it’s spam. That’s how I feel about being Overloaded by bookmark feeds. I’ve been lured into subscribing to a blog because I like the postings and then all of a sudden bookmark feeds.
Note: This will (likely) be my last post on this subject.
I found —actually, the beast found me — a new instance of information overload: bookmark feeds disguised as blog postings.
I try to focus my reading list by subscribing to blogs, but now some blog authors are publishing their latest del.icio.us (and others) bookmarks. Being the naif that I am, I think there’s a new posting, but really it’s just a new page they’ve bookmarked. If I want to view other people’s bookmarks, I will find them through other means than reading their blogs.
It is simply too much information for me to be reading people’s bookmarks the way I do blog postings. That is the beauty of searching/browsing. It is active on my part, rather than me passively being shown links that I may or may not be interested in.
I’m shocked by this article about AOL’s query logs. Wow.
Not only were the queries published, but a user ID also?! A reporter tracked down an individual searcher through her queries.
Whoa.
UPDATE 8/17/06: To clarify, AOL did publish the randomly assigned user IDs. Thereferore the queries are bundled together by user. There are sites online right now (you’ll have to find them yourself) that let you browse and search the queries by random user IDs.
Thumbing through the August 14 issue of Newsweek I noticed a Technorati ad (page 62).
“Behind every breaking story, there’s a Blog.
Behind every emerging trend, there’s a Blog.
Behind every big scandal, there’s a Blog.
Find it.
Technorati”
I don’t have any deep insights into this, other than to say it’s interesting to see a niche search company advertising in mainstream media. I wonder if most readers will clue into what blog search means.
UPDATE: http://blaugh.com/2006/08/07/senior-netizens/
Dear Craigslist,
I recently wrote a very simple write-up of some straightforward suggestions I thought would improve the user experience on your site. Here is a selection of some of the referral queries from GYM that have since brought users to that article:
Looks like a lot of people want some kind of meta-search capability.