correlate Rotating Header Image

Social Impact of Search?

Nov 18th, 2007
by Lou Paglia.

Jeremie Miller, founder of Jabber and now CTO at Search Wikia, made an interesting statement during our panel conversation at Defrag.

“Search is going to have the same transforming approach on society as the printing press.”

This is interesting on a couple of levels. First, is it true? Sure search is one of the biggest enabling technology developments in recent memory and right now, probably the most important on the web thus far (short of the web itself). But is it having a societal impact? Second, if so, how big of an effect is it having?

Jeremie expanded on his comment with an example of children looking at the first page of search results and that often that is exactly what they distill as the facts or information around that topic. On first blush, this doesn’t seem logical but after considering this comment further, perhaps it is true.

The highest portion of link clicks happen on the first set of Google search results (can’t remember where I read this but it certainly makes sense from any usability angle I can think of). So knowing that, it is viable to think that people’s views of a given topic can be gleaned in a summary view just by that minute set of information on a given topic. And when you are searching within a particular information vertical, such as news, one’s natural inclination is to glean a sense of a topic by a quick review of the headlines. Does this always give you the complete picture? I have to say often ‘no’. Do a search at Google News for ‘global warming‘ as one polar example.

Anyway, interesting issue to think about as we head into a new week. It was one of the issues brought up at the conference that I wanted to be sure I touched on here. Would certainly be interested in others thoughts and any examples that you have where a set of search results gives a clear but incomplete view of a topic.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted in: search.
Tagged: ·

← Defragging the Defrag Coverage
Print is back? →

Viewing 2 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    You know, Uncle Rupert said something similar in Wired in 2006, though his comment was that (I'm paraphrasing) "all this social stuff would have the same impact as the printing press."

    It's nice to see the printing press finally getting the kudos it deserves. But anyhow...

    It's a shame, but, as someone who thought high school (albeit briefly) regurgitating the first three links on a google search is pretty much exactly what passes for good "research" these days unless you force your kids to dig deeper into a given topic.

    So, yes, I think I am saying that the social impact of search is probably tied in closely with that saying about "a little knowledge being dangerous."
    • ^
    • v
    Jim, very interesting find regarding the Wired article. Completely agree that it does make you reflect on how much you base your "knowledge" or generalize on certain topic simply based on a little bit of information. And search results are just that, a look into a particular topic and not a complete look, and depending on the person searching, it may not even be a good look. If you do not know about a topic, logic would dictate that you don't know what you are looking for necessarily, that in itself does not bode well for getting a holistic picture returned to you about that topic via a search engine.
 

Trackbacks

(Trackback URL)

close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus