--- "Miller, Jeffrey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: The Fool [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 12:44 AM > > To: Brin-L > > Subject: Internet is dying - Prof. Lessig > > > > Google has its own spam problems: a tiny number of webloggers > > and list-makers whose mindless hyperlinks degrade the value > > of its search results, and create the Web equivalent of TV static. > > > > Basic web surfing means navigating through web sites whose > > inspiration for their baroque overdesign seems to have been > > Donald Trump's wedding cake, > > *snort* what elitist... why I outta... Look, ugly web pags and blog are > EXACTLY the dream of the internet empowering people to publish and > communicate on their own. It just turns out that most people have horrible > taste in colors, like things that go "beep beep", and having nothing to say > that is of interest to anyone outside their closest circle.
As someone said long ago in another context, "No one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American people."
Hmm . . . maybe we need a new show: "Queer Eye for the Webmaster Guy"?
In 1997 if you were to use web-crawler to find some bit of information you desired it would take only a few minutes and the search results would be very benificial.
In 1999 Altavista would give you slightly more "noise" but still first page results were usefull.
In 2001 Google was decent, but the results you desired were on the second or third page.
Now in 2003 You may not get any results which are benificial from any result on any search site. The vast majority of web "destinations" are garbage. There is so much noise now that real information might as well not be there. At one point you could find into faster on the web. Now it is faster to look in an encyclopida or in the lybrary. The internet as an information resource is all but dead.
I would disagree. It depends on what you are looking for and on how judiciously you choose your keywords. At least that is true for specialized information. If you are looking for something that is currently popular, you may indeed get mostly blogs and spam relating to the subject rather than hard information. Frex, last night when I heard the news of the blackout, it took me exactly two tries to find a web site describing a particular episode of a TV sitcom which aired nearly 40 years ago. OTOH, if I were to type "Britney" into any search engine, I'm sure I'd be inundated with irrelevant information and attempts to sell me all kinds of crap.
-- Ronn! :)
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