It is my business in general to interact with most programming, search engines and social networks as I have the onerous task of designing web sites for clients on a daily basis.
We have even gone to the trouble of supplying SEO for all of new clients (far too laborious on old ones).
But it cannot have escaped your notice web users, that where it became easy to find information to support a thesis, or find an opinion on a business sector, or unearth some very obscure nugget of information on the back of a heated debate over dinner which needs settling, finding what you actually want on the net is becoming increasingly more difficult.
Search engines are only as sophisticated as the meta data put in and it doesn’t matter how obscure your request, the results often result in search results which number the hundreds of thousands. Given that there are some savvy ‘bottom feeders’ out there they will probably be at the top of these lists, probably the first five to ten pages even though their sites deliver nothing to do with the content of your request.
Sadly, the British Library or the New York State library with a couple of dedicated librarians, (and if you doubt me try them; their knowledge put search engine results to shame) are the best place for getting the information you want. I say sadly because many of you do not live in capital cities and so access is more difficult, so you’ll have to do with second best.
It is my opinion that the same is true of social networking; it is becoming like the search for a burglar at a police station line-up. You enter a name and hopefully another specific detail and the sites give you 1000s of people, many of which have nothing in common with your entry, whilst you trawl through all of the pictures, saying things like ‘it might be him, it’s been a while’ and eventually give up because you’ve probably got better things to do than look at pages and pages of ‘randoms’
I think that unless there is some more sophisticated input into understanding search entries, ther will be migrations away from some of these engines and social network sites; we’ll just take our friends and go somewhere more comfortable.
It is unfair to blame these behemoths entirely; if it wasn’t for people with half a business plan and a trawling mentality that tells them that hits mean business, there would be much less flotsam and jetsum in the search results.
We can at least hope in the future that our meta data is a true reflection of our content, so that intelligent searches are just that; intelligent.
And if you are a business that has a need for a presence on the web; work out how you are going to market it, so that traffic will go to it and god willing return to it.
I tell my clients all the time that this is not like ‘Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams; if we build it, they won’t necessarily come’
Work out what it is for and what is going to achieve. It makes it easier for the searches for the rest of us. In my experience the only valuable hits that don’t come from my business card are from the links on sites we have done; at least they are warm. The remainder are people trying to sell us something, our competitors and creative professionals on a job hunt.
I will also warn you though, before anybody feels the need to pick holes in our site; I am going to get in their first. When I deliver web presentations to my prospective clients, I always tell them to ‘do as I say, not as I do’, because we haven’t touched our site in over 18months.
And finally; am I the only person who believes that wikipedia is the ultimate source for ‘dumbing down’. The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) has a group of dedicated professionals (and I am sure that you all have your equivalents worldwide) who are tenacious in their pursuit of the truth. I can believe what I read there. Wikipedia, strikes me as like a suggestion box at the end of a school playground; you give three or four people some information and then you get a set of chinese whispers going and the last three kids put what they think in the suggestion box. The site ought to be called ‘urban myths’, but then there’s one of those already. Has anybody else had the same experience when looking through this site? The problem with some things on there being so warped is that you tend not to trust anything. It’s like fraud; not the worst criminal offence that you can commit, but it throws every other judgement of that organisation into question.
End of…
Filed under: Design, News, Web, life, lifestyle, media, search engines, social networking, technology, views | Leave a Comment
Tags: Add new tag, Andrew Robinson, Ask, Design, Facebook, Google, Identity, Libraries, Linked In, mind corporation, mindcorp, My Space, Programming, social networking, technology, Web, Wikipedia, Yahoo
I have been asked whether the clock on my last post was available as javascript version online.
The answer is yes, but I wanted to gauge whether there is enough interest for me to build it for you.
Have a look at it below and send me your comments.
http://www.mindcorp.co.uk/clock/
Filed under: Design, News, Web, a must have, lifestyle, technology | 2 Comments
Tags: clock online screensaver technology design web mindcorp
Having done my first relatively boring introductory blog, here is something much more interesting. I’m offering you the chance to download an extremely cool screensaver.
It is a clock which we have put together using over 1000 photographs of numbers and no second ever looks the same. So apart form telling the time it looks great on screen.
Here’s a sample so that you can see what it looks like.
Give me some feedback; try it and then give me feedback; i’d love to know what you all think
To download the mac version; (and this is me not knowing yet how to get the zipped file for you to download) send an email request to andrew@mindcorp.co.uk subject clock mac
To download the pc version; (and this is me not knowing yet how to get the zipped file for you to download) send an email request to andrew@mindcorp.co.uk subject clock pc
That’s about it. I await your comments/requests/emails or ways to get
mindcorpscreensaver.zip and mindcorpscreensaver.EXE.zip uploaded into the blog.
Andrew
Filed under: Design, News, Web, a must have | 2 Comments
Tags: Andrew Robinson, clock, cool, Design, designer, download, fun, mind corporation, mindcorp, mindcorp.co.uk, News, numbers, photographs, screensaver
My name is Andrew Robinson and today is the start of our Mind Corporation blog on all things design, branding, web, design strategy, staff and fun related issues which make up our day…and far too often our night.
We plan to talk about how do things, how we think about things, what advice we give clients and what advice we are going to give away here.
I hope you find it interesting and that you’ll give me your valued feedback; good or bad.
If any of you work in the programming field and know your php like the back of your hand, we’d like to hear from you. You can find us in london and via our site http://www.mindcorp.co.uk
The same applies if you are a P.A. looking for a position working with me here at Mind Corporation.
Anyway, enough of that. We ought to get this one posted so that we can crack on with some more content soon.
Bye for now
Andrew
Filed under: Design, Web | 2 Comments
Tags: advertising, agency, Andrew Robinson, applications, branding, creative, Design, jobs, london, oslo, strategy, tv post production, Web
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