Friday, November 21, 2008

It's not only cream that floats to the top











If you look at the above screengrab, you'll see that there's a little green arrow next to 'Bullshit'. This is because it used to be below 'Horse Shit' when I initially searched for 'horse shit', but thanks to the good burghers of Googleville I can now promote certain items in my search engine results so that they'll always rise to the top should I wish to search for them again using that search term.

A number of people at the agency today reckon this is pretty cool, with comparisons being made to Digg and other customisable search/sort/save tools. The commentators at the BBC, on the other hand, reckon it's only going to appeal to seasoned surfers who have got more than a touch of binary OCD.

Personally, I reckon I'll use it very occasionally if something I looked for wasn't on the first page - and assuming I have sufficient forward-thoughtfulness to realise I may wish to find it again. Especially if my browser toolbar is o'erflowing with bookmarks or I can't be arsed to tag something to del.icio.us. And assuming I'm likely to remember the same search terms.

Thing is, despite working for a digital agency, I just can't get that excited about it. Sure, it's a nice extra and possibly based on a valid insight into how a very few people currently use search, but the vast majority of people really won't give a stuff. 

I doubt my sister will. I know my mother won't. Most of my old schoolfriends who gave London life the bodyswerve to have kids at an early age a few metres from where they themselves grew up - well they probably won't either. 

And there's quite a few of them. Loads, in fact.

So although it may well get a small coterie of tech-obsessed weirdy-beardies foaming at the whatnot, we'd do well to put it in perspective.

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