[Reader-list] Googlism

Fri Nov 1 16:32:28 IST 2002

On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 07:26:06PM +0000, Tripta wrote:
> Interesting website (and concept) which opens up even further discourses and 
> avenues of looking at the notions of navigating the cyber space and managing 
> the plethora of information available. 
> 
> within the non-linear, random access structure of the Internet with the amount 
> of information available made making sense of it is an issue.
> 
> inspite of the potential of the medium to accomodate the aggregrative rather 
> than the subordinative nature of the oral culture and the objectivity offered 
> by the print to create `writing spaces', the physical and visual field 
> defined by a particular technology where writing is a creative play of signs 
> as david bolter puts it, the navigation within the internet is still very 
> linear in some senses and the play of signs not being played very well.

First of all don't use www/http and internet interchangably. They are two
differen things all together. In this case this is important because your or
david bolter's statement refers more to http protocol flaws rather then
internet infrastructure schema itself. Although I could and will disagree to
that statement even because when you are requesting a page it is the user
who is precieving the linearity but reality is something else. Distribution
of task and source of information happens all the time on internet. If you are 
saying that interface that is your browser does not allow you to see that 
distributiveness, well change that interface and use something that does.
the assimilation of information  into linear form happens at your browser
interface.

> 
> the search engines, GOOGle, provide  centers / referntial points within the 
> otherwise flat non-hierarchal structures-imposing a linear / hierarchial 
> percpetions of it. and the fact that, hit-per-month on a website alleviate 
> the level of the specific `website' on the google result page consolidate 
> their position. does any one of us ever visit the 50th listing on the 20th 
> result page of google? and if not why? why do we vest so much of confidence 
> in the results generated by google? 

In case you haven't noticed google is not based on simple hit rate algorithm
at all. Google uses something called page rank algorithm  which is not as
simple as hit rate equals higher in google search. 

I can partly tell what happens inside google crawler. Crawler goes to a
certain page and adds the keywords from that page. Then it checks in its
database for pages and websites which point to that page or website. If
there are more websites with high ratings pointing to that URL or several low
rating websites pointing to a URL it would get high rating. So i think its
very democratic.

> 
> i use google and many other search engines and this is in no ways an attack on 
> Google or what it does? do website and concepts like www.googlism.com have an 
> answer? neither do i? but i am posing questions which are important for me to 
> enhance my understanding and mobility within this space. 

First of all google is not so good guy preception is without any basis as
shown earlier and most probably googlism would based on google for doing
what it is doing.

> 
> are we trading the centers? and are we not distancing the websites on the 50th 
> listing of the 20th page? and because it works in a loop...not going to that 
> website ensures that `that' website will not ever come to us. till the time, 
> it an accidental discovery of an enthusiastic surfer with a lot of time and 
> patience. are we not then establishing our own centers and peripheries and 
> illusioning ourselves to believe otherwise because of the inherent character 
> of the structure. can we break away from practices of operating in a linear 
> fashion? can we allow for the chaos to take over and not be intimidated or 
> apprehensive about the notion the word conveys or what it is made to convey 
> to instill order and allow it to evolve it's own language? 

I have been testing this for quite a while now, having a customized crawler 
walking through first 20 to 100 pages pointed by google would yield more
relevent results. 

Milage would differ depending from search string being provided. But still
it would be better than going to "20th page for 50th result"

There are several research papaers on this subject for details. the one I
like most is
Authoritative Source in a Hyperlinked Environment at 
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.ps

> 
> we have the langauge(html). can we develop the grammar and syntax?
> 
> and then think about the following. is googlism offering alternatives or is it 
> reinforcing the ideas?  
> the ones that got me really thinking twice about hitting the google button 
> (which i did anyways?) are:
>  google is my other memory 
> google is probably archiving all of your images
>  google is a part of my brain
>  google is a careless custodian of private information
>  google is best
> 				so there it is. a cool concept.  
> google is that?
>  google is three
>  google is a user?s best friend
>  google is tops for work time searches
>  google is still spidering and caching my old server
>  google is goood
>  google is urged to go public
>  google is the real winner in its own
>  google is the world's favorite search engine
>  google is your friend
>  google is the most popular search
>  google is faaasst
>  google is one of the best search
>  google is gong bezerk
>  google is out of beta
>  google is featuring the google
>  google is $deity
>  google is so cool
>  google is here
>  google is the best"
>  google is dancing
>  google is lief
>  google is watching you"
>  google is at it again
>  google is first time our top referer
>  google is microsoft ?
>  google is #1 search
>  google is a powerful weapon indeed
>  google is thinking
>  google is anti
>  google is 'feeling lucky'
>  google is excluding knife advertising
>  google is having a programming contest
>  google is the greatest? at news
>  google is 'feeling lucky' the googleplex
>  google is
>  google is so popular
>  google is that? om malik
>  google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional 
> search engines
>  google is proud of their advantage
>  google is three times bigger than the experts think
>  google is a user?s best friend by john mccormick special to gcn every web 
> user should know how to exploit the features of the powerful google
>  google is your family
>  google is not an anomaly
>  google is tops for work time searches by abigail waraker
>  google is my other memory
>  google is still spidering and caching my old server 35 dayes and still 
> counting
>  google is goood positive things about google
>  google is a harsh mistress
>  google is in the black by kieren mccarthy posted
>  google is urged to go public 12
>  google is urged to go public google is urged to go public
>  google is now indexing this list
>  google is the real winner in its own contest by paul festa special to zdnet 
> news may 31
>  google is the world's favorite search engine by olaf j?ptner
>  google is more than an academic debate on copyright law
>  google is not going to do anything as a result of it
>  google is a dot
>  google is replacing bookmarks
>  google is the most popular search engine
>  google is unique among search engines in that while it almost always shows 
> you pages that have the exact keywords you are looking for
>  google is faaasst just tried google
>  google is one of the best search engines by tootough2be
>  google is one of the best search engines i use google all the time to find 
> everything
>  google is gong bezerk it seems forums are flooded with complaints about 
> google's new search algorithms
>  google is gong bezerk post a comment name
>  google is still choosing to take advantage of the safe harbor provision of 
> the digital millennium copyright act
>  google is featuring the google posted may 20
>  google is a target for any optimization campaign simply because it has 
> managed to obtain the most attention from users on search
>  google is $deity i finagled work into buying me a wireless
>  google is the best"
>  google is an internet search engine
>  google is dancing expect the full update to appear within the next day or so
>  google is the most popular search engine on the web according to onestat
>  google is the only search engine
>  google is a privately held company and does not divulge financial information
>  google is oft
>  google is just the juice
>  google is watching you ever wondered how many pages google is keeping track 
> of for your domain? submitting this form
>  google is the point
>  google is in fact a company
>  google is probably archiving all of your images
>  google is a part of my brain
>  google is a careless custodian of private information
>  google is best
>  google is already mostly rest friendly
>  google is increasing its infrastructure as fast as it can
>  google is a powerful
>  google is indirectly supporting their anti
>  google is smart
>  google is the real winner in its own contest
>  google is the best search engine
>  google is a sensitive thing
>  google is the only dotcom to achieve the rare distinction of zero percent 
> employee turnover
>  google is your friend i knew when i wrote this
>  google is surprisingly light
>  google is the greatest? get the latest news and information at news
>  google is now the search engine of choice for most of the web and it handles 
> over 150 million queries a day
> 
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