[Reader-list] Googlism

[Siva Arumugam]

On Friday 01 November 2002 06:02, Supreet wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 07:26:06PM +0000, Tripta wrote:
> > 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.
>
> 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.

Surely the interesting point here is that the www is experienced linearly 
because almost all the documents on it are designed to be experienced that 
way.  This is much more than a question of interface.  It seems to me that 
questions of non-linearity strike at the heart of how we (want to) make sense 
of the world.  Non-linear systems require feedback mechanisms, but most users 
of the web don't publish much on the web at all, which means that search 
engines are our (extremely) mediated ways of changing the structures and 
content of the web.

> 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.

Quite correct.  However, its worth bearing in mind that the more popular a 
site is, the more likely it is that others will link to it (this is not a 
causal relationship, of course) thereby raising the site in Google's 
estimation.

> 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.

What do we mean by democratic here?  How are our experiences shaped by google 
in ways that we don't understand (or do understand, for that matter)?  It's 
certainly the case that there are plenty of people who try their best to 
'trick' Google into rating their sites higher.  And plenty of others who 
complain bitterly when their site slips down a google notch or two.  Isn't 
this a strong indicator that, democratic or not, Google's disciplining 
practices are worth paying attention to?

See, for instance: http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/googlebombs.htm

> > 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.

Sounds interesting.  You are, in effect, trying to improve upon Google's 
algorithm, right?  The crucial question appears to be how to evaluate success 
here.  How do we judge what makes a good search engine?  If search engines 
currently bring order to the web, how could we go about consciously creating 
techniques of internet use that have other kinds of affects on us?

> 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

Great paper.  The author is in search of methods of finding 'authoritative' 
documents on the web.  My dictionary's first definition of 'authority' is 
'power or right to enforce obedience.' 

> > 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

I find googlism.com wonderful precisely because it opens up the possibilities 
that google.com is designed to carefully close down.  I too use google.com 
all the time, but google surely does embody an ism.  And googlism reminds me 
of that as it pours out alternative imaginings of the web.

Siva.

(I've been lurking on reader-list for a while.  Apologies.  This is a great 
list.)