In a recent response article, Danny Sullivan takes Forbes CEO Spanfeller to task on the whole Google vs. The Newspapers issue. There are a lot of things I agree with Danny about, and an equal number of things that I disagree with. But I feel compelled to propagate one nugget from Spanfeller:
Spanfeller: Search is not really all that great at the moment, a comment repeated time and again by much more astute folks then me. This is especially true when looking for high-quality professionally created content. This is not to say that user-generated content or ecommerce options or product specs should not be returned in search results, simply that there is clearly a better way to showcase the different paths an end user might be pursuing. The idea that everyone is forced into trying to “game” the system so that they get their “fair” (or sometimes not so fair) share is testament to how terribly wrong this entire process has become.
This excites me because I see in this statement an acknowledgment and realization that Exploratory Search and HCIR (“showcasing”) is necessary. Sullivan, however, completely misses the point: Continue reading…
Recent Comments