Slashdot Mirror
Information Obesity
Roland Piquepaille writes "How many phone calls, emails, voicemails, memos or stories do you have to go through every day? Probably more than last year. And probably too much. This article from the Sydney Morning Herald looks at this problem of information overload and how to deal with it. Here is a quick and not well-known fact: Website content management author Gerry McGovern says that something like 70 per cent of most websites goes unread. Despite that, when putting content on the web, "rarely do we ask the question: is anybody interested in reading that?" Good point. Check this column for a summary if you don't have time -- and who has? -- to read the original article."
We're not the only one reading the articles?
But seriously, what's not of interest to some people may be exactly what one individual is searching for. I know I've found obscure information only available on a page or two in all of Google, and I know people have come to my sites on some pretty strange search terms.
It's interesting that this subject was brought up in an article that wasn't worth the bits it was printed on.
In that vein, though, I think that the number of times you have to say RTFA here demonstrates just how much people filter when they're immersed in this much information. I know it definitely applies to me.
Another day in the office, which, according to one recent study, consists of handling 46 phone calls, 25 emails, 16 voicemails, 23 items of post, eight inter-office memos, 16 faxes and nine mobile phone calls.
The article wasn't really clear on this -- are we supposed to believe EACH employee is getting that much crap to deal with and respond to? Or, if that's spread out amongs the "100 to 499 staff", then it doesn't sound like much at all...
I am getting far less voice mail and email than this time last year. I think it is becuase we laid off a lot of the middle people. As a developer, I constantly have to answer questions from marketing types who really have nothing better to do then write a 50 page spec, of which 2 paragraphs describes what the system does... and those two paragraphs were cut/pasted from an email from me.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Website content management author Gerry McGovern says that something like 70 per cent of most websites goes unread
And something like 65% of all statistics are made up? To say 70% of most websites is a very broad statement and really needs narrowing of scope. And does he state anywhere how he came up with this figure? Any journal articles, documents outlining his research, etc?
Looking at the massive amount of blogs, personal sites, and other sites that hold little interest to those outside a set few, what about the percentage of websites that are read at all?
OK, so most people don't read every last word on every website that they visit. Big deal.
I don't read every last word in my morning paper and I certainly don't watch everything on TV.
But I do appreciate having the choice of being able to read what I want in my paper, or watching TV when I want. Similarly, I do appreciate being able to go to a website and pull information that's useful to me, when it's useful to me, regardless of how often it's been accessed in the past.
For example, I recently was putting an older hard disk drive in a PC, simply to see if it still worked reliably. If it did then I was going to keep it around for emergencies or perhaps donate it to someone else, if it didn't then I was going to recycle it.
Unfortunately, this drive didn't have its master/slave jumper settings, or even acceptable CHS (cylinder, heads and sectors) values on it, and the accompanying documentation had long since disappeared.
All I had to do to get the information that I needed was drill down to the relevant page of the manufacturer's website and, voila, I had the drive up and running within minutes.
Now, I can't imagine that there are many people who've looked at the same web page in the last year or two (after all, this was "only" a 540MB hard disk drive), but having that web page there where the information could easily be found made sense both for the manufacturer and for me.
The manufacturer spent next to nothing putting that information there where it could be found (and no doubt saved a lot of money that it would otherwise have spent on technical support calls) and I got what I wanted too, almost instantaneously. A win-win situation all around.
Now, why would the manufacturer care about how often the page has been accessed? It it somehow hurting it's bottom line to have that page sitting on a server somewhere? I don't think so.
Much as I loathe the phrase "information wants to be free", sometimes it does.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
First of all, it's hard to know what websites are going to "take off". Did the guys at homestarrunner.com expect the kind of response they got? Not initially, that's for sure.
Second, not every website is MEANT for lots of activity. I have a homepage, and it's meant for small traffic from people I know. It's probably low traffic enough to be counted as one of those sites that goes "unread", but it serves the purpose that I intended it for.
There's no denying that the web has plenty of bad abuses of HTML. (Many of which would be erased if Geocities and other sites would just clean out their inactive accounts). But it's not hard to avoid such sites and move on.
Sure we can pull some odd-ball statistic saying that 70% of web content isn't read, but is it the same 70% for all people? Of course not.
/. is without worth.
Your average internet user doesn't read slashdot, and doesn't care about slashdot news material. But that doesn't mean that
The same goes for just about any website. I don't need to read a website describing someone's two week ordeal that it took to get a salt-water fishtank in proper condition. I don't have fish, I might never have fish, but if I ever needed anecdotal advice it would now be there for the consideration.
The Internet is such a beautiful thing because of its high availability of information. As such, of course not all of it will be relavant to all people at all times. Frankly, I'm surprised the percentage is that low. I'd estimate that I view about one to two percent of web content at most.
What diffrence does it make if no one ever reads it? Hard drive space is cheap, it's not like there is a 'limit' to the web.
Just having the information out there for someone to search and make use of is a benifit. Unless some harm can come from it, It should be online for someone who might need it to find it.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
A good example would be to ask how many people read the text anywhere on slashdo tbut main articles. I know I ignore everything else including the text to the right and left sides of the main screen.
I do security
I tend to stay away from websites for a couple of reasons:
The pages are poorly organized or poorly laid out.
The navigation is terrible.
And the big issue:
The person cannot spell, has no idea what grammar means, and resorts to using four-letter words over and over.
Honestly, basic writing skills go a long way. I want to read something written by someone who has a brain. If they cannot even run spell check on their article, why should I care to read it?
Another thing to remember is that some websites are niches. I do not know how many sites I have run across that are fan sites for old television shows. For some reason a question comes up about the show and I go looking through Google for information. Those small fan sites can be awesome resources - when you have that particular need. I have seen counters in the double digits on sites that were virtual shrines to a children's show.
Ditto with information on other little things, like short stories by a certain writer. I do not need the information constantly, nor is there a lot for me to talk about Joseph Payne Brennan, but I wanted to find out about compilations of his work. A quick search turned up the names of his books. This is certain to work for writers many times more obscure.
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
Too Bad /. can also be labeled a "blog."
/.? Hell no, but it serves it's purpose, and that's why I do it. I also post photographs I take with some of the cameras I make. Is this content "worth" anything to you? Probably not. UNless you want to see pinhole photography.
blogs != crap
While I agree that most of the "blogs" out there are of little or no use - some are important to a small group of people. I have a blog, and my family and close friends read and post to it. Will it ever be
Don't be so quick to judge.
Please email all complaints to root@127.0.0.1 and the issue will be dealt with in due time.
...that I got from an old boss.
"The question you need to continue to ask yourself while writing anything is, 'Why should anyone care about what I'm writing.'"
When I bother to ask myself that question, I generally avoid the embarassment of writing pointless drivel, either here or on the various sites I've put up. Haven't always kept it in mind, but last I checked I was still human, so that's not surprising.
Simply put:
:)
- Producing good quality material takes time and patience.
- People have always cranked out "information' that really isn't. The forms may have become different (e.g. powerpoint slides with spiffy animations) but the real substance is more often lost.
+ Couple this with an uncontrolled profit motives and the situation is even more appalling (as an example, just recall how many "technical" presentations are just sales pitches in disguise).
- The abuse is much more rampant today as the good stuff is increasingly drowned out by the ever rising noise level.
enough said
Information overload? 70% of the Internet goes unread? Hell, I for one know I don't read any of the articles Slashdot links to! And judging from the /. crowd, most of like to make those linked articles part of the 70% and get directly to the Funny Comments (mmmm, Beowulf, Soviet Russia, hot grits, and 1.2.3. profit jokes!)
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
I pulled out some statistics from my email activity for the past two and a half years:
Highest number of emails sent in one day: 14 May 2003, 26 emails
Highest number of emails received in one day: 10 Jan 2003, 80 emails
Average number of emails sent daily: 4.75 emails
Average number of emails received daily: 15.2
Total number of emails sent (to date): 1747
Total number of emails received (to date): 11355
Ratio of received to sent emails: 6.5 (ie. 1 email is sent for every 6.5 emails received)
The above numbers are spam-free. I use Lotus Notes to extract my email data to excel and use data analysis functions. My average received these days is more in the range of 50-70, since I got promoted from a lowly tech writer to a quality manager, *sigh*.
I was unable to segregate the number of emails where my name is in the "To:" list compared to the "CC:" list, this information would probably give me a better handle on how much of my mail actually matters. But my sent to receive ratio suggests roughly 5 out of 6 emails are not directly of interest to me, an 83.3% information obesity factor?
E.W. (as opposed to eeeeeww)
Think of the WWW as a huge, unedited encyclopedia that also includes porn, gambling, urban myths, lies, scams, the goatse guy, rants, conspiracy theories ... you get the idea. Now, let's say you go to the ATI website to download the updated drivers for your video card. Are you going to read the whole website? Hell, NO! You're only going to read what you absolutely have to to get the drivers. That people don't read everything on every site they visit is a sign of selectivity, nothing more.
That's the whole point of the internet. People put information on the web because its not popular enough for a published book. If only popular info was on the web, who would want to use it? Isn't the amazing part of using google that you can find a site on a subject that you thought no one else in the world was interested in?
Many english courses require you to write a specific
number of words in your essay. This has taught us to write a lot of bs because it seems that quantity is more important than quality. Teachers usually don't care if the information is relevant or not as long as it stays in subject and that you formulate proper sentences. There's our influence!
Maybe I'm ahead of my time, but any time someone asks me for new web content or a new report or whatever I say, "OK, how many people are ACTUALLY going to look at this?" If they can't satisfy me they don't get the content.
Or maybe I'm just REALLY lazy.
An endless supply of content ranging from banal trivia to awe-inspiring knowledge is why the Internet has become the modern equivalant of the Greek Oracle.
There is literally no question that I can't Google an answer for within ten minutes. It really is the sum collection of all human knowledge and the idea of periodically "cleaning it up" is simply ridiculous.