Slashdot Mirror
Changing Use of Internet?
CodeHog writes "Wired has an interesting article on the perceived changing use of the Internet. Perceived perhaps because it appears that these findings are based partly on search topics. What's more interesting is what it means to the tech community at large. Could this be a new area of tech jobs, setting up and maintaining ecommerce sites, creating search assisting applications?"
People have already found their porn and don't need to search for it anymore.
"Twenty percent of all searching was sex-related back in 1997; now it's about 5 percent,"
Maybe people are now accessing sex-related sites via links in spams, why seek when it comes to you?
and randomly selected thousands of search sessions from more than 1 million they culled anonymously from search engines such as AltaVista.
Is AltaVista still a credible source for research?
All in all, I believe the change in searching pattern may more likely be caused by returned results. At the moment there are too many noises when searching for real sex-related sites, most of them are full of pop-up and nothing useful, but a e-commerce search may return more desirable results, thus people keep on searching them.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Now you can put that four years of school to work at home in your spare time selling and buying stuff on eBay for the russian mafia.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
So, basically.. your telling me that I should drop out of the Computer Science program at my school and pick up a degree in MIS, so I can make crappy webpages the rest of my life?
Paint.NET, a Free Image Editor, with Source Code Available!
What hasn't changed much in seven years is how hard people are willing to work at searching. The answer: not very. Spink and Jansen found that people averaged about two words per query and two queries per search session.
What has changed though is that two words per query gives a much more accurate result than it used to. I use google for everything including UPS Tracking, math conversions, and tracking down where/when my name/email address is used. This sort of information just wasn't available 7+ years ago.
People aren't searching so much for porn because there is so much more information that is already indexed. You used to search for X and most of the first page of results were for porn. Perhaps that's why it seemed so popular? Maybe it was because the earliest adopters of the Internet were "fringe" people more interested in finding other "fringe" activities?
That should be internets.
Hello? Of course it's dropped: most people don't use search engines for pr0n anymore. They use P2P!!!!
I wonder how much of a percentage increase there's been in P2P search terms?
Doods,
Sorry, it was me who cut down on the sex searches and stuff. I'm getting older, and there are more things involved in life now. I know, it's an old excuse to cut down. Wife and kidz will do that to you someday as well. I had figured there was another young rebel behind me, so make sure Libby and Jenna would still get plenty of page hits in seach engines. I thought I passed the torch to some first class deviants. Instead, you search for Biz and TV and crap. You don't deserve the internet.
Spack
"That makes sense because e-commerce in the last seven years has boomed," said Gary Price, news editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, a branch of Connecticut-based Jupitermedia.com, which reports on Internet surfing. (emphasis mine)
Didn't Wired say that they wouldn't capitalize "internet" any longer? Liars!
And interestingly the original story appears to be gone.
Could this be a new area of tech jobs, setting up and maintaining ecommerce sites, creating search assisting applications?
Yea... it's called a search engine...
I don't think anyone would be surprised by or interested in these findings. All you have to see the trend is look at google search results for any product. Most results in the first few pages are for ecommerce sites. Add to that the sponsored links on the sides and top of the page. Try finding any personal pages about a Thinkpad T41.
7 years ago, few trusted the online purchasing process. Submitting credit card info, worrying about refunds and credit, vendor trustworthiness, hackers, etc.
Since then, there's been a gold rush on the Internet. All major retailers and business people moved in smelling money. That made the process of buying stuff faster, more streamlined and more secure. It takes a handfull of clicks to buy stuff on eBay and pay for it with paypal. So obviously more people were attracted by it, the process achieved mass market appeal, and it pushed everything out of the way.
I don't see where the news is.
In other words, that which was super-hot and world-transforming back in the late '90s gold rush is hot again?
Or is it that nowadays companies are actually simply using the Internet as a tool instead of trying to change the world? The companies that survived the meltdown are now (mostly) making money, and the new ones have learned from the lessons of the failed ones. Nobody blinks when Amazon makes a profit any more, after all.
Pr0n was what everybody was hunting for back in the days when the Internet was a novelty - but nowadays that's a wasted use of a search engine. It's not so much that the uses of the Internet have changed. It's more that the Internet isn't "shiny and new" anymore, so a lot of the things that were popular when it was a novelty aren't such a big deal any more.
Here on Slashdot, though, we just keep on chugging along...
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Red Moon appears in the sky
Boston wins the world series
INTERNET BEING USED FOR SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE
Oh dear lord, we're all doomed!
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Translation: They've already got all the free porn. Now they're looking to buy more.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why would anyone need to use a search engine to look for porn? I mean, doesn't one out of every three spam messages have a link to some new porn site?
Type any word into the address bar, and chances are it'll link to some porn site. Misspell any popular website and likewise you'll see porn.
Nobody has to search for it, it's pretty hard to avoid.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
There's not as many sex searches cause seeing 30 new people a day getting it more than you are gets depressing after awhile.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
People in search of pornography and sex are much more willing to actively search it out and be early adopters of new technologies that may further their habits. Heck, I was on USENET getting pr0n when I was still in high school!
E-commerce and shopping is more of a "mainstream" use of the Internet and it makes sense now that the Internet has become so pervasive. Even average users are learning how to go onto Amazon and order stuff. If my mother-in-law can do it, anyone can.
Execute? [Y/N] _
Look, man, it's over. The crazy tech boom is done. Let it go. Take some management classes or something. You keep this up and we're going to report you to Unemployed Tech Workers Anonymous and organize an intervention for you.
From the Article:
"Remember when cars came out, and people would say, 'Wow, we're going for a ride today!' Now they just go for a ride." Oh yes, how could ANY of us not remember that! Hey, you guys remember the time Lothar was smashing those rocks together and invented fire. Ahh, those were the days..
What hasn't changed much in seven years is how hard people are willing to work at searching. The answer: not very. Spink and Jansen found that people averaged about two words per query and two queries per search session.
"The searches are taking less than five minutes, and they're only looking at the first page of results," Spink said. "That's why people are wanting to get their results on the first page" of search engine results.
"We were surprised that people weren't doing more complex searches," Spink said. "If you put a couple of words into the web, you're going to get hundreds of thousands of results. I think people aren't trained very well to use the search engines."
Having worked in a college library having to help other students find stuff I am amazed at how non-geeks think all they have to do is type in a word/sentence/phrase and they think the computer will magically bring them what they are looking for. It would take an hour to get them to grasp the idea of "keywords" and that putting in more keywords only narrows the results without using any operators (AND, OR). Even when they came back with zero results they would add more words thinking that they could get a hit this time. The main reason is that most people have no idea how the search engines work and instead think that it is as capable as a human sitting down and looking at everything. When they learn how it all works they will start doing smarter seaches and get less lazy.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
There you go:
Google search for s3x
Google search for pr0n
In other news, "Internet searches" for the terms in question skyrocketed through the roof today leaving the UPitt and Pennstate researchers puzzled and dismayed. It appears one of the Master's thesis was withdrawn after the event. More at 11.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Talk about exportable jobs...
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Back in 1997 the only people who were using the internet at all were people looking for porn. I remember in 1996 being at a friends house and seeing all the free porn and thinking "I have to get this internet thing!"
Now that the internet has become ubiquitus a much greater number of people have access and are accessing it. So now the percentage of people searching for porn is approaching the percentage of the general public who buy adult magazines, or rent adult videos (which is a lot higher that you think).
"...far fewer searches for sex and pornography..."
Less searching for sex may mean less interest in sex OR it may mean that the criteria used to rate a search for sex has not kept up with the sort of sex people are searching for.
"...people averaged about two words per query and two queries per search session..."
Maybe it's just easier to find stuff now. I don't think so. Do a search on almost any exotic term and the first page on google's right hand column will offer dozens of links to people wishing to sell, "See ebay for greatest selection of VAMPIRE BAT GUANO AND PSITTACOSIS"
"...people aren't trained very well to use the search engines..."
dammit, when will google implement the ever so nice altavista NEAR relationship to go along with all the booleans. NEAR is extremely useful for weeding out those 'spam the search engine' web sites and those 'catalog of catalogs of catalogs of shit that only one company on earth actually makes' when all you want is that companies contact info.
Undersexed nerds have gone from 20% of the users in 1997 to 5% today as more and more *regular* people can get computers and connected to the internet.
"Twenty percent of all searching was sex-related back in 1997; now it's about 5 percent,"
I'd say most people have more porn than they can look at in a lifetime, and in addition now that EVERYONE is using the internet, a much smaller percentage of the overall searching population are horny geeks. I had a webpage in 97 (and was in highschool), so you can guess what part of the searching population I fell into...=)
With the first link, the chain is forged.
There has been a fundamental shift in the way information is perceived.
The current election is the best example. More people have more access to information about this election than in any other part in history. The BLOG has reached new heights because of it. Some larger BLOGs have been able to score advertising dollar. As new topics to discuss become available - other BLOGs will pop up to debate and discuss them.
Once these BLOGs reach a certain point... you have a person who has the ability to write the content but not maintain the advertising, budget, time, maintenance.
This is where the support industry will start to focus - on the upkeep of smaller niche networks.
You'll have 20 smaller clients rather than 3 large accounts.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
"Twenty percent of all searching was sex-related back in 1997; now it's about 5 percent,"
How much of this has to do with more women and old people on the internet? I doubt that the number of overall sex searches is down, but the demographics of internet users have likely changed a lot since 1997. On top of that, add in the amount of filtering software nowadays in the workplace and academia alone that discourages that sort of thing.
"Twenty percent of all searching was sex-related back in 1997; now it's about 5 percent,"
Well, easy, I got a girlfiend since '98!
This comment was written using 100% reused electrons.
Could this be a new area of tech jobs, setting up and maintaining ecommerce sites, creating search assisting applications?
That looks like a long winded variation on googlejacking.
The internet certainly has changed. Instead of surfing for porn or searching for hours to find an mp3 or picture or whatever, it's all at my finger tips.
But I rely so much on the internet to function on a daily basis. I think about this all the time. When I have a question now, the first place I look is Google. Very rarely can I not find an answer that comes from a relatively reputable source. And it is much quicker than any means of research.
Also, I show and pay all of my bills online. This is a big convenience, no more paper checks or bills, no more stamps.
But what would my life be like without the internet now? I can honestly say that if I were 100% cut off from the internet I would find it difficult to adjust for awhile. Sure, I can go back to snail mail and stamps and all of that without too much of a fuss, but I rely on the internet for my news most of the time as well.
But I would find it very difficult to do research of any type, or simply to answer a nagging question about whatever topic we happen to talk about at the water cooler. The convenience of having billions of web pages at my finger tips has hobbled my ability to research in any other fashion, and made me impatient when I can't get an answer in 2 minutes of Google'ing.
Anyone else out there have the same problem?
I refer to that as the Green Tennis Shoes Principle. Somewhere in your area there is someone whose very favorit thing is green tennis shoes. It's their life, but no one understands. The Internet makes it possible for these isolated folks to communicate and share their perspective with each other.
Seen across the entire spectrum of favorite things, you have a whole series of microcultures (and thus micromarkets) that didn't exist 10 years ago.
It used to be that the bulk of Internet content was computer-related, since you have to have a computer to get to the Internet. It was of universal interest, and within that you had everyone from the PDP-8-lovers list to people wanting recipe programs for their Mac.
As non-geeks got connected, sex became the least common denominator. Within that (I would guess) the principle still applies, as people approach that from different points of view as well.
As people are using computers and the Internet for everything, and searches are getting easier and more effective, all the most common interests are splintering and the microcultures are maturing.
What the ramifications are for society, and civilization, is more than I can wrap my little head around.
sigs, as if you care.
"Well, thanks to the Internet I'm now bored with sex."
...it just happened about 1,000 years early.
-Fry, A Bicyclops Built For Two
I think Wired is getting confused about the demographic of their market. For some odd reason, I think very few of their readers can remember when cars came out. Personally, I hope some people are sitting with their grand parents, but I doubt they routinely read "Wired" articles to the dwindling population that can remember when cars came out.
PS, cars were already around when I was born, and I am considered too old by most hiring managers to program computers.
The last sentence is "I think people aren't trained very well to use the search engines."
I'm stuck between going "No duh?" and "bull!#*&".
No duh because, take a look around and see who's online - pretty much anyone who wants to be. You think they're going to bother learning how to optimize search results so that Google will pull 100 records instead of 15,000? As long as they get what they want, the answer is a vehement "No."
"Bull!$#%" because, on the flip side, maybe people shouldn't be required to take training in order to search effectively. Maybe someone should write a search engine that Just Works. Oh, wait...
--- 11 meters/second, or 24 miles per hour - the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow. Really.
Don't be surprised - people seem to need training for everything, even rather simple tasks like search. Let's face it, using quotes and expected words in your search narrows down your results substantially, and it is extremely easy to do. But while it's hard for this crowd (or Wired's) to understand, most users need to take Search 101 rather than figure it out themselves.
Search is just the tip of the iceberg. When some (maybe even most) people sit in front of a computer they lose access to about half their brain cells for some still unexplained reason. This is why we have spyware, unpatched machines running mail trojans for spammers, and e-mails with Word document attachments containing the text that should have been in the e-mail. Welcome to the Internet. Do try to avoid the braindead during your stay.
Once I found WebGrazer, I pretty much never needed to search for pr0n ever again.
;)
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