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.
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?
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
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.
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.
"
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."
I have an advanced degree in computer science. Trust me, there's nothing stopping you from getting your degree and having a future filled with making crappy webpages. :)
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
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..
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
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,"
Well, easy, I got a girlfiend since '98!
This comment was written using 100% reused electrons.
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.