[PREV - SEARCH_DUST]    [TOP]

SEARCH_POP

                                             May 11, 2023

There's an element of the internet
portal business in South Korea,
at least as depicted in "Search: WWW",               SEARCH_WWW
that pervades the show, it's evidently
the obsession of everyone in the industry
and much of the country:

   The keyword search ranking.
                                             And further, anyone who's paying
Now, in the United States, it is possible    attention understands that those
to get some data on what's being searched    rankings are based on filtered
at a place like Google, you occasionally     and processed data-- from the
hear (or used to hear) about the top         beginning Google has used a
searches that are trending as a clue to      display of a dynamic sampling of
the zeitgeist.  It's not like no one here    what's being searched at the
cares about popularity rankings.             moment (supposedly) as a
                                             side-show attraction when doing
  But-- if you're to believe what we         public presentations, but anyone
  see in "Search: WWW"-- people in           who knows anything knows that
  Korea care *tremendously* about            these have been sanitized: no sex
  being up on what everyone else             allowed.
  cares about, having your name at
  the top of the keyword search list
  is a curse as everyone in the
  country wonders why your name is
  there, and continues searching on
  it, and nothing you can do will get
  you out from under the intense
  light focused on you by this
  magnifying lens.

     But, the fact that this is all       Only one answer: they fold the
     circularly defined seems to me       click data from using the
     like it would undercut the           "keyword" list into the stats.
     keyword search ranking as a
     popularity stat-- that top ten          But they don't *have* to do
     ranking is in everyone's faces,         this-- and wouldn't you want
     featured on the front page of           them separated?  Someone who
     the portals-- if everyone finds         cares enough to initate a new
     out about things just by                search, and someone who's just
     following those links, then             trend following belong in
     they'd stop typing terms into           different rankings, provided
     the search boxes.                       you're interested in
                                             understanding popularity as a
                                             phenomena, and not just
                                             blindly running with the pack.





       But this difference between them and us
       is very much a matter of degree.
                                                 If you *don't* want to be
       Google may not put a top ten list on      steered in the same
       it's front page, but you get steered      direction as everyone
       back to the popular by the keyword        else, web searches feel
       autocomplete features and the ranking     increasingly useless.
       of the results.
                                                    What would you do if
                                                    you *wanted* to do
                                                    "original research"
                                                    online?

                                                    Is there something you
                                                    should know about that most
                                                    people aren't talking
                                                    about?  (Or: aren't talking
                                                    about yet?)


                                                     How would you find it?




   The limited capacity of our
   attention span is a subject
   constantly under attention.


   Distraction is a well-known                        Stepping through
   weaponized tactic: manipulating                    the basics of
   the attention span by supplying                    distraction was
   a substitute to focus on...                        intended to be
                                                      an introduction
                                                      to another thought,
   Perhaps even more common is the                    something connected
   accusation that "this is just a                    to the question
   *distraction*", an attempt at                      "how would you find
   steering the discourse directly                    it?"
   (perhaps by indirectly accusing
   someone else of trying to steer it).                     I don't remember
                                                            what it was...
                                                            it seems I was
                                                            distracted.






--------
[NEXT - SHUT_UP_FLOWER]