makes some interesting points about the
the blog clog problem
and does a good job of pointing out the fallacy in the analogy
between the blogosphere and usenet:
“The “precedent” quoted, when Google bought the Usenet
archives of Deja.com and “removed the groups from the main index”,
is a red herring. Google has not removed newsgroups from the main
Google index – you’ll find web-based archives of newsgroups on
there today. It simply built a far better, specialised search for
the groups elsewhere after it acquired the Deja.com
archive.”
good point, but it doesn’t address this issue
that blogs are clogging the results of searches in a way that
web-based archives of usenet postings never did. when i search for
“galaxie 500 window crank”
i don’t want to find me as the number one hit. i don’t think
anyone else does either. and here’s the main point – it’s a
disservice to the people who are doing the searching.
it might be fun for my ego, but most people – the vast
preponderance of people –
don’t care about weblogs
[ even if they might reap the benefits of finding what they are
looking for through the wonders of pagerank ]. most people would
consider
google
to be a better service if i, and a relatively small number of other
people, didn’t get in the way of the information they really want.
i might soften my stance that blogs should be removed from the main
index by default, but to maintain that
google
is a better service by biasing results towards information that
most users aren’t interested [ repeat after me, “most users aren’t
bloggers” ] in, isn’t in keeping with
google’s
historic stance as being obsessively focused on users. me dons abestos duds