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01/19/2006 Archived Entry: "The Searchers"

The Searchers
As You're It! notes, Jacob Nielsen calls for a liberation from search engines. Nielsen's reasoning is based on an economic analysis that implies that search engines suck off of websites. Odd reasoning and one which, as You're It's contributor Jon Lebkowsky writes, fails to realize how "we’re moving away from “site” and “page” as controlling metaphors" in favor of information. We are the culture of the search. There is no liberation from it; and the desire to be liberated from it would result in what Lyotard calls "terrorism."
I am reminded of a conversation Jenny and I had the other day about the age of the web page being over; dynamic sites have taken its place. PHP is the new HTML in many ways. My own "website" feels dead to me. I don't visit it (except for once a semester updates). And who should? Only someone interested in the courses I've taught or are teaching (and maybe CV). The real action is here, on the weblog, or on one of the other dynamic sites I teach from within (the wiki or the weblog right now). The server which houses our department does not have PHP or MYSQL, so information posted there feels dead as well; it is static, dependent on an FTP user opening an FTP client, finding the public_html folder, uploading the document, etc. No wonder it is never updated and its members (the faculty) don’t run sites from it (if at all). The site I arranged to be set up (really mirrored for now), englishweb.clas.wayne.edu does have the elements of dynamic web writing, so there we install Drupal, wikis, weblog software, etc. It can generate traffic and content in much faster ways (the importance of "speed" to technological innovation, as many critics note) and keep our attention in ways the static website cannot.
And the search issue? Another moment of failed recognition. What You’re It! Notes about searching we can generalize to web presences overall. For a university or department, hat means re-evaluating our models for presence.

That said, this is relevant to the issue at hand.

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 11:40 PM EST

What kind of mafia "polices" anything? :)

Posted by cbd @ 01/19/2006 10:34 PM EST

Ha!

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 07:59 PM EST

And comp mafia isn't even responsible for the silliness!

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 07:47 PM EST

Wait, wait, wait -- so the blog-owner is allowed to police his "own" identity but comp mafia cannot police comp mafia's identity.

I cry foul.

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 07:46 PM EST

Ok. This is getting silly. The post below is not comp mafia.

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 07:35 PM EST

One time, I sent a package by FedEx, and I never got it!

You send packages to yourself? Do you send emails to yourself, too?

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 07:31 PM EST

I don't like FedEx. One time, I sent a package by FedEx, and I never got it!
No way. I like email better.

Posted by comp girl @ 01/19/2006 07:01 PM EST

But we're not moving away from site and page---if anything, the "siteness" of the web is becoming stronger as content management becomes more ubiquitous (both Drupal-style CMS and templating in general). Yes, what the "page" means is changing; the static part is not as important as it used to be. But the other parts of the "page" metaphor are as strong as ever: back, forward, it's a rectangle, mastheads, navigation, etc.

Just to note, there's not only an emerging search culture, there's also an emerging tracking culture -- and this is when the internet becomes more than simply backward-and-forward or one-dimensional-navigational.

Has anyone here ever sent a package via Fedex or UPS then emailed the tracking number to the recipient via a gmail account? Go back and click on that email after you sent it, and in the sidebar of your email account, there appears your address and the recipient's address. Very spooky, in a ghost-in-the-machine kind of way.

Combine search technology with barcode technology and a new monster is born -- off the page.

Keep mocking comp syndicate. I'm mock-proof.

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 06:09 PM EST

Nielsen has always assumed the context of the web is business; he's simply not interested in other uses. His model of the web is, unquestionably, competitive for pay-for-play, which is why he finds searching to be "leeching."

But we're not moving away from site and page---if anything, the "siteness" of the web is becoming stronger as content management becomes more ubiquitous (both Drupal-style CMS and templating in general). Yes, what the "page" means is changing; the static part is not as important as it used to be. But the other parts of the "page" metaphor are as strong as ever: back, forward, it's a rectangle, mastheads, navigation, etc.

Posted by cbd @ 01/19/2006 05:35 PM EST

I like fabric.

Posted by comp-syndicate @ 01/19/2006 04:12 PM EST

Get a room.

Posted by Frank @ 01/19/2006 03:59 PM EST

I am? Whaddaya know.

Posted by jeff @ 01/19/2006 03:16 PM EST

Note, I didn't say that they were of the same fabric. I said mix them together -- free associate, as it were, and see what hybrid emerges. Aren't you a self-professed DJ of some sort?

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 03:13 PM EST

Yup. I know Stroupe's essays. That's a recent one, I believe, but not exactly, if I remember correctly, what I'm speaking of.

Posted by jeff @ 01/19/2006 02:49 PM EST

Apt, related article: "The Lost Island of English Studies: Globalization, Market Logic and the Rhetorical Work of Department Websites," Craig Stroupe, from this past summer, either College English or CCC, I have momentarily forgotten which journal.

Mix that article and this Lebkowski article together -- and check Slashdot, as there was a lengthy discussion of this Lebowski article the other day -- and what do you get? Big changes a'brewing, I would suggest.

Posted by c-m @ 01/19/2006 02:29 PM EST