Bloggasm

See the screenshot below of the front page of Technorati? See those blog and news headlines? If you were a rational human being you would think that by clicking on those headlines it’d take you to the blog post or article in question. You’d be wrong. Instead, it takes you to a redundant page within Technorati.

This is a problem the search engine has had for awhile now and yet refuses to change, despite the fact that there is no rational reason for doing so other than racking up pageviews. But the thing is that the decrease in usability does nothing for them in the long run. I know a lot of people within the online media industry, given the fact that I work in it, and nobody I know even bothers to use technorati anymore when doing work for clients. It deserves the pouncing it has taken from google blog search. Speaking of google blog search, it aggregates headlines on its front page now too. And you know what happens when you click on a headline? It takes you to the freaking blog post for which the headline was written.

Dear Technorati,

You absolutely worthless search engine. The only thing you’re good for these days is the fleeting ego boost one gets when he checks his blog ranking. In terms of actually delivering search results to your users, you’re pretty much useless and I’m done with you.

You have always been known for your constant error messages and website glitches, but most have been able to forgive you for this. But then semi-recently you started offering search results that didn’t actually take you to blog posts when you clicked on them. Instead, the click would bring you to a redundant Technorati page, a cheap ploy for increased pageviews that does nothing but alienate your users. I alerted you this problem awhile ago and I know you read it because your CEO showed up in my comment section. And yet you’ve done nothing to correct this basic usability problem. Could you imagine if Google made us click through redundant pages just to actually get to the website highlighted in its search results? It would be unthinkable, and yet one of the bozos working for you thought it would be a good idea.

You also offer tons of duplicate search results. If I do a simple keyword search there will be 5+ links to essentially the same exact blog post.

And then recently you drove me over the edge. I don’t know what the hell your website is doing, but whatever it is it’s causing my browser to freeze whenever I visit you. I’m writing this after having to close out my browser with ctrl-alt-delete. Do you really want to be a ctrl-alt-delete website? That’s the sign of imminent death if I’ve ever seen one.

As my frustrations grew, I started using Google Blog Search more and more. Now it’s reached the point when I use it for just about any basic search. Its results load quickly, it doesn’t offer redundant duplicate results, and when I click on the results it actually takes me to a freaking blog post. Sure, it does have its problems — it’s indexing way too many splogs, for instance — but I’ll take that over having to ctrl-alt-delete my way out of a website any day. If it were to ever offer ego-boosting blog rankings, you’d be entirely obsolete.

So, as I said, I’m done with you. You’ve manage to alienate one of your loyal users so much that he publicly renounced you. Good job.

Sincerely,
Simon

Here are some media-related links for your amusement:

1. The American Journalism Review wonders how many journalists use Wikipedia as a source, and whether it’s becoming acceptable.

2. Poor people use Yahoo. Educated people use Google.

3. NYT Makes Comma Error Inside Semicolon Article. The irony!!

4. “Sometimes I read old articles from the National Review and I think, where did that spirit of frank, open racism go?”

5. The background story on how and why the New York Times published its silly hit piece on John McCain yesterday.

Princess Leia makes a dire plea for help to Larry Page and Sergey Brin to fight against the evil empire that is Microsoft. Watch her in the video embedded below:

Like many others, I was perplexed by Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo for $44 billion. I’m guessing this is some attempt for Microsoft to try to compete with Google for search engine dominance.

But the thing is that both Yahoo and Microsoft have been trying to chip away at Google’s search engine audience for years without any success. If two wrongs don’t make a right, then certainly two inferior search engines don’t add up to a superior search engine.

Media critic Dan Kennedy talks at length about this subject.

Reading his insightful post, I couldn’t help but count the different Google products that I use daily. Let’s see, I of course use the regular search engine. Then there’s Google News, followed closely by Google Blog Search (I use that slightly less often than Technorati). Then there’s Google Reader and Google Docs. I use all of these products several times a day. Oh! And I almost forgot Gmail, for which I have multiple accounts. Update: I just thought of yet another product I use regularly: Google Talk.

Do I use Yahoo ever? Only when I’m following a link to it from some other source. Same goes for Microsoft and its various services. I think I once had a hotmail account back in the 90s, but it got shut down because of the idiotic 30-day inactivity rule.

If Microsoft really wanted to compete with Google for search, they would start fresh with some new up-and-coming search engine (Wikia maybe?) with fresh ideas. Not some old media company still struggling in its quest for innovation.

***
Related posts:
1. Google to create its own version of Wikipedia
2. Google will become carbon neutral by the end of 2007

Here are some media-related links for your amusement:

1. There’s a subculture in New York that digs through old buildings and dumpsters to find rare old books.

2. A scientist talks about his experience being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. He actually tried to anticipate Colbert’s faux arguments beforehand for preparation.

3. Note to self: If I ever become an editor of a major magazine, I should probably refrain from using the image of a noose on the cover.

4. Search Atheism on the rise: “A new study from the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future has found that a growing number of people no longer believe that search results are reliable and accurate.”

5. Techcrunch has a rundown of the fastest growing websites on the web compared to the websites that are decreasing rapidly in visitors. Let’s hope that Myspace will soon join the latter list.

6. Speaking of Myspace, they should take a lesson from the New York Times: Visitors hate annoying advertisements.

7. We’ve heard of the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards, but one geared towards the presidential primary? I think there should be a photoshop contest of Ron Paul trying to appeal to kids voters.

8. Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald made a good catch: Passive Voice Journalism. How could so many mainstream journalists mention the 2000 John McCain smear without talking about the source of the smear?

9. More reports that UK news sites have more readers outside the UK than in.

10. This is pretty cool, The Atlantic Monthly is releasing all of its content for free online.

Here are some media-related links for your amusement:

1. Clearasil has started to run some clever magazine advertisements where you’re able to remove “pimple stickers” and place them on all the beautiful models in the other ads.

2. Are you a cable news junkie but tired of seeing 24-hour-a-day coverage of OJ Simpson? This restaurant may be for you.

3. Websites that were once cool but now they suck.

4. Google vs. Microsoft: No longer are they content on competing for search engine business, they’re now fighting over who can be the bigger philanthropist. For once, Microsoft is winning at something.

5. As was predicted, the Church of Scientology has issued take down copyright notices to Gawker for posting their promotional video online.

6. In other news, Digg.com has gone from the website that loves Ron Paul to the website that hates Ron Paul.

7. A cool blog post by Nicholas Carr titled “Is encryption a right?“: “As the Washington Post reports today, the encryption conflict is now coming to a head. A guy in Vermont, accused of storing child pornography on his computer, has refused to provide police with the password required to unlock the encrypted files on his hard drive. He claims that disclosing the password would violate his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. A judge backed his claim, and the government is now appealing that ruling in the federal courts.”

8. What’s with all the bizarre stories about Hilary Clinton having awkward encounters with her press bus? (via joel)

9. I might write more about this later, but a writer at the Columbia Journalism Review wonders why bloggers don’t form unions.