Changing Use of Internet? 181
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?"
No, it just means (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, it just means (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, it just means (Score:3, Informative)
Re:/. Standards Compliance (OT) (Score:2)
Re:No, it just means (Score:5, Funny)
You're right - it's all been bookmarked
Re:No, it just means (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, it just means (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, it just means (Score:2)
Also, Google has failed to capitalise on the interest to porn and so other solutions emerged, such as catlist.com, which are thousands times better to find something related to porn (and then click-through to the paysite where you get as much satisf
Re:No, it just means (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, it just means (Score:3, Funny)
This plug has nothing to do with my own involvement with the site, other than the fact that I am a very happy customer of their free porn links.
The auto harvest scripts have been perfected (Score:2)
Internet is like a girlfriend (Score:2)
After a few years, if you're lucky, she becomes useful for more mundane tasks like shopping etc. After even longer you won't even know she's there.
You Miles May Vary (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:2)
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:4, Insightful)
In addtion to your point about the crap that is returned by a generic search for 'sex', What I really think is happening is that the volume of searches is going up, while people are becoming familiar with 'their favorite' hotspots and they don't need to look.
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:3, Funny)
When I found the pictures, I was pretty disappointed...but I probably still jerked off at least once. Boobs are good, almost no matter what.
hmmm (Score:2)
What *I* want to know is: just how old are these researchers?
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know if i'd consider a pop-up "nothing useful" when talking about porn...
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:2)
Well, I guess that's a matter of personal taste... can't say pics of pop-ups are that big over here.
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I get almost everything I need from spam. Sex, drugs, drugs for sex, real fake rolex watches, mortgages, free TVs, iPods, Xboxes, cures for SARS and AIDS, college degrees (up to PhD!), free money, cheap software and computers. All that from scanning my spam inbox.
OK, when I first saw this article, everyone knows that you cannot search for sex or porn on the net. It simply does not work. It does no
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:2)
Alternatively, people search for exactly the same amount of sex-related that they used to, but they make 4x as many searches as they used to, so it's decreased as a fraction of the total but not in absolute terms.
Without a lot more details, nearly any explanation is possible.
Re:You Miles May Vary (Score:2)
"Twenty percent of all searching was sex-related back in 1997; now it's about 5 percent,"
Believe it or not, most people don't include porn in their regular searching habits, some people really *do* use the web for work stuff. My crappy link site is one example - people actually go there to learn about the subject matter.
Porn this, porn that, every new technology is first pioneered by porn...
Bullshit.
We non-computer techhies are turned on by nipples [uscg.mil], trycocks [nku.edu] and laying pipe [humorplanet.com]. And we know where the
Its true! (Score:4, Funny)
MIS (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MIS (Score:1)
You can party more often because you won't need to study and best of all, that MIS degree will boost your popularity with those who stayed in the CS program.
Re:MIS (Score:5, Insightful)
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. :)
Get the a CS and a Biz degree (Score:2)
Re:MIS (Score:3)
Maybe the searching has just gotten better? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Maybe the searching has just gotten better? (Score:2)
Of course, I wouldn't know first hand, I'm just relaying information that I've heard from "people I know".
Green Tennis Shoes Principle (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Consequences for society (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, there seems to be two major lines of theories on that:
a) Uniformity
b) Polarization
The uniformity theory and its derivates claim that we're all getting more equal. Culture, ethics, society and language mix across borders, ethnic regions and social groups. In this way we approach a monoculture around the world. Positive directions consider this to be universal standards of human rig
Porn seekers are often early adopters (Score:2)
Correction (Score:2, Funny)
Ho hum (Score:1)
Re:Ho hum -- OFFTOPIC (Score:2)
Its been a long day...
I read that as combine shopping not just with sex, but with political subject matter.
Now the first two no problem, but now I have this mental image of paying certain major political candidates for sex that I can't get out of my head. Of course, we'll get screwed in the end anyway...
Sigh... another flawed research article (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Sigh... another flawed research article (Score:2)
Besides, nowadays porn is advertised everywhere and there, so noone really needs to search for it.
Re:Sigh... another flawed research article (Score:2)
Additionally, the number of people who were *on* the internet of that lower count were, well, Slashdotters. And sometimes, you know, you're bored at work, and maybe you have a cubicle with your screen away from.. well, anyway.
I'd like t
Re:Sigh... another flawed research article (Score:2)
The search engine is built into the P2P clients, who needs to hit the web for porn? I mean, Music, er. TV Commericals, ya.. Thats it..
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Sorry, it's me (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Sorry, it's me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sorry, it's me (Score:5, Funny)
Worth getting married just for extra porn. Why didn't anyone tell me?
Make up your mind! (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't Wired say [slashdot.org] that they wouldn't capitalize "internet" any longer? Liars!
And interestingly the original story [wired.com] appears to be gone.
I envy these days. (Score:1)
Nowadays with the great Mass on the 'net things are much more entertaining.
What?? ...already have them! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea... it's called a search engine...
Re:What?? ...already have them! (Score:2, Insightful)
So, i predict that we'll see more busi
google search results (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:google search results (Score:2, Informative)
Try finding any personal pages about a Thinkpad T41.
Google the next 3 words with punctuation:
IBM "my T41"
Re:google search results (Score:2)
>
>Google the next 3 words with punctuation: IBM "my T41"
"I love my T41, but the palm rest platic groans and creaks whenever it flexes."
Oooooh. Thinkpr0n. Kinky!
E-commerce and search, huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or is it that nowadays companies are actually simply using the Internet as a tool instead of trying to change the world? The companies that survived the meltdown are now (mostly) making money, and the new ones have learned from the lessons of the failed ones. Nobody blinks when Amazon makes a profit any more, after all.
Pr0n was what everybody was hunting for back in the days when the Internet was a novelty - but nowadays that's a wasted use of a search engine. It's not so much that the uses of the Internet have changed. It's more that the Internet isn't "shiny and new" anymore, so a lot of the things that were popular when it was a novelty aren't such a big deal any more.
Here on Slashdot, though, we just keep on chugging along...
Signs of the apocalypse (Score:5, Funny)
Red Moon appears in the sky
Boston wins the world series
INTERNET BEING USED FOR SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE
Oh dear lord, we're all doomed!
Re:Signs of the apocalypse (today!) (Score:2)
I have Dr. Stroustrop (C++ Stroustrop) as one of my lecturers here at Texas A&M.
Yesterday, he said "howdy"
It was weird as hell.
Later on in the class, he made a reference to the HHGTG
Today, I have my calculus exam, on my last calculus exam, I got a 42, exactly
Yesterday was also an eclipse, an obvious sign that the planets are aligning.
I for one welcome our apocalyptic overlords...
Re:Signs of the apocalypse (Score:2)
E-Commerce? (Score:2, Funny)
Interesting Stat (Score:1)
They see this and find some sort of shift in the way people are using the Internet.
I see this and think "SLACKERS!!!!"
SLACKERS (Score:2)
Why search for porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why search for porn? (Score:2)
"Did you mean: Viaaag.ra "
Depression (Score:5, Funny)
Makes sense to me (Score:3, Insightful)
E-commerce and shopping is more of a "mainstream" use of the Internet and it makes sense now that the Internet has become so pervasive. Even average users are learning how to go onto Amazon and order stuff. If my mother-in-law can do it, anyone can.
Re:Makes sense to me (Score:2)
You truly are a l33t p3rv!
Earth to OP, come in OP! (Score:2, Funny)
Look, man, it's over. The crazy tech boom is done. Let it go. Take some management classes or something. You keep this up and we're going to report you to Unemployed Tech Workers Anonymous and organize an intervention for you.
Don't we all... (Score:5, Funny)
"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..
Re:Don't we all... (Score:2)
I remember, because I always seem to get stuck driving behind them. Apparenlty they think they're still driving Model T's because they don't go over 30mph. And turn off the blinker already!
Lazyness (Score:4, Insightful)
"The searches are taking less than five minutes, and they're only looking at the first page of results," Spink said. "That's why people are wanting to get their results on the first page" of search engine results.
"We were surprised that people weren't doing more complex searches," Spink said. "If you put a couple of words into the web, you're going to get hundreds of thousands of results. I think people aren't trained very well to use the search engines."
Having worked in a college library having to help other students find stuff I am amazed at how non-geeks think all they have to do is type in a word/sentence/phrase and they think the computer will magically bring them what they are looking for. It would take an hour to get them to grasp the idea of "keywords" and that putting in more keywords only narrows the results without using any operators (AND, OR). Even when they came back with zero results they would add more words thinking that they could get a hit this time. The main reason is that most people have no idea how the search engines work and instead think that it is as capable as a human sitting down and looking at everything. When they learn how it all works they will start doing smarter seaches and get less lazy.
Re:Lazyness (Score:2)
The only time I use a sentence is when I'm searching for a quote.
Re:Lazyness (Score:2)
I've run into people like that too. I don't think that it's laziness but more a lack of understanding or abstract reasoning about the concept of searching. Teaching them the concept of keywords is probably the best way.
I've seen people not be able to tell the difference between the address bar and the keyword text box on a search page. They'll type a web address in the search page and/or sp
Re:Lazyness (Score:3, Funny)
the idea of "keywords" and that putting in more keywords only narrows the results without using any operators (AND, OR)
Oh, how I pine for AltaVista in 1997...or was it HotBot?
Let's prove them wrong! (Score:5, Funny)
There you go:
Google search for s3x [google.com]
Google search for pr0n [google.com]
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.
Shiny! (Score:2)
Could this be a new area of tech jobs, setting up (Score:4, Informative)
Talk about exportable jobs...
Look at it another way (Score:4, Interesting)
Now that the internet has become ubiquitus a much greater number of people have access and are accessing it. So now the percentage of people searching for porn is approaching the percentage of the general public who buy adult magazines, or rent adult videos (which is a lot higher that you think).
Re:Look at it another way (Score:2)
How could it be _a lot higher_ than 100%?
Question the data... (Score:2, Insightful)
Less searching for sex may mean less interest in sex OR it may mean that the criteria used to rate a search for sex has not kept up with the sort of sex people are searching for.
"...people averaged about two words per query and two queries per search session..."
Maybe it's just easier to find stuff now. I don't think so. Do a search on almost any exotic term and the first page on google's right hand column will offer dozens of links to people wishing to se
Or.... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm full up (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say most people have more porn than they can look at in a lifetime, and in addition now that EVERYONE is using the internet, a much smaller percentage of the overall searching population are horny geeks. I had a webpage in 97 (and was in highschool), so you can guess what part of the searching population I fell into...=)
As information becomes power ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The current election is the best example. More people have more access to information about this election than in any other part in history. The BLOG has reached new heights because of it. Some larger BLOGs have been able to score advertising dollar. As new topics to discuss become available - other BLOGs will pop up to debate and discuss them.
Once these BLOGs reach a certain point... you have a person who has the ability to write the content but not maintain the advertising, budget, time, maintenance.
This is where the support industry will start to focus - on the upkeep of smaller niche networks.
You'll have 20 smaller clients rather than 3 large accounts.
Change in demographics of users... (Score:4, Insightful)
How much of this has to do with more women and old people on the internet? I doubt that the number of overall sex searches is down, but the demographics of internet users have likely changed a lot since 1997. On top of that, add in the amount of filtering software nowadays in the workplace and academia alone that discourages that sort of thing.
Less p0rn searchs? Easy... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, easy, I got a girlfiend since '98!
Re:Less p0rn searchs? Easy... (Score:2)
Manager speak (Score:3, Insightful)
That looks like a long winded variation on googlejacking.
Kind of scary... (Score:3, Interesting)
But I rely so much on the internet to function on a daily basis. I think about this all the time. When I have a question now, the first place I look is Google. Very rarely can I not find an answer that comes from a relatively reputable source. And it is much quicker than any means of research.
Also, I show and pay all of my bills online. This is a big convenience, no more paper checks or bills, no more stamps.
But what would my life be like without the internet now? I can honestly say that if I were 100% cut off from the internet I would find it difficult to adjust for awhile. Sure, I can go back to snail mail and stamps and all of that without too much of a fuss, but I rely on the internet for my news most of the time as well.
But I would find it very difficult to do research of any type, or simply to answer a nagging question about whatever topic we happen to talk about at the water cooler. The convenience of having billions of web pages at my finger tips has hobbled my ability to research in any other fashion, and made me impatient when I can't get an answer in 2 minutes of Google'ing.
Anyone else out there have the same problem?
Futurama predicted this... (Score:2, Funny)
-Fry, A Bicyclops Built For Two
I RTFA'd (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm stuck between going "No duh?" and "bull!#*&".
No duh because, take a look around and see who's online - pretty much anyone who wants to be. You think they're going to bother learning how to optimize search results so that Google will pull 100 records instead of 15,000? As long as they get what they want, the answer is a vehement "No."
"Bull!$#%" because, on the flip side, maybe people shouldn't be required to
Simple use of search engines (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be surprised - people seem to need training for everything, even rather simple tasks like search. Let's face it, using quotes and expected words in your search narrows down your results substantially, and it is extremely easy to do. But while it's hard for this crowd (or Wired's) to understand, most users need to take Search 101 rather than figure it out themselves.
Search is just the tip of the iceberg. When some (maybe even most) people sit in front of a computer they lose access to about half their brain cells for some still unexplained reason. This is why we have spyware, unpatched machines running mail trojans for spammers, and e-mails with Word document attachments containing the text that should have been in the e-mail. Welcome to the Internet. Do try to avoid the braindead during your stay.
No wonder they're surprised (Score:2)
If the researchers are old enough to remember cars coming out, their brains are fossilized.
Supply affects demand (Score:2)
This has only happened since 2002 -- forget 1997.
Remember when CARS came out?!?! (Score:2)
Uh, no Barry, I don't remember when cars came out, how frickin' old ARE you!?
And, hello, "cyberspace researcher" at University of Toronto? Is that your official title?? What's that pay, I have a few websites to research...
WebGrazer is all the pr0n you'd need (Score:3, Informative)
For OS X only
choicest sound-bite (Score:2)
and a little later:
"They're not getting excited about using the internet anymore"
Re:In soviet Russia... (Score:2)
The truth speaks 56k baud. (Score:2)
And Yes,,, I am Insane.
Re:The truth speaks 56k baud. (Score:2)
calm down. (Score:2)
Re:P2P (Score:2)
What I meant to say was: "how many more searches are done on search engine sites for the terms "Kazaa, kazaalite, edonkey, bittorrent" etc.
I bet we'll see a sharp increase since the Napster days.
Wired Demographics (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Wired is getting confused about the demographic of their market. For some odd reason, I think very few of their readers can remember when cars came out. Personally, I hope some people are sitting with their grand parents, but I doubt they routinely read "Wired" articles to the dwindling population that can remember when cars came out.
PS, cars were already around when I was born
Re:Why I don't search for pr0n anymore (Score:2)