The Web Ain’t Dead. Blekko.com Has Come to Save It.

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Stephen Pickering

This is  a VERY cool, and very paradigm shifting new site: Blekko.com. I caught this on John Battelle’s Searchblog tonight, got a beta invite, played with if for a few minutes, caught on quick and already found tons of new cool things that I wouldn’t have found before based on my interests and the ability to filter the searches to give me more accented, tailored, specific results.

Example:

My favorite musician, Josh Rouse. Now with a simple / “slash” I can search for Josh Rouse say only on blogs like so: Josh Rouse/blogs or only in forums like this: Josh Rouse/forums (Click those links to see the results of said searches. I also just Tweeted a link to those results. You get the picture, and that’s just scratching the surface.

New interesting information which is valuable to me as a fan, as an aficionado of said artist, immediately begin popping up at the top, based on my filters.

This is making me feel that giddy, ‘irrationally exuberant’ feeling I initially felt when I tried Google for the first time back in 2000. I felt I had the World at my fingertips back then.


But some kind of sludge in search has slowly happened. Some have blamed it on SEO/SEMs gaming the system so much that the results have slowly deteriorated.

I have no doubt that’s part of it, but shouldn’t Google have been innovating like mad to keep up with the onslaught of deterioration?

I’ll be the first to say that I LOVE so many of Google’s additional services, Gmail, Docs, Voice, all their wonky, data, cloud stuff (not their social) and that to say they shouldn’t have extended their reach beyond search would be like saying Amazon shouldn’t have extended its own reach beyond books, but it does sort of seem like, especially in the last three years of the Social Media threat, that Google has not innovated enough on their main product. It’s kind of like Microsoft jealously chasing everyone else’s success so much, they dropped the ball on their Golden Goose. (They did rally and sell 200m copies of Windows7, but still, no one would deny the mindshare, at least in the U.S. lost to Apple.)

I mean filtered searches seem like such a no brainer that you would have thought Google would have had them in right from the beginning. (Well actually they do, but no one can figure out how to use them, and usually the results come back blank for some reason as if the data base and or code running it act like you’ve done something wrong. It’s like when a car back fires, and you hear what you think is an explosion. Except this explosion is not a band, but a ‘whimper.’

Remember the movie “The Fugitive” with Harrison Ford? One of the best Movies ever. Remember that scene in the Hospital when he’s searching the database for records of people who’ve received prosthetic arms? His first search delivers hundreds, maybe thousands of results. Then he keeps narrowing the search by filters (I can’t remember what the exact filters were, dates other types of subsets) and finally gets down to a manageable number of results, and more importantly, results that have meaning.

Granted it was a movie, but still, that was 1994! People understood even back then before the internet was mainstream, that one of the most valuable automations of computers was search, and that one of the most important features of search were filters.
It’s mind blowing Google hasn’t at least already initiated these kind of easy filters for its flagship product. I assume they will soon and or buy Blekko.

I’ve only used Blekko for a few minutes. I want to use it lots more in coming days, but it already has such polish, and it feels silky smooth and fast, the kind of silky smooth quickness I haven’t experienced since FriendFeed, which for the life of me I can’t figure out why no one can duplicate, not even Facebook itself, which purchased FriendFeed and has one of its founders as its new CTO, Brett Taylor.

Remember how last week Wired published a story about how the Web was dead? Well I didn’t buy it. Thought it was link-baity gibberish for the most part, but it did have some valid points. Steve Jobs didn’t leave out flash because flash was dated. Steve Jobs left out flash to close off, to a large extent, the media distribution ability of the Open Web.
More and more stuff is happening through apps and other such ‘silos’ which does tend to negate the open web.

Well, although Boing Boing had a great rebuttal to the Wired piece, I do believe that if there is a sort of , how shall we say, ‘jaded’ feeling for the Web itself, I do believe a large part of the problem is this lessening of the ability to find the really interesting, cool, exciting stuff. It’s out there, but for some reason our discovery engines, the main one being Google, have somehow become clogged and stale.

I think Blekko, for one, can be like Roto Rooter to this clogged drain. These filtered searches are going to re-invigorate the joy of discovering on the open web, and in turn re assert the open web’s, if not dominance, at least equal importance to “apps” in this ever evolving, every life changing, and ever standard-of-living-increasing thing we call the Communications Revolution.

Google said their mission statement was to uncover the Worlds information, or something to that effect. Well they are doing a lot of other good things, but their eye, at least lately, has been off that ball at least in the long tail stuff, which are the hidden treasures. Maybe its time for a new leader. Maybe Blekko’s it.

Oh, I’ve got 5 invites. Just email, tweet, or leave a comment, if you would like one.

Update 9/2/10 From my incoming traffic I found this page that is loaded with good information about Blekko over the last few days. Links to 10-15 stories written about it in blogs and a ton of ‘real time’ reactions based on the hash tag #blekko. I wish I could just copy and paste everything from this page and post here, but I wouldn’t feel right. Here is the full URL:

http://www.skrenta.com/2010/09/blekko_coverage_and_twitter_gl.html

You know I was just thinking, I wonder if you could create a cool page like that in Paper.li or really just using Blekko.com itself using the “/” syntax.

Yeah you can. Just check this out:  http://beta.blekko.com/ws/blekko+/twitter

Oh here’s a Paper.li I just created for the hashtag #Blekko. Pretty cool, although not filled with as much content as I would have expected.

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What is Social Media?

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Stephen Pickering

Well it can be a lot of different things. Which is one reason it is so exciting and presumably so valuable.

From the point of view of a business or an individual who has their own personal website or blog, one thing that Social Media is, is advertising.

In the 90′s I owned and ran a retail furnishings store. We advertised mostly in the local newspaper and to some extent on local television and radio.

In the webspace, to a private website owner, the simplest way I can describe Social Media is that it is like new media’s version of the local paper. And your blog or website is like your ‘store’ if you will.

Simply put, social media is exposure, a way to extend your web presence to a larger audience with the scaling help of automation (electrons) and the virtues of the communications’ revolution itself (photons).

Translation: A little bit of intent and pushing a few buttons equals a ton of leverage and distribution.

You pay for this exposure, not with money, but with content. You and the rest of the network of members are providing the social media site its content, and in return it is providing you with exposure and extending your reach, along with a platform for making new connections.

On Google’s algorithmic, non-human network your website or business is passive, and the prospective customer, if you will, is active. Actively searching for something that you or some other site or business may have.

On the human, social network, you the business, website, or promoter, if you will, is the one being active. And the prospective consumer is in a passive mode, using the network as a river to dip in and out of, as entertainment, news, communication, emotional outlet, or just plain fun.

I think there is not only room, but a need for both types of networks, and that the rise of Facebook and Twitter doesn’t mean at all the demise of Google. There are times when we want our network to be flowing, serendipitous, and fun, and there are other times when we are in a more deliberative, utilitarian mode. We need (or want) answers, and we need them now.

Except with Social Media you are not selling your wares directly. You are indirectly selling your self as a real person, a genuine person with real interests. It’s a way to scale your ‘legitimacy.’ Trust is one of the biggest factors in making a sale. And social media is a way to scale the communication of your trust.

From a business standpoint or even just a human friendship standpoint, one’s activity in Social Media is comparable to the “Opening of the Sale” where the goal is to talk about anything except business. In sales this is what is known as the “Schmoozing” process. But before you start thinking how creepy it is to think in these terms, “Schmoozing” only really works if you are truly interested from a sincere standpoint in the subject you are “schmoozing” about. Any insincerity in this process, either in real life or in the venue of Social Media, and one would have been better not signing up for Twitter or any other such service.

So one way to look at Social Media, is as an advertising medium, a free way to extend your reach and your message. But in social media the message is your personality, your real point of view, and what you are selling is your integrity, your trust.

Let’s take one example that I remember coming up recently. Lisa Bettany (@MostlyLisa) is a professional photographer. She posts much of her work on Flickr, the most popular Photography Social Media site. She doesn’t post her work there with each caption screaming “Buy This Now Because I’m Great and I Need Money!” along with a Paypal link. She posts there because she loves photography and loves sharing her work and the tips behind her work with others. Such actions build trust and integrity. She feeds the site with its content. The popularity of the site feeds her with exposure.

She recently told the story of how this photo, which she posted on flickr over a year ago for no money, was recently purchased unexpectedly by Penguin, the book publisher, for use as the artwork for a book cover. Penguin only found the photo because it was on Flickr. They knew flickr to be the most popular photography sharing site. So they went there to search for the right potential content for their project. If the photo was only posted on her private website, it would not have been found. No transaction would have been made. So, the Social Network, in the virtual world, is like the Commons or Marketplace of a University or City in the ‘real’ World. It extended her personal work’s reach into the public sphere for consumption, enjoyment, and productivity.

That’s one example of the Social Network’s virtuous cycle. The users provide the content for free. And the network provides the user with free exposure.

This is just one thing that a Social Network is from the decided point of view of the business/website/blog owner, or anyone using the internet itself to scale a message.

Ads that you pay real money for are the ones for direct selling, talking about your product, its Features, Advantages, and Benefits.

Social Media is like hob nobbing at the Country Club or local Charity Fundraiser but without having to get into your monkey suit and drive down to the venue. Still, you need to be truthfully interested in that person you are chatting with, and really care about that charity you are raising ‘funds’ for, and not be in it just for you or the ‘sale.’

I think most would agree that’s a more fun way to live anyway.

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Saturday Reading: Three New Poems

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Stephen Pickering

That is the temple there.
The symbol that they stole.
A border thin as hair
Between Bob Frost’s two roads.

But we’re not here to fight.
We dance a certain beat.
Incorrigable night
Will glide upon our feet.

The way it crowns is good
Her charms decide it all.
She guides us to the wood,
And bares the fertile wall.

This vision she will keep.
Eternal in her sleep.

Pages: 1 2 3
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Download One of My Songs “The Darkest Hour Comes”

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Stephen Pickering

“The Darkest Hour Comes – Master #12″ Get Adobe Flash player

“The Darkest Hour Comes” (Right Click This Link and Hit ‘Save As’ to Download this .MP3 if you would like it for your own iPod. Or if you would simply like to play the file on the iPhone or iPad Simply Click the Link.)

You know, I always put my iPod on “Shuffle.” I have around 1700 songs on there and I just like the sense of being surprised by what is coming next. Also it keeps things from being forgotten and somehow the juxtaposition of completely different styles of music creates some kind of spark in me, turns me on more. I look back on the days of listening to the same album over and over again as sort of a rusted, dated, “Provincial” type attitude, as it were.

There’s also another benefit for me. Since my own songs are on there, every once in a while, I get to unexpectedly see how my songs and music, fit in or “hold their own” against the “legitimized” tracks in my library. And to my surprise, and usually when I’m at a point where I am sort of “down” on the quality of my own work, I get this strange sense of feeling my own work objectively, as if it were someone else’s. It seems a trick the brain plays when the setting is on shuffle. And its a pleasant one. And more often than not I end up actually enjoying my own work as much as the preceding and anteceding tracks that have qued up. It’s a weird sort of exilarating feeling of seeing myself as someone else, and liking that someone.

I was playing golf the yesterday evening. And in the middle of the shuffle play list one of my songs came up, “The Darkest Hour Comes.” It’s a song I did a year or so ago. I’ve posted it on this blog before. I can’t remember which songs it came in the context of, but I remember I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it and the quality of the recording within the context of the “professional” cuts that surrounded it.

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