Meta Comment

Breifly (not a word often found here on Meta Comment .com) here’s what I wanted to say in my “Google is Your Friend” post:

In my opinion, some people ‘don’t get’ the Internet because:

I was reminded of something a fella named Ben Hammersley said at “Reboot 7″ earlier this year. In his presentation (of which I only have slides, I wasn’t there) he makes the comparison between some early 1700’s Coffee House chatter and Blogging… apparently some form of log-book was kept for individuals to keep notes and comment in - it was passed between 400 or so readers or visitors, posts were called ‘posts’ and comments ‘comments’ - those crazy . It’s a nice analogy… what was more interesting was a post he quoted by Danny O’Brien.

There’s a bit of me that does feel guilty. While I manage
to fend off pop-up windows with Mozilla, and spam with
Spamassassin, most people don’t know about those
programs. They live in the “hinternet”, that shanty-town of
X10 pop-ups and porn adware, and endless, endless
Hotmail and Yahoo spam.

They’re tourists in the world of
the Net, and like any tourist, they rarely get a good guide.
They’re just taken down the back streets by disreputable
but flashy showmen, and robbed for everything they’re
worth. And it’s true, we don’t do as much as we should for
them, because we’re okay in our little burbclaves… (More)

Maybe I overlooked something in my post; who’s fault is it - is it ours? We the Tech Savvy, Google-happy, Blog-tastic, Ping-o-riffic (and a dozen other T-Shirt slogan ideas I’m working on) we should really tell these people where and how to get information, educate them - information is power - it can save you money. The amount of times I’ve been paid to do what I learned from Google. It feels like a scam.

If then, after education these poor sods still call us up, ask stupid questions or generally look moronicly at us while we install a driver. Then we can leave them behind without guilt. Right?

Information is Power, but not in a mean way. Simply show someone to Google, educate them on the beauties of "whole word" and -crap searches - and bingo: power. You’d think! Well, some people don’t get the internet and I’m nearing a point of revelation on why (I say nearing because you may have some input I’d gladly consider).

First off; some people would rather have information fed to them. They are, in a word, Consumers… not pushing the boat too far with that accusation? I’m going to use the example of a customer we have (its more of a homogeneous request we get all the time) a customer who wants a simple computer to ‘do’ (sic) the internet and play DVDs. Simple enough, we have that in stock! The problem is, when they unpack the box, start up Windows XP and click e-mail, it isn’t there, they press the evil little E (Internet Explorer) and up comes Google… they freak! Where’s my home-page? Where is “Wanadoo Home-page” with a dazeling array of ads (aren’t you paying ?Ǭ£15 a month for the internet already? Even here on your ‘home-page’ they start to pollute it). People want to see that classic Home-page becuase its safe, because it feeds them, e-mail (another request we always hear) is up there on the list and it works in the most Consumer of ways.

The Home-Page exemplifies the non-Googler to a tee… it brings the information to the consumer, its always in the same place, always in the same format, e-mail too - its the first button on the BT Openworld Home-page (in my time), its up there on Wandoo, you bet its on Plus.net and I have no doubts that the Startpage on AOL. The thing these Home-pages seem to do is break down the random and exciting mixture that is the internet and present News in a Newspaper format, tabs and AP articles in conforming endless lines.

Serendipity is the internet, the poor sods who are subjected to these Home-Pages for years on end will start to believe that this is it, that that’s the internet, and that makes me sad… moreover Home-pages will never shock or educate people the way a truley open medium, a truely random medium - like art (or … blogs!) do.

To conclude; people like saftey, people don’t want to learn. These people can pay me to show them once, twice… again and again ‘how to re-install a driver” “how to find a map” but Google is a far better tutor than me, and once you find one thing on Google - the iWorld (ooh, i just noticed e has been replaced with i - wow) is yours. Google is your friend.