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Watching time, the only true currency // A journal from John B. Roberts

Day: September 21, 2005

  • Exploring the spread of frieNDA

    To be clear, my attempt to coin the word frieNDA has not been much of a success.

    How do I know?

    Well, I searched for links to the article, or uses of the term, in a few of the obvious places. It’s been eight days, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect that web-wide indexes have been updated fully, especially for a random blog post. But my first search (surprise) was Google’s main web search, courtesy of the Safari search box, which saves removing fingers from the keyboard. And my post defining frieNDA came up first!?

    So I followed up with Yahoo, MSN, and then Technorati. Only Google even had the post in its results. The big three all politely asked me if I meant to search for friend instead, a reasonable thought.

    Anyway, Google wins this one. Whether it’s a good thing for web search that one single post, apparently unlinked to, can shoot to the top of Google results is left for the audience to decide. Below are the four screenshots, all taken on the morning of September 21, 2005.

    Google

    Google search results for frienda - September 21 2005
    Google search results for frienda – September 21 2005

    Yahoo

    Yahoo search results for frienda - September 21 2005
    Yahoo search results for frienda – September 21 2005

    MSN

    MSN search results for frienda - September 21 2005
    MSN search results for frienda – September 21 2005

    Technorati

    Technorati search results for frienda - September 21 2005
    Technorati search results for frienda – September 21 2005
  • I have not fallen into this trap…yet

    Tim Bray shares what he’ll be doing on Saturdays: coaching a youth soccer team. I’ll spend my Saturdays attending similar “contests,” though I haven’t yet been conned into… I mean, graciously accepted… the offer to coach said team. Phew. (But I know it will happen.) Our group has a similar name to Bray’s, though someone threw the adjectives “Fierce” and “Little” before “Dragons.”