Friday, May 29, 2009

Technocrati is not about pulsing house music

Thanks for pointing out the basic and advanced search ability. While I love Hawaii I don't think this boat will help me further grasp 2.0 http://technorati.com/posts/2Cxz9qy2FWSlnLhW54SCoe0eR4WanvV3nppSyhikrqI%3D

Advanced searching eliminated nearly all of this clutter and is a must.



For fun I took a peek at the list of the 100 most popular blogs. I've heard young people use the term "epic fail" and wondered what it meant. When I saw this blog, then, I had to take note; http://failblog.org/2009/05/29/risk-management-fail/. Being ever sensitive about the quantity, quality, role, and design of signage in the library I got a chuckle from this picture. Now, why was FAIL Blog #39 when searching under "authority" rankings and it was not on the top 100 list under # of fans? I guess the adage that by the time adults find out about something it is passe with the younger crowd. Lolcats was #22 on the authority list but #63 on the fan list--go figure. When I have more time perhaps I'll dig deeper to find out the algorithm used to get those disparate results.





Looking at the top 100 tags was interesting. I would think the free-wheeling nature of the tagosphere would lead to a variety of popular terms or more specificity. However, the biggest terms in the cloud were life, music, weblog, and news. I was buoyed by the presence of more natural language (as opposed to LC); people understand what "celebrities" and "nightlife" means and it has a universal meaning. I'm in the camp that tries to organize around words and terms people are familiar with; if they are to be independent searchers they shouldn't need to learn another "language."

1 comment:

  1. Since I understand more than the average person about how library databases work, i will search by subject sometimes but you are right on that most LC headings are just arcane. Natural language just makes more sense. I doubt subject headings as we know them will be around in 100 years (or sooner).

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