Obviously, the best weapon against this insurmountable pile of information is the search engine. With Ask.com mounting an advertising campaign about “the algorithm,” a word which approximately 0.001% of the population has ever heard before, it appears that the search-engine-wars are going to heat up again.
The winner, if there is one, will be the engine that can stem the tide of search spam. To explain it briefly, if you click through to the third or fourth page of your google search, you’ll find it full of links to things that have absolutely nothing to do with what you are looking for. The bottom half of your search has filled up with shit … digitally.
Given the aptitude of 15-year-old’s in the eastern block, I’m guessing it will be less than a year until they’ve figured out a way to stack the crap all the way onto the first results page – and, unless someone finds a cure, they’ll essentially kill their host … digitally.
Let’s try a demonstration: Take my favorite web-show Robots vs. Dragons – that’s a pretty specific search, especially if I toss some quotes around it. You’d think that it wouldn’t be common enough to net search-spam… I guess not. That’s only page two.
This may be the silent killer of the internet … rapidly, automatically, multiplying information that is using brute force to make you pay attention to it. Eventually, people are just going to pick up a yellow pages.