Navigating the Web!

a) What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search?

1) Information is now found easier than years before hand because vast amounts of information is available to us.

2) Finding information may have become easier but finding meaningful information isn't as easy. People need to know how to use key words to search to find specifically what they are after.

3) The world of search has changed. Today we are swamped with a "digital tsunami" of information. Information is no longer scarce and in little more than a half-decade we have gone from information scarcity to an overabundance, and that fact alone has changed the way many of us go about our lives. (http://digitalenterprise.org/navigation/nav.html)

4) Search Engines and Web Dictionaries have been created for the public to find information easier with some including yahoo, google and alta vista. These search engines make money through companies advertising on the search engines and this is a multi-billion dollar business. This is called Paid Placement Search with companies paying more to get there link put higher when keywords are entered.

References

Rappa, M. (2005). Navigating the Web. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from

http://digitalenterprise.org/navigation/nav.html

Marissa Mayer Interview!

b) Watch or read the Marissa Mayer interview. Write a paragraph or two, on four points made by Marissa Mayer, that you think were the most interesting or significant for business. There are no right or wrong answers here, I just want your opinion.

• She said that searching information is a big and growing problem with their being over a trillion URLs which means that information is sometimes hard to find. For business this means that their advertising is crucial and that they need to spend their dollars wisely to ensure that their businesses website can be found and accessed by customers otherwise they may lose money.
• When asked why google has been so successful she replied by saying that different elements of its culture have been innovative such as working in really small teams. She said that they have 3 or 4 people in each office and they can speak to each other about specific ideas rather than having to have team meetings and so on. She believed Google has become more efficient by working in small teams.

• She also believed that competetion is vital for business. She said that the competetion between Yahoo and Google was good because people were always developing new products and everyone was asking what is going to be built next. Competetion also makes quality of products better.

• When asked about where the ideas for google come from she said they get nearly most of them from staff within the company which shows that in business you don't always have to look outside your business to come up with new ideas or people to perform Managing Jobs. People from within the company can be promoted and this creates a good culture because people know that if they work hard they have a chance of being promoted. Whereas if a company continiously gets people from outside the company, morale might drop because people believe their going to be stuck in the same job.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/marissa-mayer-on-charlie-rose-the-future-of-google/

• 1. The Near Web: This is the Internet that you see when you lean over a screen - like a laptop.
• 2. The Here Web. This is the Internet that is always with you because you accesses it through a device you always carry - like a cell phone.
• 3. The Far Web. Sitting on a couch at home watching the television from a distance.
• 4. The Weird Web. Voice recognition when you’re driving and using Bluetooth head sets whilst your driving. This web doesn't fully exist yet.
• 5. B2B. Business Machines being able to talk to other business machines.
• 6. D2D. Devices that can communicate to each other without humans needing to control them.
• http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/pontin/14964/

b) Could there be more?

I believe their could be more because technology is an ever changing process and people are bound to invent new things but when that would happen I am unsure.

c) What does it mean for business?

It means that businesses will be able to rely more on computers to do work which will reduce their costs as they only have a start up cost and they don't have to pay wages to staff. However this will reduce the number of jobs for people in the community.