Some thoughts on search

I was reading Christina Wodtke's interview with Amanda Spink on boxesandarrows.com and it is quite interesting information on search behavior and how much it has changed (or not changed) over the years. Couple of points that seem to stand out from the interview include:

• People still used short search terms
• Results beyond the first few pages are hardly referred to
• People haven't explored enough with large (not long) text boxes, so there is not data on how users perceive them
• Users are better at describing their information needs to people than to search engines

The article also led to a PARC event where Peter Norvig gave a talk on Web Search as a Product of and Catalyst for AI. Haven't seen that yet, but plan to do so soon.

Crampy

This is really funny.

We’re Google. So Sue Us.

According to this NY Times article:

As Google has grown into the world’s most popular search engine and, arguably, the most powerful Internet company, it has become entangled in scores of lawsuits touching on a wide range of legal questions, including copyright violation, trademark infringement and its method of ranking Web sites.

In a lot of ways Web 2.0 is changing the way content should be viewed and maybe it is a time to re-look at some of the copyright laws that are existent today. Like what Creative Commons has done.