The BBC reports that the top Google search terms this year were
- Bebo
- Myspace
…which is kind of peculiar, if you think about it a moment. Both Bebo and Myspace have blindingly obvious URLs, so instead of typing into a Google search box you could type into the address bar directly (you could even leave off the .com, since modern browsers will generally add it for you) and save both time and clicks. Wikipedia also made the top 10.
I bet that this is because a lot of folks Google everything now. From what I’ve observed, many people aren’t even bookmarking things, let alone using the address bar to type URLs. You want Hotmail? Google “hotmail” then click through. The browser’s become irrelevant to these people — what do browser features matter when Google can always get you where you need to go?
While this says good things about the reliability of Google, I think it also speaks to the profoundly disempowering experience that Internet Explorer creates for the inexperienced user. (And let’s be real: these people are using IE.) It has warnings! All kinds of warnings and security notices and popups asking intrusive questions! And mystery: IE hides the underlying processes, so you’re forever guessing what’s really going on. It’s scary. It doesn’t lead anyone to want to play with it or explore settings that would make it better. No, many people find it better to rely on Google, which is reassuringly straightforward despite (and because of) its lack of features.
People who are used to almost entirely disregarding their browser find it hard to understand what geeky folks like me find so great about Firefox. I can run myself out of breath talking about features! extensions! customizability! open source! and by the way people’s eyes glaze over I may as well be reciting machine language poetry or pi to n-hundred decimal places (not that I can do that. I’m not that geeky). There’s nothing in their experience on which my words can build.
The Internet lets us manipulate and contribute to the enormous flow of content and connect with each other in wonderful new ways — and here we have people who are so disempowered by the technology that they passively rely on a search engine to tell them where to go instead of taking the nominal but active step of going there directly.
It’s a shame, really.
That’s a great point. The top searches tell us what people don’t know about to as great an extent as what they do. Who would search for myspace/bebo but a parent, perhaps desperately seeking their alienated teenage offspring?
Sherry, DanaD, and I had this very conversation recently. It’s not even “haha, dumb newb!” material anymore when someone types a URL into Google. We all even admitted to doing it, though only the company or site name, just to let it do the work.
Granted, in our defence, we also all have FF and lots of extensions… 🙂
Ian — unless the parent knows their offspring’s Myspace/Bebo ID, such a search won’t get them much, just like searching for my name won’t get you my aliases. That’s why I think searches for just plain “Myspace” are people clicking through to Myspace generally, not people searching for specific Myspace content. (Or if they are searching for specific content, they’re not good searchers — which is another usability issue.)
Melle — just to be clear — I don’t blame newbies — not at all! It’s not their fault IE is so incredibly dreadful. And yeah, for sure Google is the recipient of quite a bit of my love too. But there’s using it in the awareness that it’s a lazy shortcut, and there’s using it because that’s all you ever do — the first is inevitable; the second is what I find depressing.
(Written using Firefox, of course… 🙂 )