Friday, September 29, 2017

Search me

There's been an exponential increase in web activity since infor.cern.ch and the World Wide Web Project.
We've already looked at most of the kinds of websites appearing at the very top of the list and it's significant to note that while Google itself and its close rival Yahoo provide a whole host of services, search functionality is a key component.

Google has an overarching account for those signed up with them, Search, Maps, YouTube, Google Play, Gmail. Google Drive, Calendar, Google+, Google Translate and Photos; then if you open up further, Google Shopping, Google Docs, Google Books, Blogger*, Contacts, My Business, Hangout, Keep and Classroom
and more, much more
(*because Google is fond of definitive generic markers, this hit on Blogger takes us to Brain Blogger, not affiliated with Google. To see a site using the Blogger platform there's this very one you're on or many others to choose from)

Yahoo! has its Home page, Yahoo Answers, AFL, Yahoo Be, Yahoo Beauty, Cricket, Currency Converter, Entertainment, Fashion, Finance, Flickr, Yahoo Food, Football, GWN7, Health, Horoscopes, Jobs, Yahoo! Lifestyle, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Music, Yahoo News, NRL, PLUS7, PRIME7, Yahoo Real Estate, Rugby, Yahoo Safely, Search, Yahoo Sport, Yahoo Stock Quotes, Yahoo Technology, Tennis, Yahoo TV, TV Guide, Yahoo Weather, Yahoo7

Baidu, too, offer a multitude of services. 43 by my count.

YouTube, aside from being a subsidiary of Google, is a video sharing service so doesn't do search. Though I imagine there are many others like me who do a search on YouTube for live footage of their favourite band or guest speaker. And so forth.
It's interactive and integrative and therefore starts offering you possibilities as well. But, just as I often go to my Gmail and Yahoo! Mail without looking at any of the other 'sticky' posts, articles and features, I still do a lot of fresh searches when the name of another arcane acts crosses my mind rather than looking at what they highlight.
In the main section we have Home, Trending and Subscriptions links; under Library there's History, Watch Later and Liked videos and the last heading Subscriptions links you to those you have made with enticement to Browse channels, stop by YouTube Red and YouTube Movies.

Facebook has a news feed, Messenger, shortcuts to the groups you're in or games you're playing followed by an invitation to Explore 27 different things within; beginning with events, groups, pages, friend lists, On this Day, manage apps, insights

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia so search very much comes into it. The whimsical arrangement of children's encyclopedias given way to strict alphabetical order.
While home page has a list of things that happened on 10th October (it's taken me that long to return to my post), Contents tells us there are two ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing.
Following we have Featured content, Random article (I got the 2012-13 Pakistan Premier League), Donate to Wikipedia, Wikipedia store and - there under Interaction - Community Portal where you get to dabble. 

This all pervading project is not the only one run by Wikimedia Foundation

 Sister Projects

Reddit is described as social news and entertainment and has My Subreddits then Popular, All^, Random, Users, Ask Reddit, Funny, News, Videos, Gaming, Pics etc. It again speaks to the sticky we discussed earlier that Internet marketers are so keen on. In addition to the appeal across demographics but with things web surfers expect to see, there are the quirky and clever things across that banner like Not the Onion; so called because these are true stories that sound like they belong in the satirical paper. Currently starring Tony Abbott [who] says climate change 'could be beneficial' because it saves lives 
 ^"Trump threatens to 'compare IQ tests' with Tillerson after 'moron' report"
on my Random search I brought up Negareddit who/which has 11,945 readers 63 readers here now
or r/aww for being exclusively about cute things like those puppies or bunnies or babies that pop up in many a feed as it is.

Showerthoughts 

Monday, September 25, 2017

Seeing the sites

There are over a billion websites currently, though most people access just 97 separate domains a week.
Naturally we can go online and find out what the least popular websites are. Or the worst (which doesn't only mean bad design).

Most Popular Websites


  1. Google
  2. YouTube
  3. Facebook
  4. Baidu
  5. Wikipedia
  6. Yahoo!
  7. Google India
  8. Reddit
  9. Tencent QQ
  10. Taobao
This is the list according to Alexa. SimilarWeb agree on Google and diverge from there. Twitter, appearing in thirteenth spot after Amazon and Tmall on Alexa's list, scores a six on SimilarWeb. Windows Live (at a lowly sixteen on Alexa) is seventh. The methodologies are different.

Google, credited as providing Internet services and products rather than listed as a search engine as others are, they transcend what they do best at.
Google India is not an isolated incidence of national Google entities appearing in their own right. Sticking to Alexa for the time being we have: Google Japan (14), Google Germany (21), Google UK (23), Google France (26), Google Russia (27), Google Brazil (28), Google Hong Kong (33), Google Italy (36), Google Spain (39), Google Canada (46), Google Mexico (55), Google Korea (63), Google Taiwan (68), Google Turkey (69) , Google Australia (70), Google Indonesia (73), Google Poland (86), Google Egypt (93), Google Thailand (94), Google Saudi Arabia (95), Google Argentina (101), Google Netherlands (), Google Vietnam (), Google Philippines(), Google Colombia(), Google Ukraine() and on down the page.

 Image result for google youtube

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Hey ho heydays

Have newspapers suffered a downturn in circulation? Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese paper, has a circulation of 9,690,000. If that's a downturn in technology central then it's still an impressive enough figure to keep the presses rolling - or whatever they do these days.

The Da Vinci Code, it pains me to say, is now the largest selling book even though seasoned readers will know the sources for this grand conspiracy.

As we've mentioned in a previous post, AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin each have circulations of over 22 million.

BBC World Service has 188 million weekly listeners and is broadcast in 32 languages.

If you're wondering what the recent spate of interest in the anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales was all about, the biggest event on television since the moon landing was her funeral, watched by two billion people worldwide.

Jaws was the box office champion until the Star Wars franchise and, while Avatar now rules the cinema records, Jaws remains the most watched movie on television.
105.9 million viewers tuned in for the final episode of M.A.S.H. 

Theatre has natural constraints for single attendance and concerts have to move outdoors to meet a certain capacity.
There have been more than twelve thousand performances of Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera

I finally see what the purpose of a cover/tribute act playing the circuit with Tubular Bells. I know it was a huge hit when it was released but Jean-Michel Jarre holds multiple records for concert attendance: a million in La Concorde, Paris in 1979, 1.2 million in 1995, 1.3 million at Rendezvous Houston Festival in 1986, 2.5 million for Paris La Défense: A City in Concert in 1990 and a world beating 3.5 million people went to see Oxygen in Moscow in 1997. This figure is shared by Sir Rod Stewart for his 3.5 million audience at the Copacabana in 1994. 

Guns'N'Roses and U2 have the current highest grossing tours. The Beatles still manage to sell more vinyl than anyone else. Only 'new' names like Justin Bieber disturb the image further piled on by Metallica and Depeche Mode of music being dominated by old farts or legends, depending on your outlook or which station you listen to.

Image result for yomiuri shimbun diana

Friday, September 08, 2017

Old's cool

Ignoring the paradox of the post title to look at it's function here: merely a trawl through the non-Internet and unApp world of longer works. I didn't want an app title if it wasn't an apt title and books are simply too long to reasonably compare. The point of the long form entertainments may not be less ease of access but they possess it as a feature. The preparation for a night to the theatre to view a play include buying the ticket, hiring a babysitter, paying for parking or the tram to get there. The investment in time to read a book, unless it is didactic or repetitive in tone, is considerably greater than accessing the same information from the World Wide Web, in the app or out.

This is why we could look at a consumer comparison of a novel on an eReader such as Kindle with a hard cover or paperback but a summary - one hopes - can't replace the work itself so that leaves all those critic and fan sites serving a secondary purpose.
Short stories will continue to be written and read and there will always be those who want more information on growing plums, unclogging a sink or selling tighty whities than is covered in the app. Or, perhaps of hapless apps, if they plan on growing a variety of stone fruit, remove matter from any region that requires the passage of water or are in the "ningerie" industry.
Choose your own example.
Just as the reference work goes into more depth - not inevitably but let's stick with the platonic ideal - the web page can be more up to the minute. Then it depends on the format you choose, along with the amount of information vs currency of information you want.

In my sphere of poetry, the poem can be disseminated in any number of ways: from live on stage, on the printed page, online. or broadcast in numerous visual and audio formats. We are really spoiled for choice. 

There is always a live audience for those talks and speeches, the spoken word performance, the comedy act; even knowing full well there's live streaming of those on stage. This isn't that startling as radio plays and TV game shows before them did both simultaneously. They were more controlled but was this a good thing or a bad thing?
Image result for "speech" ivan

Sunday, September 03, 2017

App end

With something as functional as an app - and presumably you mainly download those you are going to use - it behooves us to compare their, uh, application with that of all our hard copy antecedents.
As a form of communication how does it compare to a letter or postcard, a telephone call or moving into more recent times, e-mail (hyphen optional)?

In terms of providing updates on current events and trends, how much has it replaced newspapers and magazines? We can move onto news broadcasts on radio and television; their current affairs offshoots.

Are you really better off in the app? If I have sites bookmarked in my browser I don't usually have trouble getting back in. I've also noticed that my Facebook functionality is different in the app than on my browser on the tablet.

And how does it compare to the Usenet groups the newsgroups the IRC message boards and old school forums