Google Says People Have Been Trying To Embrace RSS in 2008
December 10, 2008 |
Earlier today Google made public their usual year-end Zeitgeist 2008 which reveals the search terms that have been rising quickly in popularity during the year. And of course it was difficult not to notice (and not to focus on) one fact: rather surprising top position of Sarah Palin. Quite understandably, it could not leave the blogosphere indifferent, especially since the odious personality of Sarah Palin made it to the top while the financial turmoil that began to hit headlines at about the same time of the year that Sarah Palin did never managed to bring any related term to a position among the top 10 fastest growing search terms.
But while Sarah Palin is difficult to ignore, I have decided to dig a little deeper into the data provided by Google and my curiosity has been awarded with some very interesting facts about internet users searching for things on Google and their attitude towards technology. I think the facts are interesting enough to deserve a separate mention.
The place where I found the most intriguing pieces of information was in the Top of Mind section of Zeitgeist where Google highlighted some of the most interesting queries on the economy and the people that made headlines by dying (that must sound very unfortunate, I know) as well collected all the questions people asked the search engine looking for an answer – and probably rarely finding it as the search engine like Google is not configured to answer questions (for now, at least). The questions began with Who is…, What is…, and How to…
Questions are probably the most interesting part about people interacting with a search engine today. I often find it surprising myself when watching Google Trends and finding people asking the search engine never-ending questions – exactly in the form they could ask their best friend for an advice or an opinion. For example, on the Columbus Day in October one of the most popular queries on Google was “Is today a holiday?” I could not help but wonder if people asking such questions expected to get an answer like “Yes, stupid, it is a holiday today” or “No, you will have to go to the office anyway”.
But still it looks like people do think about Google as the ultimate source of knowledge – asking questions and hoping to get an answer. And I myself as a person very much passionate about technology am quite happy about internet users demonstrating their genuine interest in various technology-related things.
For example, a couple of months ago the blogosphere discussed the idea that RSS was not adopted widely enough by the web population and the technology still remains more or less geeky and we can’t say it has reached a mainstream user. I suggested that people may still use RSS without actually realizing it is RSS that they use – they simply subscribe to updated content the way they find suitable and don’t care what the three letters stand for. Yet there are other people – those that seem to care and try to understand the technology and the meaning – and I am more than happy to see them bringing these important questions to our attention.
It is at the very least refreshing to see the question “What is RSS?” on the top 5th position for the “what is” questions group. And even though the group opens with age-old “what is love” and “what is life” questions, some of the other questions seem to be asked by people trying to understand technology terms and tools. To be specific, people were interested in getting to know what java and 3G are – and I think it is very good to see them curious enough for the three terms (RSS included) to make it to the list as it must be more than a challenge competing with things like love or life.
All in all, I am very glad to see people asking these questions as the fact that they are curious about technologies means that eventually more and more people will also understand technology – and probably answer yes to the “do you use RSS?” question. And this must also be a good indication of the fact that bloggers should focus more on building simple and straightforward explanations of the terms for people to be able to understand such explanations and find clear answers to their questions after asking their best friend Google what RSS is.
Image by LumaxArt used under Creative Commons
