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Is The Internet History s Greatest Hoax
or a while there, the fringe-benefits). No, the
Internet and the World Wide Internet's new master is the
Web showed great promise. moneyed, powerful collective.
They whispered sweet nothings in Those who simultaneously mould
our ears, promising to be the and reflect ‘mainstream'
voice of the marginalized, the opinion, values, and behavior.
new democracy, the great
equalizer. I suppose we should have foreseen
it, given the Internet's military
But it wasn't to be, for the birthplace. But then, we were
Internet has a new master. No, young and optimistic, and boy did
it's not Google. No, it's not we want to believe!
Microsoft. And no, it's not even
good ole' Uncle Sam. They're just A little melodramatic? Perhaps.
caretakers. The Internet's new But fairly accurate nonetheless.
master is bigger than they'll Let me explain...
ever be, and far, far older.
The early promise of equity
Meet the master
The Internet started out as a
The Internet's new master is the network of computers set up for
same master who holds the leash military purposes. To cut a long
of all traditional commercial story short, the World Wide Web
media. started out simply because it
could; the Internet was there to
The Internet's new master is host it, and the technology was
money and power. Not the capacity there to deliver it. Both were
to earn money or the capacity to heralded as the new face of
increase power (although those democracy - at long last, the
are certainly nice voiceless had a voice.
to more sources of local and
Of course, even in those heady international news, to name just
days, we all recognized some a couple. At the same time, the
fundamental practical and Internet poses great threats to
technological limitations which the world's existing media and
really threw a spanner in the political powers, not only
works for the ‘New World because of the re-distribution of
Orderless' theory. To begin with, information (and, therefore,
the great majority of the world's power) to the populace, but also
population didn't even have because of the apparent
access to a computer, much less impracticality (impossibility?)
own one with Internet access. In of regulating the information
fact, that was still the case flowing in and out of any
even after the new master took country."
the reins (and probably still
is). Alas, I did not see the
Internet's true potential for
But we had faith in the censorship and control...
Internet's potential. I even Content.
wrote a paper in the mid 90s
discussing the Internet's promise He who wields content is king
for empowerment, and I quote:
We often hear that "content is
"Being such a decentralized, king". The logic of the argument
anonymous form of communication, is as follows. For some time now,
the Internet offers great the lion's share (some 80%) of
opportunities to the world's Internet traffic to the average
oppressed - improved (anonymous website has been coming from the
if desired) communications major search engines. What's
capabilities, and better access more, when people use search
engines, they rarely look past they see, e.g. news, email,
the second page of search weather, stocks, etc.
results. Additionally, research
suggests that being number 1 in 2) Write helpful articles and let
Google equates to twice as much publishers of newsletters and
traffic as being number 2. This ezines use them for free - on the
means you need to rank in the proviso that they link back to
first two pages of the major your site. (These articles are
search engines - ideally at quite often written by SEO
number 1 - before your voice copywriters, and they need to be
begins to be heard. The only way submitted to established article
to reach the top of the search banks, from which they are
engines is to have thousands of gathered by online publishers for
links back to your website from free.)
other websites. There are two
‘reliable' ways of achieving In other words, to reach the top
this goal: of the search engines, you need
to publish virtual reams and
1) Publish helpful information on reams of high quality, informed
your website and constantly content (i.e. copy). And you need
update it so that others link to to keep doing it indefinitely.
your site because it's so great -
keep ‘eyes on paper'. Some On the basis of this evidence,
popular methods include news the saying that "content is king"
sites, BLOGS, folksonomies, has become somewhat of a truism.
journals, e-newsletters, and But when we look closely, the
customizable web portals like saying is inaccurate. There's
Google Personalized, which allows nothing wrong with the logic;
visitors to choose (from a it's the conclusion that's the
pre-determined selection) what problem. In reality, content is
no more king than was the sword. million pages on the World Wide
In reality, he who wields the Web (K. Bharat and A. Broder,
content is king (and I say "he" ‘A technique for measuring the
with intent, as the wielder is relative size and overlap of
generally male or some public web search engines'
patriarchal organization). [http://WWW1998]). By 1998, that
number had jumped to 800 million
And who wields the content? Only pages (S. Lawrence and C.L.
those with the social power to Giles, ‘Accessibility of
command an education and the information on the web' [Nature
money to indulge in the 400:107-109, 1999]). A mere 7
time-consuming task of years later, the estimate is now
researching, writing, and 11.5 billion pages (A. Gulli and
publishing said content (or those A. Signorini, ‘The Indexable
who have the budget and foresight Web is more than 11.5 billion
to engage an SEO copywriter). pages' [2005]).
Wielding content is getting In other words, nowadays your
harder Internet opinion is only heard
above the virtual din if you can
Even for search engine (SEO) really REALLY churn out the
copywriters like myself, this is content. And that takes a great
a task which is becoming more and investment in time and money.
more time consuming, simply
because more and more content is Information overload - the most
being added to the Internet effective form of censorship
(largely as a result of the
content emphasis of search engine Now don't get me wrong; I'm not
ranking!). To illustrate: In saying the Internet denies us
1997, there were an estimated 200 access to information. It
certainly doesn't do that. But (http://toolbar.google.com).);
ironically, it's the Internet's and/or
very openness that provides its
greatest censorship power. With • are referred to us by a
11.5 billion pages currently friend, colleague, or industry
online, and nearly 10 million thought leader (which usually
more added each day, we're all only happens if at least one of
starting to wonder how much of the first two conditions
that information can be trusted. applies).
We look for helpful content, and
we keep going back for it, but The result... We only trust the
only if we trust the source. And, very people who were feeding us
as a rule of thumb, we only trust misinformation and disinformation
websites which: for years before the emergence of
the Internet.
• rank highly in the major
search engines; And where does this leave average
Jo on the street? Even if she has
• have a high Google PageRank the education, time, and money to
(PR) - PR is how Google scores publish a website, an increasing
importance. It gives all sites a state of e-information overload
mark out of 10. Any site with a will likely result in the
PR of 4 or above is generally marginalization of her website
considered fairly credible. More anyway. At best, she'll be seen
and more web-savvy people are as an uninformed minority; at
using PR to assess site worst, a muck-raking conspiracy
credibility and authority. (You theorist!
can see the PR of every site you
visit by downloading the Google Conclusion - dare we hope?
Toolbar
Several generations have wondered all, every now and then, when the
what they could achieve if they master's back is turned, someone
could only get on TV. Television manages to slip the beast a treat
being what it is, that wish never to get it to perform a trick or
came to fruition unless you were two (such as a folksonomy). I
happy to appear on the Jerry like to think that my early days
Springer Show, Cops, or Judge of optimism were something more
Judy, or you have what it takes than idealism bolstered by
to star in American Idol, Big naivety. I still believe the
Brother, Amazing Race, or technology of the Internet offers
Survivor. Then along came the great promise. I just hope that
Internet. It claims to offer ‘the powers that be' don't have
everything TV cannot. too great a head start, and that
Unfortunately, as it stands, the all of us small people won't be
Internet is no more true to its pushed to the margins where we'll
promise than TV. The vast have to content ourselves with a
majority of high ranking, highly lifetime of chanting "Jerry!
trafficked websites are published Jerry! Jerry!"
by powerful, affluent
corporations. There are a few Maybe folksonomies are the answer
anomalies, but they're no more - or the prelude to the answer -
than that. Like the ‘everyday' or a part of the prelude. Or
people on ‘reality TV', the maybe the Internet will turn out
small-time stars of the Internet to be history's greatest hoax
are the exceptions to the rule. after all. I don't know. What I
do know is that I'm looking
But I haven't given up hope. All forward to watching it unfold.
previous comments For better or for worse, it will
notwithstanding, I'm inclined to certainly be interesting...
see the cup as half full. After
About the Author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details.
Read more articles by: Glenn Murray
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
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