Archive for November, 2007

In the past few months’ time I’ve spent more than my usual amount of time watching others surf the web. I am always astonished by how poor people are at knowing where to type searches, or web addresses, or login information. When I ask someone to go to a website, there is genuine confusion about where or how. It’s no surprise to me that a thriving sub-economy exists based on navigational searches - which I define loosely as “typing a web site URL into a search box because you want to visit it.”

Most of the time it’s user issues that causes navigational searches IMO:

• The toolbars have been dragged out of whack.
• I don’t even think about, I just type.
• Ambiguity between “search”, “find”, and “address bar” in browsers such as IE7.
• Alcohol or Drugs, Senility, or perhaps Loud Children.

Some people have real reasons for it. Here are a few:

• I don’t have to worry as much about typos.
• I sometimes want to look at the cache
• I get a quick glance at other sites referring to it (talk about ad-hoc reputation management!)
• I’m a rebel, damnit, and you ain’t gonna change me.

A terrific article on navigational searches prompted me to begin a list of good resources on this matter. I also found this terrific write up by Jeremy Crane over at compete’s blog. It was also eye-opening. (more…)

Every client could fire me, Google could ban me, My computers could fry, and my Digg friends could bolt. It wouldn’t matter when you got this.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Thanks for the comments on my Thanksgiving Theme everyone!
Here are a few others, along with some links to Thanksgiving-related stuff from SEO Roundtable.

Postscript re photo above:  Yep, she just claws her way up the door frame anytime she wants.   When I look for her around the house, I look left, right, down and up.

From an article on Final Call:

Two dolls sit on the table, one Black, and One White. Every feature other than race is identical. The reassuring female voice asks the preschool-aged Black Girl a question “Can you show me the doll that looks bad?” She chose the Black doll over a White one that is identical in every respect except complexion. “And why does that look bad?” “Because she’s Black,” the little girl answers emphatically. “And why is this the nice doll?” the voice continues. “Because she’s White.” “And can you give me the doll that looks like you?” The little girl hesitates for a split second before handing over the Black doll that she has just designated as the uglier one.

New research has been released lately.

The Pew Research Center finds that 67% of black men and 74% of black women think rap music is a bad influence on black America. In fact, 59% of black men and 63% of black women think the whole hip-hop industry from fashion to attitude is detrimental to African-American progress in the US.

The proportion of young black people in the 18-29 age group who condemn the current media images of black people is 31 percent — higher than the 25 percent of blacks between the ages of 30-49, and the 17 percent of blacks in the 50-64 age group with similar disdain for black images in the media.

Similarly, when asked if the portrayal of black people on television and in the movies is harmful, it is young black people who agree most. More than half of 18- to 29-year-old African Americans agree that black people are presented in a negative way in popular media. 50% of black people ages 34-49 agree. White and Hispanic Americans agree, too. The Pew poll finds 64% of whites and 59% of Hispanics agree on the damaging impact of hip hop (including the one writing this blog post.

The full report from Pew is here.

While hardly as sophisticated as the testing that Malcolm Gladwell refers to in “Blink” the results are more than troubling. Many think that this comes from subtle cultural clues, such as microaggressions.

But one must be careful about these surveys, as well as experiments like the one with the little girl. Since they had to explain much during the survey, did they answer with their hearts? Did she?

Since the little girl anticipated being asked “why” did she automatically go for the answer that would be easiest to explain (in terms of forming an explanation, not in explaining society.)
This scrutiny of such results is frequently discussed by Gladwell. If you’ve not read “Blink” you simply must.

Gladwell on Oprah: “Those kinds of snap decisions that make up so much discrimination or … our thoughts and feelings, they’re a product of the worlds we live in,” Malcolm says. “And if you live in a world, as we do, where you … turn on the television and you see a TV show and the crack dealer’s always a black guy and the judge is always a white person … those images start to matter. They start to change the way the software in your head works. And that’s regardless of what race you are.

One of my clients has drawn my attention back to the split-second racial stereotype issues in recent weeks. The maker of the Eithidolls has an African Doll perfectly suited for African American Girls and other races too! Everything about it is in support of African micro-industry, fair trade, and authenticity. The story of Makeda, Queen of Sheba is inspiring and perfect bedtime material. It won’t change the world alone, but it’s nice to see a positive step. If my girls weren’t bursting at the seams with such toys I’d definitely have one here.

I worry that lots of people, especially white people, avoid the truly extraordinary products if they must explain their purchases to others.  If you buy a black doll for a white girl, you must explain yourself to many in our culture.   That should not be.

I came across these links related to this Topic. I hope you enjoy them.

Kwanzaa Kidz
Offers African centered childrens products and online games that educate and entertain.

A Caramel Kids eStore
A Caramel Kids eStore is one of the best multicultural e-Stores for African American,.

Dolls Like Me: Multicultural Dolls
Toy store featuring African American, Asian, Biracial, and Latino dolls and puppets.

Street Legends Ink
Hip-Hop Store specializing in High Quality Urban Comics and collectible toys.

Black Toys and Games
Find websites that showcase Black - African - Ethnic Toys and Games.

Queens of Africa Project
The Queens of Africa Project

Tyrone Geter
Dolls by one of the curators of Ponder Gallery at Benedict College, the fourth large HBCU (Historical Black Colleges and Universities) in the United States

The African Queen
Photos of an amazing African Queen Doll

Kwanzaa
A Great Page of Information

Kwanzaa - A Celebration of African Culture
All About The Holiday

Jasmyne Cannick
A Powerful, Well-Written Blog that digs into issues that are dividing us. Lots of thoughtful commentary. Allow some time to go through her posts.

Kwanzaa on Second Life

eShopAfrica
African Fair Trade

PLEASE DIGG THIS STORY

I Snapped this From a T-Shirt shop in Gatlinburg, TN, smack dab in the Bible Belt.

Tolerated, I suppose by legal departments of real brands. I can’t imagine they have permission.  Protected as a parody?

Hyper tacky IMO.

Amazon just released the Kindle Reader. I’ve not held one in my hands (how can you when it’s only available via Amazon.com and backordered like 4 weeks) or looked at the all-important screen.

But from what I can tell they’re on the right track. So, since Amazon is into Wish Lists big time, let me make mine for Kindle 2.0, now that we’ve all seen the first version.

RSS Freedom - I don’t want to hear any more about a “special” RSS feed format. The ability to arbitrarily subscribe to any RSS feed is critical to me, so let’s stick with the standard XML. This way the authors can maintain blogs about their books and use standardized Blog Creation tools like Wordpress.

Blog Reading with Offline Mode - I want to be sure that I can read books on airplanes, but RSS feeds and blogs are equally important. I love Google Gears and how it works with Google Reader and hope that Kindle 2.0 will have something like it.

A Full Web Browser - Port Firefox to the thing and I’ll be thrilled. This will benefit Amazon, too so people can both shop their site and click on ads in the Amazon Clickriver system, leading to landing pages of advertisers. Ad-supported books will be a terrific concept.

Larger Screen, In Color - This will become more important for magazines, blogs, and such. I’m personally just hoping the screen gets more paperwhite, but I know its success will depend on color. If Apple does an e book, you can bet it’ll be in full, gorgeous color.

Audiobook Alternative - I would like to have Audible (protected) audiobooks and podcasts available for the device. Since Amazon already has tons of audiobooks to download they will surely be doing this for version 2.0. I already use my iPod for this purpose, but there would be something cool about consolidating the two.

Better Battery Performance - I would think that they could figure out a way to batch wireless sessions (e.g. put wireless to sleep) when it’s not needed. Charging every day is not acceptable. I would get tired of this and hope that Kindle 2.0 has better technology.

Well, I’ve started holiday shopping a bit today.  I came across these two amazing Steampunk Items and another sweet J Peterman authentic item that you have to see.  They are in very limited supply and will probably sell out before you start shopping, if you’re like most people.

Check this list of 11 things that will sell out before you start holiday shopping.

J Peterman Steampunky Cufflinks, Pubsigns and Gothic Clock.  

I consult for J Peterman sometimes, but first and foremost I’m and admirer and customer.  Their stuff always gets people gathered around it at parties.