15 Sep 2005
“View Style Information” wasn’t working here for a while, and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out it’s dependent upon the Firefox DOM Inspector being installed — and, in Ubuntu at least, that’s a separate package.
If this feature of Chris Pederick‘s excellent Web Developer Extension isn’t happening for you, try adding the firefox-dom-inspector package. If you’re not using packages, reinstall Firefox ensuring that the “Developer Tools” option is checked (more on this issue for non-packaged versions here)
15 Sep 2005
As a result of trying to transfer a domain between registrars in not-quite-enough time, Ben’s domain dropped off the map. Hopefully, when it’s released back onto the market next month, we’ll be able to grab it again — but, until then, you can get to his site (which, you know, hasn’t been updated for ages! Update your site, Ben!) at cat-man.joahua.com or simply via cat-man.homeip.net.
The DNS change should have propagated most places now — cat-man.homeip.net will definitely be working, even if cat-man.joahua.com isn’t yet.
15 Sep 2005
I’ve been advised that Ansearch’s style indexing bug has been ironed out, and will wash out as the next round of indexing comes into service. Chances are this hasn’t really affected anyone, as it’s unlikely a substantial number of the top 500,000 sites according to Ansearch’s statistics would have firstly picked up on it, and secondly bothered to do something meaningful about it.
But hey, it’s still nice to know, right?
14 Sep 2005
So I was looking for some light reading on the Ruby language, just because it [or the Rails framework that builds on it] seems cool and shortly before the biggest exams I’ve ever done commence is always a great time to acquire new and completely irrelevant skills (but, be assured — or disappointed — to know, I’m saving learning a language until afterwards!).
In my searching, I stumbled across a Creative Commons licensed work, entitled Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. It’s a work of moderate genius and… well… poignancy. Tis most poignant indeed. On a scale of one to poignant, it’s… towards poignant.
If you’re looking to learn something about Ruby and don’t mind occasional, rather amusing, diversions, I’d say (at twelve pages into the PDF version) it’s well worth a read.
14 Sep 2005
Or, What Josh Said About Ansearch That Was Irrelevant to Most Users.
Dean Jones responded to my Ansearch Answers post with the following:
All in all I feel [the post is] a fair representation of the so called facts, but I stand by my recent email… namely that simply reviewing us on technical issues that most people either
- wouldn’t have discovered, or;
- would not likely care about,
is selling your audience short.
I’m inclined to disagree, and just wanted to quickly post to say that. I like to think I understand the ‘audience’ here fairly well. They’re either people with (web-)geek tendencies, and are hence interested in any analysis and criticism I can deliver on the technical aspects of products, etc., or (and this category is completely unrelated to the former) students and humanities-focussed people reading various content I’ve published here — ranging from stage plots to a short story to an essay on the nature and effects of the digital divide.
Most guests in the latter category are just that: guests. They generally discover this content via a search engine, read what they want, and leave. Over 80% of my visitors stick around for one minute or less, presumably because they find what they need quickly, or discover that the content isn’t what they were looking for.
The “regular” audience/participants, however, are not that. I don’t think you’re all geeks, but this blog leans towards that style of content, and you match that accordingly. You don’t come here looking for product recommendations (the one exception to that being someone who viewed my post on Asterisk/VoIP, and asked me what my experiences with it had been some time later: to which I replied, we haven’t bothered, as we moved into a house with a Commander system preinstalled!). You come here, I think, for the quality of writing, for rants, for occasionally insightful (I hope) comment on various facets of things I deem interesting.
This is a blog. This is not a newspaper, though it is possible that search engines, ironically, are changing the clout of this medium to something similar. The distinction between newspaper and blog becomes blurred with posts like the one that inspired this, because of the form it was written in. It is important, however, to remember the audience.
People don’t come here to shop for search engines. We might be interested in how they work, what they do, what the potential benefits and failings of each one is, but ultimately it doesn’t affect anyone’s choice in the real world. Similarly, investors are unlikely to come here, scoping out Ansearch’s offering before buying into parent company Optum. And, if they did, my concluding remarks were positive — I genuinely believe the story balanced out in their favour more than anything else. If I overplayed the significance of a small flaw that could potentially be abused, my apologies. I don’t, however, regret including it in there at all, because I think it’s something my audience is interested in.
As you stated in an earlier email… “I’m not 100% sure as to how one should go about reviewing a search engine.” Here’s a tip. like Google, Yahoo, MSN… we are a business. For us to stay in business we need to generate revenue.
To do this we need to get more people to our SE, to get them to come back more often, and to, through their usage (CPM, CPC etc…) generate revenue.
To achieve this we need to provide a search service that the user finds useful. Given our rapid growth over the past months in UV’s and revenue, I would say we are doing OK.
Unfortunately for Ansearch and anyone else who wants to use this as an advertising space, we don’t particularly care if you’re making money. It’s good to hear they’ve grown: if their evolving product is anything to go by, they deserve it. But metrics such as revenue and Unique Visitors mean little to this audience, even if it’s what investors want to find out all about.
I think this is a fair assessment of this site’s ‘audience’ (the important ‘audience’, for me, being the minority that don’t come through search engines, subscribe by RSS, and come back regularly) — though, as always, your role is not restricted to that. You are participants. In light of this, I’d invite comment and discussion on this post as to your role as you understand it. It’s possible I’ve got this all wrong… but I doubt it.