Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Why the Web is Broken

The nonsense you see on Blogs, Forum and Social Media sites (Web 2.0 does not work - Two no work)

Like the "squeaky wheel" getting all the grease - the posters on Web forums are the ones that you find when you make a search. The happy customer is largely a silent majority.

Visit any technical forum, reading responses to postings and articles quickly turns into
        a diatribe of zealots - all claiming that they are the oracle.

To see what I mean - do a search for diatribe of zealots using your favourite search engine.

An Example:
Microsoft's Vista is not as bad as the naysayers would have you believe, The Gates Company may well be a Behemoth and maybe an alternative such as Linux may be worth pursuing.

and

A lot of information may well be "out there" but it is usually lost on a fog of advertisements and posts that irrelevant to the issue you are researching.

The corner-stone of Web 2point0 is interactivity

The ability for users to have their say. Post their comments and generate their own content (blogs - You Tube - Facebook)

Review Websites:


As well as the behavior that is prevalent in general technical fora, the review sites (while often little more than advertising platforms) have a large measure of repetition and it is not easy to find out whether a product is good or bad.
   
A good product can often appear to be bad as the detractors and those who have had technical problems are the most the most vocal and tend to make multiple postings. We all experience problems with customer service from time to time and the posting of rants about your experience are often of little help.
   
Having said that, review sites are sometimes quite useful but you have to know how to read between the lines and be patient with the navigation through  (sometimes) pages of reviews that all say the same thing. Those that have overall ratings for a product are good - again these have to be viewed in light of the who is saying what and why.
   
A case in point is the Convertible Notebook computer from HP. It is advertised clearly as a notebook that the screen can be twisted 180 degrees and folded flat - it says IT IS NOT a true tablet and there is no digitizer for taking notes with a stylus, as would be the case with a true tablet.

My dad's car goes faster than any of yours - in reverse

When I was a kid I can remember the discussion about how fast our fathers cars could go. Since that time it had been a catch-phrase for any nonsensical and unverifiable statement. This is what a large portion of the Web2Point0 world is about!
   


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