Click Schtick

A bunch of posts ago I told you about this new Clicky service which acts as both a super site meter and web analytical tool. So far, I've been very very impressed. The service, even in the free version, provides a wealth of information (how many visits, by whom, what they searched for that led them to your site, what they did once they got there, etc...) It is SO much better than the stats feature my web host provides, that I'm am definitely going to stick with it for now. The only issue I have with it (and it's a minor one, given that the service is free) is that sometimes it gets the site visitor's city wrong. For example, if I surf to this site from a location in Natick, MA, Clicky will often say that visitor was coming from Tyngsboro, MA - a city further north near the New Hampshire border. Such small discrepancies are common.

That's about the only issue, though, and if we assume that Clicky at least gets the general area of the visitor correct, that means I don't know who half of you crazies are - yeah, including you regular readers. However, I shan't let that dissuade me from throwin' out a few shout outs to all my peeps in da hizzouse. New Orleans, where you at? Awww yeah, they you at! Represent! Somerville, you up in here?!? Hell yeah, hell yeah. Who else? Errybody in San Jose gettin' tips... Alright, sorry. This juvie slang is gettin' old. But mad props go to my homies across the pond in Luton & Newcastle upon Tyne, anyway.

The list goes on and the locales are too numerous to list here. However, as I promised in that earlier post, I'll steal a page out of Sean's book and provide you with some of the more amusing search terms people have used to get to here. By far, the most popular search terms are "tattoo" (ironic, because I don't have one, but I wrote a post about 'em way back when), "ying yang", "mnah mnah" and "toppins" (lot of Mary Poppins fans out there I guess.) But popular search terms are boring. Here are the strange, funny and scary ones:

• dating a scientologist
• iq of the average bear
• bombs made with bathroom cleaner
• "houston is a shithole"
• no school lunch next week, I'm brown baggin it.
• drinking gunpowder
• Which TV quiz saw a duo linking five across while a solo contestant linked four down?
• early 90's annoying hum do doo do doo (that one cracks me up. It's as if the searcher thought Google would recognize the tune running through his head.)
• "i wanna rock right now, i'm rob bass and i came to get down"
• how did the bostonians get their accent
• "clip" + "devil" + temple OR Temptation + goat
• john hancock granary burial ground +missing hand
• Band members led zeppelin were clergy?
• looks like Shoney's Big Boy is just Big Boy now ... what happened
• knife skills boston massachusetts
• how to speak bostonese
• paddington bear uses the bathroom
• catchy + phrases + Anorexia
• "Who are people who have never been in my kitchen?"
• G is for George smothered under a rug.
• bathroom hygiene in the 1700's
• retarded nuh nuh nuh nuh sound effect

and my personal favorite....

• the worn-out murky hate

I'll leave it up to you to figure out my target demographic. But for now, I'd like to utter a hearty welcome to everyone, regardless of search term! You keep coming, I'll keep posting. Unless you're looking for more bathroom cleaner.

Oh, I Am SO There!!!

Been a crazy week with precious little time to post, but I just thought I'd check in with this small, chuckle-worthy link. I especially like step #9.

Plane? Pshaw! If I'd known it was this easy I'd have gone yesterday. Only 29 days! Although, I wonder how on earth they calculated the time. Were they assuming you'd go 55 mph, or do they know how fast the average person swims? Anyway, the only thing keeping me here is that the directions have you go by way of France and through the chunnel. Surely, there must be an easier way than that...

I, For One, Welcome Our New Google Overlords

Came across this rather fascinating write-up on Google yesterday. It's long, full of speculation and discusses technology, but it's well written and the author certainly knows of what he types. His basic premise - which my summary won't do justice - is that Google, to the degree that it can and still be legal (which is quite a degree) is trying to control the Internet.

No, I don't mean control as in "big brother" where they essentially have free reign over all web pages everywhere, allowing them to censor, promote, and flat out rule with an iron fist (although that's always a potential drawback, I suppose.) Rather, although they'll always be one of any number of options for customers, their presence is/will be everywhere... which, come to think of it is exactly what we have now. This author's educated speculation takes it a step further, however.

Without poorly summarizing the entire article here, he offers forth the idea that Google is planning on taking over cable television and telephone services, and in doing so will position themselves to offer services in all areas that we might use the Internet for. They already control more network fiber (the wire which Internet signal runs over) than any other organization, yet they continue to acquire more. They have huge data centers (the computing brains of any organization that uses technology and the place where most of their servers are kept) in various places all over the country and are building still more larger ones. They have gone from a basic search engine to an entity that offers information goods and services too numerous to count. Basically, they've been growing at a ridiculous pace and show no signs of stopping.

Should we be worried? In some sense, yes, there's absolutely reason for concern. Monopolies suck, and while theoretically there are safeguards in place to prevent their existence, one could very much make the argument that those safeguards have failed. It seems that there are fewer choices out there for consumers than there have ever been. Everything, everywhere, has become so homogeneous. While hanging out with my family over the holidays I asked them (specifically my parents) if they could ever remember a time when there were so many of these "superstore" type place like Best Buy and Wal*Mart? Or, was I just more sensitive to this fact because I've lived in Jamaica Plain for the past four years (perhaps the most liberal section of Boston (and that's saying something) where the residents are never without something to protest - huge corporate conglomerations being a favorite target) and was therefore overly cynical and with cloudy judgment? No, they agreed. Never while they were growing up was there such a sense of staleness. Culture everywhere has lost a lot of its flavor. Sure, places you go on vacation might have all the comforts of home... but that's because they're exactly like home.

But here's the thing with Google. If, in fact, they're taking over the Internet, they're doing a good job with it. They take services that we all use, successfully simplify them in a manner that only they can, and actually use common sense to improve the product. I can't deny that I've become a convert. We all know about their search capabilities, which are second to none. However, I now use their Gmail service almost exclusively because it offers huge storage, is incredibly intuitive and easy to use, and has the best spam filters of any web based email I've ever seen (they literally catch 99.9% of the spam I get - which is significant - and never have I had a legitimate email mistakenly end up in my spam folder.) Their maps service is not only easy, it's ridiculously accurate (at least with driving directions - something Mapquest can certainly not claim.) Hell, even the service I use to publish this blog, Blogger, is run by them (although, to be fair, someone else created it first and Google simply bought it. They have since improved it tremendously, however, and made it such that anyone can start a blog if they want to, yet they also allow enough flexibility that the technically savvy can do what they like with it.) So yeah, I've swallowed the Kool-Aid - every last drop of it, in fact. I thought it tasted real good though and, last I checked, I'm still alive.

Look, I'm not saying they should be the only options out there. Competition needs to exist. But, competition existed before they came along too, and no one was offering a superior product. A lot of Google's success seems to come from innovation and attraction, as opposed to acquisition and forced use due to lack of other legitimate options, which is why I like them. And, although I think their recent maneuvers (which the article explains far better than I could) should definitely raise some red flags, I'm also willing to give them the benefit of the doubt - for now. Unlike others, I trust them not to screw it up.

(Note: I SWEAR I do not work for Google. I'd certainly like to - by all accounts they're a fantastic place to work - but no, I'm not an employee. No, I didn't receive any payoffs either.

...

Hey, stop it, you cynical bastard! You're the one who asked for a blog post!! Well, this is what you get! I'll make no apologies for my starry-eyed Google adoration... so, shoo.)