The cultural aspects of search
- Posted by Kati on January 16th, 2004 filed in mktg brainlog
John Battelle (Wired cofounder, Industry Standard publisher among others) is writing a book about the cultural aspects of the search revolution, tentatively entitled ”
The Search: Business and Culture in the Age of Google” (expected to be published this year).
His inspiration comes from the realization that search engines hold a massive database of search queries which is effectively a collection of the Internet population’s behaviour, interests, intentions. He calls this “The Database of Intentions”.
“The Database of Intentions is simply this: The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result.”
While the idea is not new and its marketing-related consequences have been thouroughly explored, and even exploited, it will be interesting to see what Battelle will have to say about the cultural side of the story.
I have always said that search, the ability and ease of searching and finding in the net has huge effects on people’s behavior not only online, but in offline behavior as well, and an effect on culture both from the population’s and the search engines’ side. (I based this assumtion on my own personal experiences and behavior.) And anything that changes people’s behavior to a significant degree will have cultural consequences as well. I am looking forward to the book.