I do find it hard to keep myself completely away from the net, with that fear that some news may pass me by that i may need to know. Pro’s and con’s of the industry i’d say. Yet this morning in my twitter feed, Rich Ord posted a tweet that almost literally “pushed my button”. BBC had an article about “web searches for minority groups” pointing out that the internet may be blind to race, gender, creed etc. WHAT?!

[Begin Rant]

Pardon me, but this may come as a surprise, but the net is there to provide information for anyone, no matter who you are, dependant on YOUR search query. I would have hoped that by this time we would have moved past all the minority issues as nations. Countries such as South Africa struggle constantly with this battle, while deep down inside we actually all hope people would just get over it and move on. (Reminds me of Zuma now sueing Shapiro)

I hate to think that as people we are not letting go of the past and moving on to where we can look at each other as people instead of looking at a persons colour. Niche communities are great, they cater for a unique persons desire and interests and will always thrive online as long as everyone is still an individual.

As i said earlier, it pushed a button, you don’t like what you get in your search results, opt for Google’s searchWIKI and customise your results, or refine your search. (Yeah, i read the first few lines of the article and already had my mind wandering & buzzing before i finished reading the piece, BAD Brett)

With the developments going forward in personalised search with Google, i see big changes happening in 2009 for the online industry. I see news like this as a ploy for attention (sueing Google is always a good idea) yet, it brings strong emotions with it (has a propaganda feel to it).

[End Rant]

WebProNews has a great write up on this topic.

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Racialism in search? via The Pringle