What I've learned from Google

Oftentimes at work I get bored and need distraction. Big surprise. Common scenario:

I either open a browser (only IE available at work) or find one of the seven I have open and find one I don't need anymore. I check LJ. I check facebook. I check LJ again. I check the news. There is already a browser window dedicated to IMing and another dedicated to iGoogle and thus my e-mail. What to do next?

Well, every once in a while (ya know, at least twice a day) I'm forced to come up with some inspiration...either Wikipedia-ing or Googling something.

In an instance today, Googling was the tool of choice. I randomly decided to look up Noah and the Whale. (Myspace linked here.) A band that one of Jamie's old friends is in.

I did the search and found myself pausing, to choose what hits came up. Normal, right? But then I realized that I was judging the band by these links without
knowing anything about them or even clicking on them. Which I suppose is also normal, but has gone previously unnoticed.

First two hits are MySpace: They have a name that is distinctive enough that the MySpace pages come up first. They do not have their own home page, or it does not get visited often. Not particularly popular, big, or commercial.

A Youtube video: They at least try promoting themselves.

A Hype Machine link: They have street cred!

Amazon.com link for buying one of their mp3s: Bigger than I thought, or Amazon sells anything people put up for sale. (I'm unfamiliar with buying downloads...)

A few more blog links: Same as Hype Machine

A BBC article: Well, then. I guess I'll scroll back up and listen for the next half hour.


Anyway, that's my ramble of the day. I just realized that I judge things by what comes up on Google. Makes me wonder about how much I trust the internet. Ask me directly about a Wikipedia article incident that I don't want to discuss here because I'm paranoid.