On my days not at work I quite often listen to You and Yours (Radio 4). Today they were talking about Google. Today they also mentioned another story that they had covered.
Today it was this: if you search for the name of a well known florist that can deliver to your chosen recipient, among the sponsored links is the name of another one. The first is suing the second. I tried this with the example given (this blog only advertises when I want it to!), and it is indeed so. I have just tried searching for my usual daily newspaper, and it is the only sponsored link that appears. The same happens if I search for the maker of our car.
The other story (which I did not hear and which I can't find quickly on the You and Yours site or in the last couple of programmes on Listen Again) concerned an offensive image of Michelle Obama, which appeared at the top of the list of results. This is reported elsewhere on the BBC, and the report goes into the way that Google ranks results, which of course is all to do with popularity.
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Friday, March 09, 2007
Wikipedia
A colleague and I taught a "Google and beyond" class recently, looking at advanced search techniques and other web tools. We included a bit on Web 2.0 (or some of it - I think I am too old for some of it) and mentioned Wikipedia.
So it was interesting to see this - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2331980.ece - in today's Independent. Someone who has edited many entries on Wikipedia, who appeared to be a professor of religion, turns out to be a "twenty something" with no expertise in the area. He has been used as an expert in factual disputes at Wikipedia, and has been quoted as an expert by the New York Times.
I don't think that everyone who edits entries on Wikipedia is pretending to be someone they are not. I imagine many are knowledgeable enthusiasts for their subject. There was an article in the Times (or London) last weekend about some of the editors. I do wonder if particular subjects attract this sort of controversy, or the sort of tampering that has been talked about in various places, with people editing their own entries, or adding in scurrilous things to other people's. But it is an interesting phenomenon to talk about in our classes...
Here are links to two ResourceShelf posts about Wikipedia, one from 24 February and one from 7 March.
And here is a link to a Guardian story about a course at University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK) which assesses students on their editing articles for Wikipedia.
So it was interesting to see this - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2331980.ece - in today's Independent. Someone who has edited many entries on Wikipedia, who appeared to be a professor of religion, turns out to be a "twenty something" with no expertise in the area. He has been used as an expert in factual disputes at Wikipedia, and has been quoted as an expert by the New York Times.
I don't think that everyone who edits entries on Wikipedia is pretending to be someone they are not. I imagine many are knowledgeable enthusiasts for their subject. There was an article in the Times (or London) last weekend about some of the editors. I do wonder if particular subjects attract this sort of controversy, or the sort of tampering that has been talked about in various places, with people editing their own entries, or adding in scurrilous things to other people's. But it is an interesting phenomenon to talk about in our classes...
Here are links to two ResourceShelf posts about Wikipedia, one from 24 February and one from 7 March.
And here is a link to a Guardian story about a course at University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK) which assesses students on their editing articles for Wikipedia.
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