Week 2 - Questions (Part One)

PART 1 - Navigation




A) What are the 4 main points Michael Rappa makes about search?

1. The volume of data and information out there on the internet is already incredible, and is growing bigger every day. The true challenge of searching isn't finding information, but being able to find relevant and meaningful information that is pertinent to what you are searching for.






2. Using a single search engine doesn't give you access to every piece of information on the internet. Certain servers and databases are not linked in to certain search engines, so to do an extensive and thorough search, a variety of search engines and online journals and sources must be used, which will ensure the user gets a full choice of information to peruse.






3. Understanding the underlying structure of how search engines work can improve the search results given. By having a basic understanding of ranking algorithms and the proper sentence structure to input, a lot of useless information can be weeded out and the most relevant result will be delivered first during the search, which can improve the efficiency of the search. (Ranking algorithms prioritise the result, while sentence structure washes the search of nonsense)






4. Search engines are growing in both the business world and in a broader everyday sense as well. Google is a classic example of this, growing at an almost exponential rate and expanding into a lot of other markets lately - i.e. social media, browsers, etc. Search engines really are a bit of a boom market at the moment, and have shown themselves to be an innovative and competitive industry.
   
   

B) Marissa Meyer Interview - Synopsis

The first important/interesting fact that I found in the interview was that Google fosters a real sense of enpowerment in their employees by having a culture whereby they have a large number of small teams working on many different projects. As Marissa said

"Well, we have nine engineers and right now they do about three different things. So if we double and we had eighteen engineers, would we want them to do three things twice as well? Or would we want to do twice as many things?"

This approach has led to Google being on the forefront of innovation for their industry, as well as allowing their significant expansion and allowing them to rise from a less than glamorous start in a basement to one of the most recognisable brand names in the entire worlld, so much so that the term "google" has been included in the Websters dictionary as a synonym for search.

The smaller teams also allow for the business to be a lot more proactive and agile in their business decisions. Mayer states herself that the small teams allow for all the members of the team to work in the same office, thus avoiding the need for formal meetings and wasting time. Instead, informal meetings can be held whenever called for, as all members of the team are in the same area.

References from Google Employees regarding the Small Team Culture
(Sorry guys, I tried to embed them, but it kept screwing up, might need some remedial blogging classes LOL)

http://youtu.be/qGlvIgzTJ7o
http://youtu.be/5irITQTiw5A

The other interesting point I found was the discussion on privacy between the interviewer and Marissa Mayer. Marissa asserts that there is a trade-off that has to be made between user privacy and better functionality. She also makes it clear that the importance is in the user being made aware of what information is collected, and for what use. It was also very interesting to read about the discrepancy in the ages and how different generations have differing levels of trust towards the collection of information by Google. It was also quite intriguing reading the anecdote of the guy who turned off his Facebook wall and then was viewed with suspicion for doing so, when in fact he was doing so to try and maintain some sense of digital privacy.

References:

Marissa Meyer Interview (Transcript)

http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/marissa-mayer-on-charlie-rose-the-future-of-google/

Michael Rappa - "Navigating the Web" (Transcript)

http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/navigation_tr.html