boulevard-ijab (IJA & ME) - one half completing the other half....

Cyber World Part 2 - How 'searchable' are you?

I remember the first time when I was exposed to the world of cyber space. I was sitting next to a friend in the computer lab. He was searching for something through the Yahoo search engine. Despite knowing some basics about computers, on that day, I was rather intimidated by what appeared on his screen. They looked somehow complicated and not at all familiar to me - there was a spinning globe on the right corner of the screen (eh? what could it do?), an address bar that he typed the address in (err... what kind of address?), and with some clickable weird-looking symbols, links and photos that would direct him to new pages.

I was wondering, if I were to use the internet for the first time, what and how should I do it? Should I tinker with it the wrong way, would the PC crash or shut down or something? Or worse, would I accidentally cause a breakdown to the central system, which controlled the whole of Internet. Haha, laugh all you want, I initially thought all those websites were being monitored and programmed by some government bodies or something. Little did I know the vastness of cyber space, where I could virtually find almost anything - from facts to theories, information to stories, and stuffs that I couldn't even imagine at that time...

Now why do people surf the internet? Different people have different reasons for doing so:

1. for students, they may rely on the net to help them in their study; in completing their thesis or to further enhance their understanding on a certain topic.

2. for workers, having knowledge about the net may be part of their work scopes, like to design and maintain a company's websites; to respond to customers' enquiries or complaints; to know competitors' marketing strategies or to get the right materials for their next writing endeavour.

3. some of us may use the net to keep in touch with their friends and families or to make new friends via means of emails, IM's or chat rooms (by the way, my Yahoo IM is abdunmy, hehe).

4. some may prefer the internet to get the latest updates in news, weather, sports and entertainment.

5. for some, internet can provide the means for shopping where all they need to do is to click on the shopping carts instead of pushing them.

6. internet can also provide the means to generate main or additional sources of income - some already make millions through it (heck! the founders of YouTube are now worth billions, thanx to the power of internet), while others are slowly realising the potentials (for fellow Muslims, just make sure they are halal, ok... don't do some online gambling or anything like that).

7. there are those who surf websites to learn about religions (however, be extra careful if you fall into this category, as you have to ensure that you are not learning from the wrong sources); get cooking recipes; share experiences in children development or to seek advice for tax matters.

8. there are also those who log in to satisfy their sickening lust for porn, sex and graphic images or videos (Nau'zubillah....)

Whichever the reason(s) may be, the internet has become part of daily activities for most people in the world, including the elderlies. Don't be surprised if grandparents these days, know how to keep in touch with their grand-children and see each other's faces via the internet.

Search engine is one of the most used internet tools. In fact, there are those who use the tool as an alternative way to find their long-lost school mates or families.

Famous search engines like Google or Yahoo always rank their most popular searches. Most of the time, celebrities (actors, singers, athletes) top the chart, if not world's richest people or some high profile companies. However, some much-publicised incidents/tragedies may also shoot straight to the top of the rank from time to time.

Ask anyone who has their presence on the internet, they would most likely want to be one of the most searchable items, if not in the world, at least regionally or locally. Whether in promoting their companies, their businesses, their ideas/products/services or simply their personal websites and blogs, many of them put the right keywords in their metatags so that the search engines can detect them and/or submit their websites to those search engines.

If you were to enter or perform a web search based on your name, whether wholly or partly, what would the results be? Of all those (probably countless) results that you get, how many of them are accurate (i.e. actually relate to you)? And for these accurate ones, where do they appear among those other results which do not concern you?

Read Cyber World Part 1 here.

Labels: Cartoons, Cyber World

posted by The Pisces Man @ 6:14 pm