I don't have a problem with content mill sites -- as long as they provide me information quickly in a format I desire.
I think lots of folks want "authoritative". So let's suppose I'm mentally disabled and in search of a recipe for cake. I google "cake" and I got 40,000 sites. Top of the list is the Cake Institute of America. I google airplanes and I'm looking at the history of winged flight. I want to learn to tie my shoes and spend 5 hours on the history of footwear in western culture.
This is just silly. Communications 101 says that the message changes depending on the audience and the medium. Yet those in the search engine business, it seems, want "authoritative" and "best" sources. I could give a shit. I want information custom-made to me -- who I am, how I speak, my culture, my mood, my life.
The "There can be only one" attitude is not helpful. Somewhere, right now, some guy wants to find out how to train speckled-bellied pigeons to dance. And those dang E-how guys probably have a video for it. Back in the day it was painful as heck to find information. Now companies are figuring out how to make each little penny they can on creating content. As long as the content is useful, I think that's awesome.
Having said that, the problem is that the drunken-angry-sailor-web-content is different from the New-England-school-marm-content. That's okay. There's room for growth. Isn't progress a good thing?
But the domain-squatting nonsense, and the sleaze factor some of these companies bring to the table? That's got to go. With lots more tlds I think the domain-name-spamming business has a limited shelf-life, thankfully.
I think lots of folks want "authoritative". So let's suppose I'm mentally disabled and in search of a recipe for cake. I google "cake" and I got 40,000 sites. Top of the list is the Cake Institute of America. I google airplanes and I'm looking at the history of winged flight. I want to learn to tie my shoes and spend 5 hours on the history of footwear in western culture.
This is just silly. Communications 101 says that the message changes depending on the audience and the medium. Yet those in the search engine business, it seems, want "authoritative" and "best" sources. I could give a shit. I want information custom-made to me -- who I am, how I speak, my culture, my mood, my life.
The "There can be only one" attitude is not helpful. Somewhere, right now, some guy wants to find out how to train speckled-bellied pigeons to dance. And those dang E-how guys probably have a video for it. Back in the day it was painful as heck to find information. Now companies are figuring out how to make each little penny they can on creating content. As long as the content is useful, I think that's awesome.
Having said that, the problem is that the drunken-angry-sailor-web-content is different from the New-England-school-marm-content. That's okay. There's room for growth. Isn't progress a good thing?
But the domain-squatting nonsense, and the sleaze factor some of these companies bring to the table? That's got to go. With lots more tlds I think the domain-name-spamming business has a limited shelf-life, thankfully.