The Search Engine

     Since we're about to transition to our Google portion of the course, I figured it would be interesting to do a little overview of the history of the search engine. The first search engine was known as Archie and was developed in 1990 at McGill University. Archie was nothing like the Google we know today. Archie indexed the titles of pages from a McGill server, and it only updated monthly. Basically, Archie scanned McGill's electronic bookshelf and nothing more.

    From Archie stemmed many projects which refined searching through localized data but it wasn't until 1993 that search engines which browsed the World Wide Web came into existence. The first of these was the W3Catalog. These early search engines relied on webmasters to post their website's address in a catalog so that other users could look it up. This process didn't last long and soon a process called web crawling came around.
     Web crawling is where an engine indexes all of the open available material on the internet. This process revolutionized web usage because the engines no longer relied on catalogs but could now look up any webpage that was being hosted-- in theory.
     Shortly after this development in searching an engine called WebCrawler was built in 1994. WebCrawler was the first engine where you could search for any text within the page, not just the title. This advanced piece of software is shown below.

    After WebCrawler many engines were built and competed for popularity. The most notable, and the one you will remember from your childhood if you had access to a computer, is Yahoo. Yahoo became popular because it grouped sites into categories. Instead of browsing all of the indexed pages, because there was limited prioritization and hard to find what you needed, you could instead browse their directory which listed pages by category and subcategory. 

The search engine business remained dull as various companies vied for popularity but no real innovation occurred  All that changed in 2000 when Google became popular using a new algorithm called Page Rank. Google's new Page Rank algorithm allowed pages to be ranked based on relevance and popularity. In addition to all of this Google maintained a minimalist approach to their engine while almost all of their competitors were embedding their engines into their websites. Often they tried to connect news, email or other features with web browsing itself, but the added complications only made them less successful.

     Since Google rose to power they have dominated about 80% of the search engine market and expanded into a 90 billion dollar company. They continue to hold their monopoly by maintaining their minimalist look and refining the way the search engine works. As we read for class, Google ultimately wants to tell you what to type, to search before you know what you're searching for.

     Personally, I found this idea very uncomfortable. It seems to only reinforce what people call search engine bias. Basically we're being shown what Google decides to show us, maybe because it's popular or because our previous searches indicate our preferences, but that is an incredibly restrictive way to browse information. Google only showing us what the engine predicts we want to see, in my opinion, is a very subtle form of censorship. Google has become a powerful tool but we should be conscientious about how it is selecting media for us. 

The iPad: App Store on Lockdown

    Apple has made its name by hand tailoring an experience for the user, and when the iPad was launched in April, 2010 their goal remained the same. Apple wished to make the fun, easy and intuitive experience of their tablet available to the masses. Perhaps the greatest thing about the iPad is its flexibility. The iPad is capable of enhancing the technological experience of anyone from a six year-old to his grandmother because of the potential the product has for versatility. However, when Apple struck gold with the iPad, they also found that this product fundamentally challenges how they manage their products.

     The free and versatile nature of the iPad made it impossible for Apple to ever even conceive of developing and micromanaging the amount of software that their user base would require, so they developed the App Store. Jobs needed a little time to come around and approve the App Store, but it had to be done.

     The creation of the App Store allowed for hundreds of thousands of third party apps to be available to the public, but it came at a cost. Jobs, of course, was unable to completely relinquish control of the software developing process so Apple developed strict guidelines that apps must follow to be approved. Additionally, Apple takes a 30% cut of all revenue and the only place you can legally market Apple Apps is the App Store. Because of their strict 'Big Brother' approach to the App market their have been many criticisms leveled against the App Store.

     One of the biggest complaints that developers have with the App Store is that Apple wants to manage how you develop your apps. Apple requires that the developer only use public APIs (Application programming interface) in order to ensure quality, consistency and security. Apple wants to be able to comb through every program and guarantee that their customers won't have any issues with performance or security. This, unfortunately, limits developers who would want to build a private API to suit their applications' needs and makes a number of Apps built on private APIs unavailable to the public.

     On a similar note, Apple no longer supports any Java based applications because supporting Java apps requires an additional Java installation and Apple believe these apps run inefficiently, hindering the 'Mac' experience. 

    The other criticism of the App Store is Apple's censorship of media. The internet community is always sensitive about the censorship of media and the App Store is certainly not free from their wrath. As discussed before, the iPad can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It follows that just about anyone will be browsing around the App Store and Apple should probably do their best to not offend their costumer base. With good reason Apple doesn't allow pornographic or drug related content-- or anything else they consider 'objectionable'-- in an app. 

    Apple's content censorship is a balancing act and what they find objectionable will always be subjective but allowing all types of content through would be detrimental to the carefully crafted experience that Apple works so hard to develop. Many people are upset by the censorship they see in the App Store, but to that censorship is what the consumer buys into with the iPad. The strict requirements placed on the third party Apps ensure that every App you can download is, to some degree, an Apple product. 

     Apple's closed approach to product development is one of the reasons I'm not an Apple user, but it has benefits. The ease of use and limited technical problems you encounter when using their products are a result of their micromanagement. The App Store was not created because Apple is relaxing their grip, but because the iPad necessitated the App Store's creation. Even though Apple cannot have complete control over this process, they try and make every app contribute to their tailored technological experience.

Indiegogo

      I wanted to use this post to share a site that is using community and technology together in a neat way. Indiegogo is a website that allows people or organizations to fund raise money for various causes. Indiegogo definitely falls in line with our traditional american value system; it promotes a sense of individualism in a capitalistic setting and allows for successful, creative and innovative ideas to flourish. Of course Bellah and others find plenty of faults with these values-- but when it comes to charity, it works pretty well.
     Indiegogo allows any person, group or organization to present a cause they would like to fund raise for. These causes range from typical charity work and funding for entrepreneurial ventures, to sponsorship and commission for just about any kind of art. Indiegogo has had over a hundred thousand of different funding campaigns, developing an environment that financially fosters the life of many ideas. Basically, if you think it's cool and have the cash, donate.
     Being a Lawrence student, I'm not exactly a full time philanthropist, but it's always fun to poke around and see what people are thinking up. One of the categories I enjoy browsing most is the technology section. While most of the ideas you find here are pretty gimmicky and most likely going nowhere, there are some cool gadgets that would be fun to try. One of the more successful fundraisers fight now is the Cynaps. Cynaps is a hat that operates as Bluetooth enabled headphones. I'm not a huge hat fan, but the earpiece free design seems interesting, check it out.





     To move on to something more charity oriented-- you can find tons of initiatives where people are using Indiegogo to improve communities around the world. This contradicts my "Indiegogo promotes the individual" spiel earlier, but it's good to see so many people trying to find a way to better the world. Here's an example of a project looking to provide sustainable energy to impoverished communities.





      While it's difficult to tell which of these initiatives will be successful in their mission, go poke around and try to find something worth donating for.

Intuiting Innovation

     Steve Jobs' biography does a much better job of illustrating his international escapades as a young man than giving us insight into how Zen concepts played a role in his life, but there is one concept that stands out. When Jobs talks about his return to America after his time in India he describes the differences in how Eastern cultures think about human experience and he emphasizes the value of intuition.

"Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don't use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion." (Steve Jobs, p. 48)

     The high value Jobs places on intuition is evident in the products he made, and the role he played in the technology industry. Intellect is for the engineer, but intuition is for the artist. Jobs' ability to approach problems with a blank slate and use his artistic gut to develop his work is what put him ahead in the technology marketplace. Initially I thought that this intuition was simply a innate quality that Jobs' was born with and most other people don't have that sense about them, but Jobs hints that intuition is a skill like anything else and can be developed. Perhaps to be a truly great business man you need to cultivate your intuition and approach problems more like an artist than an engineer. Or maybe I just like that idea because I'm a musician.
     Shunryu Suzuki wasn't concerned with the business world, of course, but rather interpreting human experience. Below is a brief clip of his discussion on perception.

     This clip really struck me because Shunryu Suzuki asks you to look at the world in a different way. I believe that expanding our understanding of the world by bending our intellect, taking a different perspective on our surroundings and approaching life with a "beginner's mind" may be the way to developing our intuition. It's hard for me to tell how big of an impact these philosophies had on Jobs, but they might have been a major factor in his ability to develop the technology industry how he did. Perhaps the teachings of Suzuki aided him, or maybe he was always singing with the blue jay.

Becoming Iconic

       In class we watched a video where Jobs briefly discusses an unsuccessful advertising campaign Apple ran featuring a woman typing recipes in the kitchen on her newly purchased Macintosh. This got me interested in the history of Apple's ad campaigns, and I found that unsuccessful was definitely not the norm. Simply put, Apple's success is a result of two things: their ability to develop an innovative product, and getting the consumer to purchase that product. Over the past few decades Apple has cultivated an elegant and elite image for its products by employing some pretty artistic, catchy and daring ad campaigns.
       One of Apple's earliest advertisement campaigns was a series of print ads that appeared in 1984. The image below is the first of twenty that were included in one issue of Newsweek. Apple was estimated to have spent 2.5 million on buying every ad slot in the issue, talk about daring. This image is the first of many in establishing Apple products as for the elite.

      In the same year Apple would run a television ad for the 1984 Superbowl that would make Macintosh a household name. This ad marks the beginning of Apple setting its products apart from the competition. In this ad the woman smashes the screen of "Big Brother" which is supposed to be representative of IBM, also know as "Big Blue."

      Apple's next iconic ad campaign wouldn't come for another ten years, but their "Think Different" campaign is recognizable to just about any american who was alive in the late 90's. This slogan was featured in numerous ads, both television and print, and most well known for its appearance on promotional posters that featured historic figures. The most iconic of these has to be the poster featuring Albert Einstein (although maybe its just the one I happen to remember).

      In the early 2000's Apple introduced the world to the iPod. If Think Different didn't seem familiar, I'm sure this will. This campaign represents a shift in Apple's marketing that occurred in the early 2000's: they moved from faces of change to the faceless. Apple products are no longer for the select few, but for the masses.
      The silhouette dancing to a catchy tune was ubiquitous during my youth. While Apple has not released another in this series for about a year, this campaign is still the face of the iPod.

     I'll close with a short ad from Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign which I think will also be recognizable to everyone. Like many off their other campaigns the "Get a Mac" series takes a stab at the competition, but this time with a lighter, witty tone. Through the decades Apple has been able to market their products with huge success and it will be interesting to see what clever, artistic, or daring campaign they think up next.

Steve Jobs' Commencement Speech

Steve Jobs' commencement speech, while somewhat arrogant and fairly unoriginal, is revelant to our discussion of value systems. Jobs tells three stories that highlight his utilitarian individualism. First he talks about dropping out of college and forging his own path. According to him, this was the absolute right decision. "The dots will connect," he emphasizes. Second he tells us how he was fired from Apple, but because he loved what he did it turned out alright. These two ideas, forging your own path and finding what you love to do, are pretty familiar, and you'd be hard pressed to find a commencement speech that didn't incorporate them in some form. The reason Steve Jobs is the one telling us is because he is a living example of the success of the individual. He established what was meaningful to him, followed it relentlessly despite what anyone else thought and saw immense personal success because of it. At one point he says, "Don't let other's opinions drown out your own inner voice." When he dropped out of college he wasn't concerned with what society, his community or his parents thought was valuable, he was concerned with he felt was meaningful, and he thinks the Stanford graduates should establish their value systems the same way. In many ways Jobs' speech says as much about the value we as a society place on the individual than Jobs himself. 

Convenience or Clutter?

                When contemplating the prompt, I initially tried to find some sort of unique technology that aided my daily life, something beyond the cell phone or personal computer, something I wouldn't find in everyone else's blog. Unfortunately, I'm not that edgy and I don't have the next greatest 'life-hack' to tell you about, but instead of telling you how convenient the cell phone is or praising word processing for the countless hours it saved me, I thought I would discuss a few points that Bellah makes in our prompt quote. In case you have forgotten already, here it is:

                "Similarly, the relatively affluent twentieth-century American could reorganize habits and styles of life experimentally to achieve a more gratifying private life."

                Most of what I'll call our common technologies work to reorganize our habits and daily lives, both in a work environment, and at home. This reorganization is focused on efficiency: our personal computers allow us to both consume, create and exchange information easily, our cell phones make our contacts just a text away, and now with tablets becoming more popular any online media will be at our fingertips. In a lot of ways this technology has sped up our lives. We don't have to toil over handwritten essays and we can send a dozen texts and fb messages in the time it would take just to find the stationary.

                We would hate to see these things go away, but can we say they have lead us to "a more gratifying private life"? I find this question pretty difficult to answer. I've had a cell phone, easy access to a computer, facebook, email and a dozen of other technological conveniences for so many years I don't have another point of comparison. Without a computer or phone certain things would be harder, more time consuming, but in a lot of ways my life would be simpler. While being able to contact most people I know through facebook is a convenience, there are a lot of inconveniences that come along with this type of technology. I have to maintain a public profile and make sure what is available on the internet about me is what I want representing me publicly (I've untagged myself from plenty of photos I rather my grandmother not see). Perhaps some of the technologies we consider more efficient or convenient are really just adding complication to our daily lives. In closing, do we see these modern conveniences as leading us to a more gratifying private life? I'm not sure-- but I'm certainly not ready to give up my computer or cell phone.