The
Voyeur
Web
Article by John
S. Rhodes
Abstract
The purpose of this
article is to explain the voyeur web. The central idea is that it is easy to
view what other people are doing and experiencing on the web. A list of
voyeur tools are provided.
The Collective Web
You might not believe me, but
I know what other people are thinking. I can't read minds of course but I
can observe people. I know where they are going, what they are searching
for, what they email other people, and what they link to. I'm not joking.
By the end of this article you will be a mind reader too. You won't
know why they are doing what they are doing, but at least you'll be
able to watch their behavior. You'll know what they are doing.
Disclaimer: I can't tell you
about the behavior of one person on the web without direct observation or
a usability test. However, I do have the tools to figure out what the
collective web is doing. I can give you excellent information that
indicates actual searches, trends, and general human behavior.
I am not saying that I spy on
people. Instead, I am saying that several web tools are mature enough that
anyone with a little effort can understand the collective web.
The Voyeur Tools
Below I have list several
tools that will allow you to view the collective web. These tools ride on
top of the web and you can go along for the ride.
- Yahoo
Most Emailed Content: Get the most-emailed photos and stories
by Yahoo news readers. Yahoo has this information broken into several
time intervals (5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, 12 hours, 12 hours, 7 days).
- Yahoo
Most Viewed Content: Most-viewed photos and stories by
Yahoo news readers in the last hour.
- Yahoo
Buzz Index: Every day, they determine which subjects hold the
most interest for Yahoo visitors by ranking subjects by their buzz
score. A buzz score is the percentage of users searching for that
subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number
easier to read.
- Google
Zeitgeist: On a monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily basis,
this Google Zeitgeist page will be updated to reflect lists, graphs,
and other tidbits of information related to Google user search
behavior.
- Lycos
50: Here are the top 50 searches on Lycos; updated
weekly.
- MetaCrawler
MetaSpy: Ever
wonder what the rest of the world is searching for? Take a look at
some of the searches being performed on MetaCrawler right now;
automatically refreshed every 15 seconds.
- Daypop
Top 40: The Daypop Top 40 is a list of links
that are currently popular with webloggers from around the world.
- Daypop Amazon Top Wish List
Items: Daypop is currently tracking 713 Wish Lists and 15950 Items. Find out what other people are wishing for. Updated frequently.
- Blogdex:
Focused on the referential information provided by
personal content, namely using the timeliness of weblogs to find
important and interesting content on the web.
- Weblog BookWatch Top 10:
Searches weblogs that pass through the Recently Changed list at weblogs.com looking for links to books at Amazon.com. The books
listed are the ones that are most frequently mentioned.
- Weblogs.com:
This sites offers up a list of weblogs that have changed in the last
three hours; the information is available in XML format.
- Metablogs:
Information on weblogs whose content is based entirely on weblogs.
- BearShare
(screenshot): You can view what other people are search for on the
Gnutella
network via the BearShare client. The list updates
continuously.
The Transition
Obviously the list of tools
above is not complete. There are other tools and other web sites. (Tell
me about them!) I would also argue that the insane growth of
weblogs is part of the voyeur web. The interesting thing to note is
that technology is simply helping people to watch and understand other
people.
The next step is the semantic
web. I'll avoid a big discussion on this topic except to say that the
semantic web is about having machines talk to machines. Of course, this
directly relates to web services. The point is that we are in a
transitional period right now. Machines do talk to machines, and machines
do watch each other. However, this "watching" is not robust and
is not as interesting as the current voyeur web which is a messy
combination of humans and machines. We use machines to do things that
make us human.
It won't be long before a lot
more of the communication on the web is strictly between machines (or
software). Just take a look at personal bots and spiders. The trend, as
usual, is to eliminate humans from the equation. Machines can talk to
machines, and watch each other, much more efficiently than we can watch
each other.
This could be liberating. It
could allow us allow more time to focus on what we want to focus on.
Perhaps we can spend less time searching for information and more time
producing and consuming information. Humans aren't going away...yet.
Instead, over time more and more technology will replace the mental grunt
work that we hate to do. For example, few people enjoy searching. It is
tough! Even with Google, searching for information on the web is painful.
Most people are waiting to get away from such dumb searching. Most people
want the information to just show up magically, based on past behavior,
preferences, and word of mouth. I believe this is why people like buddy
lists. They are personal and they obviously indicate behavior and
preferences.
For now we are stuck with the
voyeur web. The voyeur web is in flux but it is fun at times. It is a poor
substitute for machine to machine communication. Once machines robustly
talk to each other, our ability to communicate with each -- human to human
-- will improve even more. Most people don't realize that the
transition has already begun.
Comments?
Please send them to me: john@webword.com
I want to know what you think about this article.
What next?
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