Google Health...

...is coming. And you thought the privacy issues of using Google were bad now. (Via John Battelle.)

Blogs 2.0

This is the kind of stuff that John Battelle is best at:

A brief dip into nearly every blogger's referral logs shows that a very large percentage of readers - nearly 40 percent in some cases - come directly from search - someone who put "steve ballmer throws chair" into Google, for example, and lands here.

Now, this person doesn't have any frame of reference about Searchblog, or its grammar, audience, or ongoing conversation. He or she is most likely to hit the post in question, read it (perhaps), and move on. This site loses a potential new reader, and this community loses a potential new member, because, in the end, I, as the publisher of Searchblog, have done nothing to demonstrate to that reader the wonders and joy that is Searchblog.

Interesting (says someone whose Google referrals are rather higher than 40%.)

Love and the Long March Spirit

John Battelle calls search engines "databases of intentions"; in this respect the top ten lists of queries say a lot about us. Interesting, then, to compare the top Western engine with the leading site for the East - Google vs Baidu.

Here's the Google list for "What?"

1. what is hezbollah
2. what is carisoprodol
3. what is acyclovir
4. what is alprazolam
5. what is tramadol
6. what is ajax
7. what is hydrocodone
8. what is vicodin
9. what is xenical
10. what is xanax

I think we can spot a certain trend here. Meanwhile, here's Baidu's list:

1. What is love?
2. What is the Long March spirit?
3. What is a blog?
4. What is dual-core?
5. What is 3G?
6. What is harmonious society?
7. What are futures? (stocks)
8. What is a trojan horse? (software)
9. What is happiness?
10. What is an ecosystem?

Maybe that's what we need in the West: more people searching for love and the Long March spirit.

Of Metaweblogs and Pigritude

So Federated Media (John Battelle's new gig) has "launched a parenting “metaweblog” (at www.federatedmedia.net/parenting) that highlights the talented voices of the authors in its new Parenting federation."

The metaweblog - basically an aggregation of blog feeds on a given subject - is an inevitable development for blogs as they enter the mainstream. After all, it is hard work going out and finding all the blogs that interest you on a given subject: much easier to subscribe to one handy metaweblog feed and be done with it.

I mean, I ask you: next thing, they'll be asking us to think about what we read.

Why YouTube is Napster 2.0

Being of the older generation, I've never really gone wild over YouTube. But I recognise and salute its cultural importance, because it represents yet another instance of people's innate desire to share. But as this post by fellow old fogey John Battelle points out, YouTube has a big problem: the majority of its content is basically illegal according to current copyright laws.

So here we have a young people's phenomenon that is spreading like wildfire, and that is doomed once the Content Commissariat realise what's going on and decide to get their legal clubs out. In other words, it's Napster 2.0.