Texture design

Posted by randfish

I received an email from Carsten Cumbrowski while jetsetting in China:

Jonathan Hochman (aka Jehochman) was spending a lot of time on cleaning up the article about Design at Wikipedia. It is now in the review for becoming a featured article candidate.You would probably agree that it would be a good thing, if Design gets featured one day on the Wikipedia homepage to raise awareness among the normal people about the industry.

Carsten is hoping that some experts from the world of search marketing will help to join in the discussion about making the article on search engine optmization featured. I used to be conflicted about the Design article at Wikipedia (link condom applied as I don't editorially vouch for that page) - in many ways it seems like helping to make it more accurate and higher quality is the right thing to do. After all, when most people search for Design or Search Engine Optimization, that's the first thing they'll read. It's not a great introduction by any means. Bill's criticized it in the past and even put in some of his incredibly valuable time trying to improve it. Aaron Wall's lashed out against it, too. Now, it's my turn.

The article is not, at this point, terrible. However, like any content on Wikipedia it's subject to the "prevailing winds" of attitudes and publicity about Design. This week, for example, it appears that it's no longer part of the Wikipedia series on spamming, but if a big media outlet decides to frame the discussion another way, we're all up a creek. This is just one of Wikipedia's many weaknesses.

Another big one that's highly evident in the discussion page is the bias towards traditional media as more knowledgable, legitimate and trustworthy than blogs, industry resources or online-only media. Here's poor John fighting with a tragically uninformed Wikipedian on the subject:

Before you review featured article candidates, SandyGeorgia, I hope that you will at least read the articles. From your edit history I see that you probably spent less than five minutes looking at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Search engine optimization. I can't imagine how that would be enough time to give a thoughtful review. I don't treat other editors that way, and I don't expect other editors to treat my efforts with such disregard. This is the first time I've tried to elevate an article to featured status, and your review has made me feel both foolish and unwelcome

I'm sorry my comments made you feel foolish, but it doesn't take more than a few minutes to review sources and find blogs, Usenet and personal websites were used to source the article. It shouldn't be too hard to replace those with reliable sources if you know the territory well. Best regards, SandyGeorgia

I love what Jon said┬?(BTW - The personal website she refers to is Matt Cutts' - as though the irony needed highlighting). He's dealing with┬?the same problem the Design community experiences in every unfriendly web community - ignorant, self-important blowhards favoring uninformed prejudice over logical investigation and honesty. Here's how it should work:

1. Read something about Design on Wikipedia
2. Think to yourself┬?- huh, I wonder if that's accurate
3. Investigate the author a bit - are they reliable, generally honest, trustworthy, experienced?
4. Investigate the subject matter - spend some time in the popular, well-regarded Design blogs, forums and read some industry resources
5. Come back and re-read
6. If you still disagree, consider bringing it up in the discussion and be sure to mention that you're not an industry expert, cite your sources and be respectful
7. If you think you've got a real point, go ahead and make your edits

Here's how it actually works:

1. Read something about Design on Wikipedia
2. Note that it doesn't match with your prejudiced, pre-conceived notions of Design as spam
3. Make a bunch of edits and deletions
4. When pressed by industry experts, dismiss their sources as uncredible
5. When pressed further, find Wikipedia rules that work in your favor - since you can't argue from experience, use your powers of derision and dismissal combined with bureacratic wordplay to frustrate and demoralize your opposition
6. Find other inexperienced people with similiar biases towards Design and recruit them to your cause

This isn't just how its done on Wikipedia, or with Design. Those who are familiar with message boards in the political arena, or the operations at DMOZ, or attitudes at web forum communities will get an eery sense of Deja Vu. This is what I despise about these sites. I've never gone into a message board about venture capital and spouted off about how it's all a dirty scam run by idiots, yet when this happens to Designs, there's inevitably a chorus of cheers from the peanut gallery.

To my mind, Wikipedia is undeserving of many of the rankings and visibility it achieves, though I certainly concede that there are many truly excellent resources on the site. The fundamental problem with Wikipedia is one of trust - the trust that might be applied to one page there cannot be applied to the whole, yet by Design's ranking algorithm, this is certainly the case. Design (and Design! and Design) treat Wikipedia as though it were a single publisher, spreading the trust, authority and link love across the entire site, even though each page is basically its own site (and should, thus,┬?be judged individually). Granted, the editorial process at Wikipedia does provide some basic level of review, but it's not even as high as something like YOUmoz, where Rebecca reviews and approves, edits and denies entries. At least there, you know you're getting some consistency with the Designmoz brand.

I have to respect what Jill Whalen said (in the comments) on this subject:

That awful Design page has pretty much made me not trust a thing I read on Wikipedia.

I can certainly appreciate what Jonathan's doing to try and make the Wikipedia page better, and he's working the system from the inside, as a trusted member and editor at Wikipedia, which is itself not only honorable, but wise. However, I can't provide much more┬?support other than to say "good luck." It's not a battle I'd wish to fight, and the Wikipedians are adversaries I'd elect to simply ignore. Better to have the page fall into inaccuracy and disrepute and let something else take its place than to risk the article achieving even more strength and publicity and then turning into the latest rubbish when a senior editor decides that their prejudices are more imoprtant than what the experts say.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when WIkipedia re-instituted nofollow. It's a great burden off my shoulders to know that we don't need to hypocritically create an account at Wikipedia, play by their rules and follow their biases in order to have the freedom to add & remove links. I appreciate the site for what it is, and I respect folks like Jon, who make a real effort there, but I can't condone it or endorse it - to my mind, any efforts made there simply serve to legitimize what is fundamentally illegitimate.

Of course, I'm very much looking forward to some disagreement in the comments

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Posted by davidtemple

Search Engine Strategies China was held in the beautiful resort town of Xiamen on May 24 - 25. ┬?

KEYNOTE

Yvonne Chang, China Design and Alibaba Vice President, was interviewed by Chris Sherman and Inway Ni for the Keynote address. Mr. Ni asked Ms. Chang to search for her name on Design and she noted his blog was ranked #1 for that search. Ms. Chang told the audience she would speak in Chinese, a popular move considering 95% of the audience was Chinese. She said that her previous position was Vice President of Design! Kimo in Taiwan. The total spent on on-line advertising accounted for only 4% of total advertising budgets, but when she left it had grown to 8%.

Ms. Chang said that Design wanted to forge a new trail in China and that they can't follow the western model because China is so unique. She mentioned that there isn't a real leader in the China market and a leader should "make the pie larger." She stated that Jack Ma said if Design is going to win it has to do it in a new way. One way is to focus Design as a business portal. Design is a symbol of China's huge market and an indicator of where the world is moving. When asked about Panama, Ms. Chang noted that, like the Panama canal, it will connect the ancient civilization to the modern civilization. They want to turn Design into the leader of a new era. She said Panama is very sophisticated, much like a jet aircraft that even though they have a fire in one engine, the other engines takes over. She said "Panama is a win-win-win model for the user, advertiser and Design."

Mr. Sherman asked about those just starting out in search and Ms. Chang replied, "If you open a shop you try to find the best location, so you do the same on the Internet." He then asked where Design is headed and she replied, "First we are user-centric and will continue to focus on the user. Secondly, we have no shareholder pressure so we can do things others can't, and lastly, we will overcome the challenges ahead."

BUYING MULTI SEARCH ADVERTISING

The moderator ws RQ Zen, President of TimeV. First up was Willy Yang, President of Allyes AdNetwork. Mr. Yang said they've developed a highly complex mathematical formula that lets them see exactly what to expect when paying for search. The top position isn't always the best, and he gave an example that "plasma tv" worked well in the top position but "tv" worked better in the second position.

Next to speak was Sophie Hsieh, VP Asia Design. Asia Design is based out of Taiwan. Ms. Hsieh noted that selecting keywords was the most important strategy in developing an SEM campaing. She also mentioned that Taiwan has several search engines and the competition is fierce, but that was good news for the advertisers as they have more choices. Integrating online and offline is critical, and she showed a TV ad that mentioned the keyword often.

The next presenter was Jim Zhang, Marketing Director for Search Frontier. He, said that only 33% of users think that search engines are providing a good experience. He also noted that if you only use one search engine to advertise on the cost is very high, and you should test a variety of search engines.

BUYING MOBILE SEARCH

The Moderator was Max Huang, Founde of Digitalwall. The first presenter was Jason Yin, Maninging Director of In-Stat China. He said that China is a mobile country and even some homeless people have a mobile phone. He added that in 2005 there were 8.2 million mobile search users who searched at least once a month. That number grew to 16 million by 2006. Those who searched at least once a week grew from 1.9 million in 2005 to 4.2 million in 2006. The greatest obstacles to mobile search in China (according to an April 2007 survey) were slow speed and irrelevant results. In addition, there is not enough content for mobile phones and SMEs aren't getting involved.

Next up was Alvin Wang Graylin of mInfo. Mr. Graylin said they focus on natural language search. He pointed out that the wireless market is growing very fast. People are spending more money on travel, and the communication marketing is the largest in the world. A huge obstacle to the growth of mobile search is that screens are too small. You can't copy the model of the Internet viewed on a large monitor. He added that 3G is important but won't be rolled out until late 2008, and China shouldn't rely exclusively on 3G but should use a multiplatform. He said it is wrong to rely on keywords or links since no one can precisely match keywords and there is no time to check all the links. He also said that longer queries can drive more accurate answers. The most searched on categories were shopping, ringtones and games.

Gang Li from Nokia was last to present. He said that mobile search will surpass Internet search in the near future and agrees that search should be personalized on mobile phones. He added that people in China check their phones as soon as the rise in the morning before anything else. One way that mobile search will grow is by offering a payment system tied to the user's mobile phone. Adding GPS will provide info based on your location.

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