Visual Search a Design Nightmare

With visual search engines like Redzee appearing on the horizon, the nature of search will be changed. Right now, in regular search results, your site is represented as text consisting of the same alphabet as everyone else. Searchers have to read the description of your site to figure out if they would like to go there. By contrast, a visual search displays a screenshot of the resulting sites, giving the impression that you can tell which sites are better by looking at an image of the site that is reduced to 35% of it’s original size. It is true that if you had been to a site before, but couldn’t remember the exact URL and didn’t bookmark it, you would be able to pick it out easier and faster than a regular search.

But visual search is a marketing bonanza that will be a design nightmare. Design changes will be requested to make the screenshot look more appealing at a reduced size. Pages will take on a more ad-like appearance, since getting people to look at your page is a desired effect, and just placing in the results will get eyes on your site. And if the screenshot is done in a certain manner, just ranking will get your advertising seen.

And how long will it take before pages are optimized to rank for a popular query just to splash spam in your face while you search? The problem is that an image is whatever you tell the machine it is. If you have an image of your product or service and tag it as ‘free ip tv’ then the machine has no recourse than to resort to your designation of what that image is. This is one reason why I don’t trust it when any search engine says they are p*rn free. As long as the machines cannot tell that they are being lied to, people will lie to them.

Doo Yoo Moo?

 Nowadays all you really need on your business card is your url, hence the “mini” business card.  Okay, I made that up.  ;)

Moo makes mini business cards, postcards and even stickerbooks with your images.   And not just one image on all of them – but as many images as there are items.  So if you buy 20 mini cards, you can use as many as 20 different images. 

Wouldn’t it be fun to exchange and collect custom postcards or mini business cards with online friends?  I can see it now…every blog having their own unique cards, the “Doo yoo moo?” logo on blogs that participate in the exchanges as well as on social networking sites.  Hey, this could be the next big thing.  No, really.

Barbie Virtual World

The battle is forcing some serious innovations from Mattel.  With the launch of Barbie Girls Beta, comes fantastic clothes, funky furniture, and everything comes in pink.  Much less slick than Disney XD, but way more interactive, get your character dressed and ready because she has an apartment to decorate, clothes to buy, pets to adopt, and B bucks to earn and spend.  The mall has a lot more ways to spend your B bucks, but I’ll let you check it out for yourself.  There’s a chat and friend feature, too, which I believe is going to be moderated quite heavily.  I will have to look more into that.  The registration process is simple enough, and your home screen comes complete with a button to send your parents a reminder to get you the flash-drive-in-the-shape-of-a-doll that goes with it.  Thanks, Mattel.  But the one good thing I see coming from this is it might get girls who would otherwise shun a computer as ‘too much science’ into technology.

Online Magazines – no perfume samples?

Clothes, hair, make-up, accessories;   a human woman is an excellent canvas for art.  

Check out these online mags - don’t forget to check your volume (there’s sound) and run the mouse over the pages for additional surprises!

The Internet is a close runner-up for my choice of art medium.   Wouldn’t you know there’d be a fix for all my addictions?  Check out netinspirationan online mag for web designers. 

It isn’t often that I find the end of the rainbow twice in one day.

Thanks Mark!