Searching For Everything

“Web users are conducting more searches not because they can’t find what they’re looking for,” said Ken Cassar of Nielsen/NetRatings, “but because search as a utility has become deeply ingrained into people’s everyday lives.”

OMG – how true is that? I was thinking the very same thing this afternoon, before I came upon this article on the BBC’s website.

I am off from work tonight. Steffie (home from college) thought it might be nice if we saw “Thanks For Smoking.” It’s a movie I’ve heard about, but know nothing about.

Enter Google. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before I read a review, watched the trailer and found the show times. And now, based on what I’ve found on the net, we’ll be going to a late show.

The Internet really is the information explosion we expected it to be. And, it seems to be getting better, as more and more people and businesses realize what can be leveraged and (new age word alert) ‘monetized’ with the Internet.

That BBC article went on to say, for every search performed on Google, they make 12&#162! That’s unreal from a business model that didn’t exist a decade ago.

More on the movie itself later.

6 thoughts on “Searching For Everything”

  1. I just got a first hand example of “searching on the web” and it involved your web site.

    I got an email from someone inquiring if I ever got a response to a question I posted on your site back in May of 2005. He did a google search of “the mayor of fogarea”, Dr. Chris and Hosay or Jose, Im not sure which it is, and it came up with a commnent I posted back then on your site.

    Amazing how something you write somewhere on the web is found by anyone doing a google search.

    I just tried the search myself and sure enough, up comes the article you did and my comment.

    By the way, I never did get any information on my question, do you know, whatever happened to the KC101 radio personality Dr. Chris Evans and his “sidekick” the mayor of fogarea?

    And now, this comment will also probably become a permanent record somewhere out there in the world of the net!

    1. Actually is spelt “Hozay” – wondering that myself which is why I came across your comment posted in 2006 …

  2. Yeah – the strangest things bring people to you on the web. I’ve had cases where it looked like I was an expert on a subject (placing high in Google), but only if you misspelled the most important word!

    Geoff Fox

  3. OK guys – it’s now June 2010 and I just found you by Googling “Mayor of Fogarea” also! That was a hard radio schtick to forget! One of my FaceBook friends was asking abut it also.

  4. Yes, and didn’t he also do a routine where he was being chased by giant lobsters and he would scream “Cover yourselves in lemon and butter?”

  5. The WKCI DJ whom Smitty, Kate and Kathy (and who knows how many other intrepid Googlers over the years) were thinking of went by the “radio name” Dr. Chris Evans… and Hozay Smith, the “Mayor of Fogarea,” was voiced by the same guy. His real name is neither Chris nor Jose (“Hozay” was the official spelling, used in WKCI’s advertising back in the day) nor Evans nor Smith, but Jack Camarda. In addition to radio, he’s apparently worked as a college professor, horse trainer and guitar builder.

    (There are other people named Jack Camarda, including an astronaut and an evangelist, but Google Image Search makes it clear they’re three different guys.)

    Incidentally, given the persistence of information on the internet, people who were fans of “Dr. Chris and Hozay” back in the day might want to consider how it would reflect on them, nowadays, to proclaim their fondness for what amounted to an audio-only ventriloquist routine featuring a “dummy” whose name was apparently influenced by ethnic stereotypes…

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