"Googlearchy"

                  In chapters 3 and 4 of The Myth of Digital Democracy Hindman talks about googlearchy, and political sites in relation to search engines.The 3 things that define googlearchy are 1. The more links a site has, the more visibility it has. 2. For every group of websites, a small number of them will receive the most traffic. 3. The sites with the most links will continue to acquire more links, while smaller sites will get little to no attention. The third part of googlearchy is what irks me the most, I hate the rich-get-richer theory in any context. This is defined as a power-law distribution, and the web's power law structure is even more concentrated than that of our wealth structure.
                  Hindman speaks of how it is assumed that the internet is a "narrowcasting" medium. Meaning it gives everyone an equal opportunity to have their voice heard. I know this chapter was supposed to convince me of other-wise, but I do believe that. A lot of people aren't on the internet to create another Perez Hilton or Stumbleupon, they're here because they want to enjoy it and have their voice heard by people they know or just people they can relate to. Yes, people to create political blogs and probably dream of having thousands of people see what they have to say every day, but that isn't realistic. There is a lot of valid and genuine content on the web, and of course it isn't fair that all of it doesn't get the attention that it deserves, but I don't understand what he thinks can solve this problem. There are web-sites all over the place telling you how to drive more traffic to your blog, and I'm sure if you fully commit to using those tips you can get somewhere. If people really want to find what they're looking for, then they'll put the time in to use search engines and go through the pages, or just go directly to their favorite websites like tumblr or twitter, and use those search bars. People are accustomed to using search engines quickly and to get an easy answer, but it's not like they don't have the time to put in to find content more suited to what they want. People spend quite a bit of time on the internet...
                 For both of these chapters Hindman is talking about the exposure(Or lack of) of online political websites, so I'll get back to that.. On page 76 he shows a chart of the top 20 searches leading to political websites. Most of these are people trying to get to direct sites, or direct political figures. So these people aren't necessarily looking for new content. People like familiar information outlets, maybe they don't want to see a new blog on their political party. I know this angers Hindman, and he feels as though people are using search engines in an "unsophisticated"way, but there are no rules on what or how to use the internet. People pay for it, they can do what they want with it.
                 He asks if political sites are important, and I would say they are. I think every web-site holds some sort of importance, even if only one person sees it. When a person creates a web-site, all they want is for someone else to see it and like it and be able to relate to it. If you care enough about your web-site getting traffic, you network, tell your friends, and hopefully people like it enough to tell more people or link it on their twitter. You can't just sit around waiting for traffic to happen and blame google for being unjust. I don't think google is perfect, but I just think that if you want something to happen, you have to be proactive about it. When it comes to the Alexa 500 list, obviously google comes out as #1 and that angers some people, and Facebook and Youtube, and yahoo all enjoy their spots in the top 10 and will continue to do so. But hey, even Myspace is still in the top 500...(At #104 at that...what? I literally don't know anyone who still uses Myspace, so where is this traffic coming from? Seriously, mind-boggling.) so I think there is hope for any website to obtain traffic.

Allison Volpe