TechWag

In going through the Autobytel press release and the flurry that surrounded it in that users oh my goodness are suffering from the dreaded “Search Engine Fatigue” there are some really important things missing from this whole news dump. What we don’t see, and what we don’t get should make us doubt the validity of what the data really represents, and what kind of spin has been put on it.

First things first, we don’t know what search engines were used, were they talking about the three majors, Google, yahoo and MSN/Live? Or were they talking about Ms. Dewy and the smaller search engines.

Then what we don’t know is the relative age of the sampling poll except in one case where people would love the search engine to pull information out of our heads as a context marker. The good part is that Microsoft is working on just that one thing, so we might not have to wait that long for that to happen. There is something elegant about the human machine interface once we remove the keyboard and the mouse. Although Luddites everywhere should resent that one, and this ought to set up raging debates on exactly what that kind of context should look like, and for how long it should be stored. The reality is that we don’t know what the actual sample was looking like. We know that it was a small group of people, but where they trailer trash, or were they over educated PHD’s?

The most interesting bit is that we are using information in a press release to sell a new product from Autobytel. Of course they are going to spin this puppy, and then show in the press release how their new product is going to solve all these kinds of problems. But not in general, only for people who are car fans. Using their spanking new web site myride.com that promises salvation for all the evil that the search engines put us through.

While search engine land at least mentioned where the information came from, if you go to the sources web site, the people who actually ran the survey, there is nothing available. Can not be purchased, can not find anything else about it. Since we are working with a spun press release, there has to be some kind of thinking here, and while “73% of Americans suffer from search engine fatigue” sounds good, it is a press release, no one that we can find has actually seen the actual survey to see if actually contained valid points, or if it was a carefully selected group of people who are over 90 and under 4 for the final results.

Nice try, but once you starting digging into the story, there are too many questions about the whole thing. Makes a great headline, but without the survey, without finding out exactly who was polled, age, education, time on the Internet, and how smart they are, it is a press release that people made some serious hay out of, but in the end point is meant to sell a service. Not anything that could be remotely deemed critical, it is a press release.

Tags: education, technology, Politics //