The single greatest strength of the internet is that it can be searched. Back in the day, long before Google, when Yahoo! was the biggest game in town and everyone was all hip about web portals, most people got around by merely clicking on links. Searching capability was practically a secondary focus. Then along came Google and a new internet paradigm. Search killed the old portals.
Search continues to be a huge focus, and it likely always will. The ability to search and find what you want, no matter the subject, has obvious advantages. However, I think it’s time to temporarily put search on the back burner so another aspect of search, long ignored, can be brought to maturity.
Filters.
When I perform a Google search, too often I get results for websites I find completely useless. Shopping.com, nextag.com, thomasnet.com, and many others. To me, they’re search result spam. I’ve never found these sites to be helpful. Some people might, but I don’t. I’d like to be able to exclude them – easily! – from my search results. eBay is another site I’d like to be able to exclude from my search results, but for a different reason; While I do shop on eBay once in a while, I do so quite intentionally. When I want to look for something on eBay, I search on their site, not through a search engine like Google. Being able to exclude eBay from my search results would be helpful.
The same goes for subscriptions, whether it’s subscribing to an RSS feed, following someone on Twitter, or customizing the layout on Google News. In each case, there are some things I have no desire to see.
Let’s take news first. When I’m looking at news online, whether it’s my local newspaper’s website or Google News, there are certain subjects I find (I’ll be polite) completely uninteresting. Tiger Woods. The Gosselins. Twilight. Why can’t I block these ‘news’ stories?
I use Twitter fairly heavily. I also use the silly location-based game Foursquare. That said, I don’t publish my Foursquare updates to Twitter. Even if I know you personally, I really don’t want to see your Foursquare updates within Twitter. Why can’t I block them?
RSS readers like Google Reader and Bloglines allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds and share items – but not block certain topics within those subscriptions. Why?
The internet wouldn’t work if not for search, but it’s long past time for filters to become as ubiquitous as search has become.