[Sigia-l] Findability

[Listera]

"Eric Reiss" wrote:

> Personally, I would have ordered from the menu, but those categories make me
> nervous

As, what I'm sure, pure coincidence :-) my news aggregator listed these two
items one after the other today:

NYTimes.com Rolls Out New Job Market Site
In a slight nod to the power of paid search, NYTimes.com rolled out new
advertising units with its new site launch on Monday, giving employers the
option of paying for prominent placement for their listings.
<http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1575581>

and

Yahoo hires Overture search exec
Yahoo confirmed Tuesday that it has hired away an executive from commercial
search company Overture, raising questions about the Web portal's own
paid-search ambitions.
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-982414.html?tag=fd_top>

Are we clearly entering a period where (at even the most-trafficked sites)
search results whether for crème brulee, medical info or a job opening are
massaged not for relevancy/context but for "fundability"?

We have sort of come to expect product placements in movies and on TV,
another exploding practice due to the TiVo-effect. We had ad banners and
some sponsored sites on the web. But 'pollution' of search results hadn't
been so brazenly targeted until recently. Broken trust is a difficult thing
to repair.

Best,

Ziya