[Sigia-l] Google's new home page

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 15:48 -0800, martin.fietkiewicz at gmail.com wrote:
> here is some recent insight into the level of non-expertness of *some*
> online users:
> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php
> 
> the article itself is interesting, but it's the *comment* thread that's
> illuminating.  while no doubt some posters are just being facetious and
> fuelling the fire, most seem to have genuine trouble telling apart "a
> facebook" from "a website".  purportedly this is because this article is
> currently in the top 5 hits on google when searching for some combination of
> words: "facebook" and "login".
> 

This (along with the recent "What is a browser?" video) is fascinating. 

But what's perhaps *even more* thought-provoking, is that while an
apparently large number of people are being tripped up by their own
mental models of how the machinery of the web works, they are clearly
NOT confused with the details of the way Facebook itself works. At
least, if they were, I would presume they wouldn't sing its praises so
highly here. 

FB isn't, I would suggest, an easy system to understand. It's full of
vague concepts, tricky public/private chicanery, unique and regularly
changing conventions and concepts. When I consider that I sometimes have
problems using FB myself, this indicates it may not follow that what I
sometimes class as "naive" Internet behaviour (like using Google as some
kind of bookmark repository) has anything to do with the level of
sophistication in the use of UIs in general. 

Who am I to say that the people on the readwriteweb.com thread might
also be avid Google Wave users, or have become adept in the use of
Azureus (which, incidentally, fairly makes me cry)? Put that in your
persona and smoke it.

Jonathan