Ramanujan Redux

One of the many things that’s amused and alarmed me is how the iPod generation grows and grows.

Not that the iPod is a bad thing. It’s a great study tool, it’s a great mobile music kit, it’s great for workouts, it’s great for alone time, it’s great for college rave parties, or whatever general students enjoy. Pick your spots and it has its uses.

But more and more often…I see more and more people tuning out the world and tuning into their Top 50 mixes. And I wonder why people automatically place those earphones in the moment they walk outside. Is it a way to escape from saying “Hi” to a stranger? Or avoid meeting the greetings of that girl or boy who attracts you across the street? Or just avoiding the relaxing randomness of life and keeping things safe, simple, and boring?

This is what worries me. That a generation with so much promise and hope is going to tune out the world’s problems and focus solely on their own.

Why do people use their iPods so much?

I’ve just been thinking about better ways to brand a site and to get people clicking on linkrolls. Some linkrolls are longer than the number of books an average person reads in their lifetime.

Wouldn’t a logo search service be useful? People respond better to imagery on a page than the name of a site. I don’t know how many people would click on RamanujanRedux if they saw it on someone’s blogroll–they’d likely ignore it.

Internal media networks like Gawker and Rudius have recognizable imagery that define the sites on their system visually (GaijinSmash for the win!). Internally, the sites do well. But for external blogrolls, do people really click on the site after the first time?

Some reasons why logos might work:

1) It shows that you care enough about the site to put the logo trademark on the back.
2) It provides a visual stimulus after glossing your eyes over with gallons of text.
3) A lot of people judge sites on their first reaction. If the logo was displayed alongside the Google search result, it could raise a decent amount of interest.
4) It provides an anchor image to associate with your site, so that your name doesn’t easily get forgotten.

For example, for my Cal football site, would seeing this image on another site’s blogroll you were visiting increase your interest at crossing over to check it out? Because I’m guessing you wouldn’t if it was just the title. Images matter.

Anyway, what I’ve been saying is that it seems clickthrough rates for links outside your network are pretty atrocious. Some sprucing might need to be done to keep raising the bar on ratcheting up the importance of searching for brands and attracting attention at first glance. Make the Internet prettier.

I like del.icio.us for my own purposes–I have easy access to bookmarks, and searching for particular tags helps me find the articles I want. I haven’t yet used it to its maximal ability though (research and reporting).

However, I feel that one of the big issues that keeps del.icio.us from being a huge part of my life is that it’s not easy to find friends and discuss what you find. You can’t set up a profile, you can’t get much further beyond sending links to each other and obtaining each other’s screennames.

In other words, the human connection is missing. And what’s necessary on the Internet is human connection. It’s why in terms of social networking, Facebook and MySpace still remain near the top despite those stupid pirate invites and lousy interfaces–there is more of a human connection there than with del.icio.us. You’re still following a collection of experts unless you decide to trailblaze on your own. Hence your parameters are still limited.

The framework for del.icio.us is still skeletal. Unfortunately, because Yahoo now owns it, I think any hope for future innovation is slim. StumbleUpon is better at helping us meet new people locally, and probably more friendly for the common Internet surfer, plus easier features to connect your friends. At best, del.icio.us is a decent business and research tool, although I can’t shake off the fact that social bookmarking still has a long way to  go.

I have no idea what’s wrong with the background, but I’ll try my best to get it sorted out. If you just want the content you’d be better off subscribing to the feed.

Major posting will resume shortly.