PreFound and Silicon Holler Welcomes Search Engine Lowdown
(map courtesy of Jon Revill)

Silicon Holler welcomed me with open arms last night and I've been boning up for the online communities into pure search conversation by finally reading Battelle's The Search. I... LIKE IT!!

I've been scribbling all over it as I read and look forward to passing it next to my buddy Adam Schultz, who will add his own thoughts in the margins in a different color (I called him last night when the plane landed to tell him how much I liked the book so far, and more importantly that it contained the phrase "f--- you money", which we've been somewhat obsessing over of late ;)

Most importantly though the book's giving me a foundation in the roots of search, which I really hadn't mapped out well for myself... I started learning the industry in about 2002 (yes... BEFORE Yahoo decided to build its own search engine...), but mostly from the marketing perspective. His book so far has really helped in my overall historical understanding of search development.

I'm excited too because there are so many important people that I've got to learn so much more about. When I find someone important to research I write their name in the front of the book.

Right now I have (with stars):
Louis Monier
Gary Flake
Bill Gross
(without stars:)
Gerard Salton
Andrei Broder
Vinod Kholsa
Jon Kleinberg

And I'm only 100 pages in! It's really a blast and I'm glad I finally started reading it.

As far as today's writing agenda...
I'm going to do a sort of overview of social search post, which will follow a post I'm writing for Loren Baker on PreFound... (for which I hope to interview Steve Mansfield for a minute, if I can get him on the line ;)

Also, I will NOT be checking bloglines today, though I will suffer search industry news withdrawals. Pray for me.

Also of note, PreFound's encouraging its social search members to post more finds and invite more to join its search community with the “Triple Crown Challenge” Race to the Finish; Grand Prize Winner Receives 60 GB Video iPOD.

I'm dubious about prizes to encourage people to participate in your community though... a community site's rewards for participation must be the participation itself... MySpace for example does not reward me when I make new friends or post blog posts or leave comments on my friends' pages. The participation is a reward in itself.

That said, if you're in the PreFound community already get your upload on so you can win that iPod :)

PS: I'm strongly considering getting "Silicon Holler" tattoed on my abdomen in gothic script. To match my KY tattoo on my bicep. Now THAT would be badass ;) (Jason Dowdell, who I just chatted with on the phone, suggested that I try "Silicon Holler" in henna first. This may be because the KY tattoo I got is from the KY state ouline from the "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky" shirt he and his wife got me a couple xmases ago ;)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |