Search: not a time warp

Time is flat on the web today!  If the blog post/web page you’re currently reading doesn’t have a date, you’re stuck using design cues in the hopes of carbon dating what era it came from (flashing text, and animated jpgs?)

Twitter is coming to address some component of this issue, but they still face the same problem as google, delicious, etc.  How to represent time in your search results.

Here’s how I see the issue of “time relevancy”:

 

For example in the “Google Web” category, if I’m looking for advice on how to choose a DSLR Camera (the bigger format digital cameras with swapable lenses) google brings back articles from 2002 and 2003 which no longer applies to todays cameras.  I could go to twitter, but I don’t necessarily need advice on the camera that came out today, those are too expensive!

How do we solved this for everything in between the Way Back Machine and the Real time web?  Do they all need timelines?  Ones that look better than mine….

Comments Posted by evbart on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 6:29 pm.

Filed under Uncategorized.

  • Ripkin
    Totally agree, and it's totally frustrating. To add to this problem is another example I run into a lot.

    I often find myself looking for advice on how to solve little problems I'm having with my computer by running a Google search. Sometimes it works beautifully, and I find a forum entry where the same question was asked and ten people answered it with the correct solution. But if sometimes it doesn't work, and articles or forum posts are more than 18 months old, which means they are probably no longer correct due to software updates and changes in technology.

    For example, yesterday I typed into Google, "Eliminate duplicate photos in iPhoto." I have photos on two computers, imported from multiple sources such as my Canon, my Blackberry, my friends' photo albums on Facebook, Flikr etc. This all leads to many dupes. The most recent article I could find was from 2007, and many of them suggested a freeware download that I couldn't even find anymore.

    The most frustrating is when you find an article, and it's NOT DATED at all. Then you don't have any idea how relevant it is to your question. And you can't tell.

    Bummer Deal
  • That drives me nuts!
    I'm looking for ways to remove duplicate files too! I have been moving my
    mp3s around, and I have dupes everywhere. Why is it so hard to find an app
    that will tell you where the exact dupe files are on your computer?

    Images are next on the list, after I clean up MP3s.

    I tried searching Lifehacker, and I did notice they allow you to sort their
    search results by date, which mildly addresses the issue...
  • Ripkin
    If you use iTunes you can ask iTunes to find dupes. Library >>> Select All >>> File >>> Show Duplicates.

    Then decide if they are the same, or just the same song different album, and you can select the true dupes and delete them from Itunes, which gives you the option to Move them to the Trash as well.

    SOLVED!
  • Unfortunately I'm not using iTunes. I havn't found an alternative yet, but
    I'd love to rid myself of the "i"s. I just switched from iPhoto to picasa
    :-)
    It drives my crazy that all of these apple products want to create copies of
    my files and move them around. Why can't they just watch a directory for
    updates and let me play the songs, or view the pictures in that directory,
    like Picasa!

    I need something that helps me manage the files on my different hard drives,
    not just the songs I've imported
blog comments powered by Disqus