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Lois's Six Laws of Internet Research by Lois C. Ambash
1. Surf Before You Search. Surfing, by my definition, means meandering through cyberspace without having a definite goal in mind. Searching, on the other hand, means making a determined effort to locate specific information. Surfing before you search is a strategy for getting to know what sites contain information of interest to you and how compatible the sites are with your own preferences. For example, if you are interested in sites that provide information about health and medicine, you might visit three or four sites and look for information on a particular disease or condition. As you visit each site, pay attention to how easy it is to find what you're looking for. Ask yourself how comfortable you are with the level of detail, the illustrations, the use of sound and animation, and other characteristics of the site. This exercise will serve at least two purposes: First, it offers clues to the way you like to receive and process online information. Second, in all likelihood, by the time you are through, you will have identified at least one source to return to the next time you need information on a medical topic. 2. Not All Sources Are Created Equal Just as with books, magazines, and newspapers, online sources of information vary in quality, accuracy, depth, reputation, and trustworthiness. Here are a few suggestions for evaluating sites to decide how much faith you can place in them:
3. A Search Engine Is Not Always the Best Place to Start A search engine is a software program designed to find web pages that contain words, names, or phrases called keywords specified by the user. You initiate a query by typing in keywords. The search engine scans millions of web pages words and, within seconds, returns a list of pages containing your keywords. This description may make search engines sound like very efficient tools for finding the information you're looking for. Often, however, they are highly inefficient. Here's why:
Despite these limitations, search engines can be highly useful tools, especially when you are looking for information that is distinctive and can be stated in very specific terms. It helps to remember that a search engine is not a library catalog, which uses meaningful labels assigned by humans to generate a list of results. A search engine compares strings of letter and numbers and uses a complex set of rules to produce and sort a list, without regard to what the letters and numbers actually mean. When you think about search engines in these terms, you'll understand why it is often more efficient to go directly to a subject-specific site or to use a resource such as the Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org), which has examined, annotated, and categorized an extensive variety of sites. That way, your search will be more targeted and you're likely to have more success. 4. E-Mail is the True "Killer App" The "killer app" is the holy grail of software developers: a software application so superior that it will entice huge numbers of people to invest in the hardware needed to use it. Judging by the fact that the overwhelming majority of wired Americans use their computers to send and receive e-mail, it's fair to say that e-mail is the true killer app. E-mail is much more than just a way to communicate with your co-workers, friends, and family. From the perspective of Internet research, e-mail is an unsurpassed way to keep current in areas of interest to you. There are thousands of free e-mail newsletters (also known as "e-letters" or "zines") published each day, on topics ranging from the most popular TV shows to the most arcane academic specialties to the narrowest industry niches. Most are easy to subscribe to and just as easy to unsubscribe from if you find that they don't meet your needs. And if your inbox is feeling overstuffed, not to worry: you don't have to read every issue of every e-letter that comes your way. Not even Metaforix Mail, the e-letter I publish myself. The e-letters I subscribe to keep me up to date in areas related to my work and to my clients' businesses. When I find an especially interesting article, I may save it for future reference, forward it to someone I think will appreciate it, initiate an e-mail correspondence with the author, or extract a useful data nugget to enliven my writing or speaking. Most important, scanning a variety of e-letters on a regular basis builds a kind of subliminal backdrop of facts and ideas. When the time is ripe, they coalesce in unexpected, creative ways. 5. There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch A staggering proportion of the information available on line is offered free of charge. It's true that as Internet business models evolve, we can expect to find less free content, more subscription-based services, and more information available for download at nominal fees. Nevertheless, there will still be a considerable amount of information offered without a fee. Just because there's no fee, however, doesn't make the information truly free. What's the trade-off? Call it information barter or call it invasion of privacy, it's about telling marketers more than you might choose to have them know. Many useful sources limit or block access if the visitor refuses to provide personal information of varying degrees of intrusiveness and specificity. Many sites require your browser to accept "cookies," pieces of code that allow marketers to track your travels through cyberspace. The need to provide personal data acts as a greater or lesser deterrent to information-seekers, depending on their feelings about privacy. Not whether privacy is a good thing - most people believe it is - but how much privacy we have to begin with. Almost all businesses in the US, online and off, engage in some form of data mining, In other words, they collect information about customers and potential customers for future use. Sometimes they just use the information to market products or services to you over time. Often, they sell the information to list brokers or to other merchants. That's why most of us receive so many catalogs and promotional pieces from companies we have never done business with and may never have heard of. In my view, the Internet's impact on privacy is one of scale, not of kind. Marketers are able to collect more data and aggregate and use it faster than before, but the concept is just about the same as ever. So I'm willing to provide most of the kinds of data web sites request in exchange for information that is valuable to me. You may feel differently, and therefore behave differently. The important thing is to recognize that only a few sites dispense information solely as a public service. In the vast majority of cases, there truly ain't no such thing as a free lunch. 6. The Internet and Information Technologies Are Changing As You Read This I've stood by my first five laws for a couple of years now. In recent months, though, as I've listened to people's questions about the Web, I seem to hear an underlying assumption, or perhaps a wish: "Once I learn the rules, I'll be able to use the Internet well enough for my purposes. If my needs don't change much, I'll be all set." That's why I have added this sixth law. In the Information Age, where we find ourselves for good or ill, most aspects of our environment are changing continuously and rapidly. New technologies are emerging: smaller, faster, smarter, more powerful, more portable. New and older technologies are converging: soon, your cell phone, your laptop, your PDA, and your TV will all be talking to one another. Especially in the wake of the dotcom "correction," Internet and more traditional business models are changing. More people are logging on, shopping and even buying, managing their finances and healthcare, uploading family photos and downloading music. An Internet presence is rapidly becoming an expected business tool, like a phone system or a fax line. More businesses are adopting a "clicks and mortar" model, reaching customers in real space and in cyberspace. The demographics of the Internet, in the US and around the world, are changing in ways we can hardly ignore. The "digital divide" between the economically disadvantaged and the more affluent is slowly diminishing. Fewer Web pages are in English, more sites are aimed at international audiences, culturally competent communication is becoming an increasingly important skill. More companies are recognizing the special power of the Internet for people with disabilities and are adapting their sites accordingly. As the Internet continues to incorporate itself into our way of life, both its upsides and downsides become more apparent. Hacking, identity theft, security breaches, and unauthorized information-sharing have sparked demands for government regulation and, conversely, efforts to fend off regulation by means of self-policing. Privacy, security management, and computer forensics are touted as growth industries. Chief Privacy Officers and Chief Ethics Officers are increasingly common in the ranks of senior executives. In short, the Internet is a metaphor for what is happening in the workplace and in society at large: rapid technological change, diversity, globalization, the information explosion, and the ongoing need for people and organizations to reinvent themselves. (c) 2001 Lois C. Ambash, Metaforix Incorporated. All rights reserved. Also Read: Online
Medical Information: Good for Your Health? Home | True
Stories Copyright 2002 2Young2Retire.com, All Rights Reserved
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Lois C. Ambash
is President and Chief Infomaven of Metaforix Incorporated, whose mission is to help
individuals and organizations respond to the challenges of the Information Age. A guiding
principle of her work is that people and organizations can discover within themselves
solutions to the challenges they face, if they ask the right kinds of questions. Lois
holds a Ph.D. in American Culture and Writing from The Union Institute, along with
Master’s degrees in Public Policy and Library/Information Science and a Bachelor's
degree in English. Before she founded Metaforix, Lois spent over 20 years in public higher
education, where she created and managed a variety of educational programs geared
specifically for adult learners. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Internet
Healthcare Coalition and an advisory board member of MyDoc.com, "the first
fully-integrated, 24-hour online healthcare service," and speaks frequently at
professional conferences and meetings around the country. Metaforix Mail is Lois’s
free weekly e-letter on information- and Internet-related topics. To subscribe, e-mail: