A mind meld for search engine fatigue


Vulcan Mind Meld / Paramount Pictures or CBS Paramount Television

I can already see the adsfrom some big pharma house, like those restless leg syndrome ads, to solve this problem:

7 out of 10 Americans experience what the report describes as “search engine fatigue.”

That’s from Greg Sterling’s analysis of a recent report on user’s frustrations with search. It seems the frustration revolves around information clutter (too many results and/or off-topic) and commercialization.

When asked to name their #1 complaint about the process, 25 percent cited a deluge of results, 24 percent cited a predominance of commercial (paid) listings, 18.8 percent blamed the search engine’s inability to understand their keywords (forcing them to try again), and 18.6 percent were most frustrated by disorganized/random results.

Many see the cure not in a miracle drug,  however, but in some sort of telepathic search engine. And it’s interesting that seemingly the same uses who get bent out of shape over cookies and privacy issues on the Web, would happily do a Vulcan Mind Meld with Google:

Kelton asked survey respondents whether they wished that search engines like Google could, in effect, read their minds, delivering the results they were actually looking for. . . That capability is something that 78 percent of all survey-takers “wished” for, including 86.2 percent of 18-34 year-olds and 85 percent of those under 18.

I guess they didn’t ask it this way: Would like you all your private information and habits to be on the Internet and  controlled by one of the world’s largest corporations, which intends to use your information to sell billions of dollars of advertising to help marketers part you from your cash?

I thought not. At least they were “helpful.”

Remember, there’s a reason the Vulcan mind meld works one way.

(Photo is from Paramount Pictures or CBS Paramount Television and is Vulcan mind meld performed by Spock on Dr. Simon Van Gelder.)