The Guardian’s online editor muses on the effects of search engines. Half of its visitors now come via that route – it certainly demonstrates the power of Google.
That wasn’t, however, how I found a Times story: Cow-tipping is harder than it looks, which reminds me of lots of really bad practical jokes from my days as an ag science student. I was still following the “old media” style of going publication by publication. But Google did tell me that the Times story was old hat; Wikipedia was already there.
Nor did I use Google to find a Scientific American piece on the possibility that life on earth originated by panspermia, i.e. was seeded from outer space. That was via Arts and Letters Daily – which was my essential fix when I lived in Bangkok the best part of 10 years ago, meaning the site has lived more than half as long as the internet itself. Sometimes the oldies are still the best.
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