Facinating Thoughts

How To Get Lost on the Internet May 24, 2011

The Internet can be a weird place. Although you get tremendous boost of productivity out of Internet searching, it can also waste you hours on down when you inadvertently become a wandering sheep on an information prairie. How bad could it be? Let’s take a look at my latest Internet stroll:

12:05pm, I realized one of my gmail addresses is not forwarding emails to correct place. So I opened a new tab on my Chrome browser, intending to login to that gmail address to update the email forwarding information. At the address bar I typed in “gmail”. Instantly a search page returned with a long list of results, having the familiar “Gmail: Email from Google” on top.

However, before clicking on the gmail link, I noticed an interesting headline several lines down on the search page: “Yahoo rolls out new e-mail service”. This is from CNET, which I trusted. I have an old Yahoo email address that I no longer actively send emails from but still receive tons of emails. I set up it to automatically forward any emails received to my main gmail address. Naturally I’m concerned. What are they doing? After several previous Yahoo Mail updates that added nothing but bugs and troubles to me, I have little confidence that this time around things will get better. I clicked on the link.

It turns out Yahoo is aiming on making social media updating easier as well as integrating things such as chat, SMS, etc. into the Yahoo email interface. Interesting I thought. Too bad my gmail already has pretty much everything they are intending to do here. This will likely not to bring me back to Yahoo’s fold. But what are other people thinking about this? I scrolled down to the end of article and into the comment section. “Their mail client WAS awful…”, one person lamented; “Still no full-time SSL”, another reader complained; “Can you now use an e-mail client to make a POP connection without upgrading to a paid account?”, yet another reader dreamed. Nice try. Yahoo would Definitely not to charge anything. Now I suddenly realized that 10 minutes had been passed without my notice. I quickly clicked the back arrow to return to the original search result. With the “Gmail: Email from Google” headline on top, I knew I was up to something with the gmail. But what did I want to do? Which gmail address I wanted to login? I began to scratch head like an idiot. Unable to recall my original intend, I closed the new tab.

I realized what I intended to do as soon as I closed the browser tab. Eager to finish the work, I opened a new tab again. “Player chases foul ball into George W. Bush”. Wow! I looked at the funny image on top of the Yahoo.com’s front page, which is my default. The former president, looked astounded, was sandwiched by one giant baseball player and a frighten red clad lady holding both hands over her head. The prize, which is a baseball, was high in the air and looked dropping into WGB’s lap. “This is amazing”, I told myself. Needless to say I clicked the link and wasted another 5 minutes figuring out details of this lovely encounter.

And I forgot what I was intended to do again!

Google should be mandated to post the following message on top of every search result: “Giant time waster. Use at your own risk!”.

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