Writing on the wall
Posted by bbc on 07 Jun 2007 | Tagged as: technology, general
It only makes sense, and it’s probably been happening for a while in places I don’t usually visit, but I was still surprised to see the graffiti in the ladies room at the mall across town. Notes, comments, and phone numbers are often scrawled on the walls in places like that – sometimes with witty commentary but more usually with commentary that merely thinks it’s witty. Today was the first time I’ve seen a web site link instead of a phone number.
Without question there are numerous places to “have a good time” on the internet but nobody was posting those addresses on bathroom walls. The social software explosion has brought the personal url into the category of something we hand out to everyone – friends or those who might become friends. So where once I might have scribbled my phone number, now I put the address for my MySpace page and anyone can visit. The other thing about MySpace addresses is that they’re relatively easy to remember and they usually have the person’s name in them. Not like one of those ugly strings of numbers you get on a lot of web sites.
It would be interesting to know how many people come to a web site because of this wall-based kind of anonymous referral. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s data we can collect. The computer doesn’t know it and the person doing the clicking is not pleased to be interrupted by questions about how they came to visit this site.
My desk was behind this column.