Apps Versus Browsers for Content

June 1, 2010

Fred a VC’s “I Prefer Safari to Content Apps On The iPad” triggered some thoughts about search and findability. The main point of the write up is that some content is better when consumed through a browser. The write up identifies a number of reasons, including:

Content as images
Link issues
A page at a time.

There are other reasons and you will want to read them in the original document.

I agree with most of these points, but there is a larger and I think more significant issue standing out of the spotlight. Those who create content as Apps may be making it difficult for a person looking for information to “find” the content. With the surge of interest in charging for “real” journalism or “real” essays, will search engines be able to index the content locked in Apps? The easy answer is, “Sure, you silly goose.”

But what if the publishers balk at playing ball with a Web indexing company? The outfit could be big and threatening like you-know-who in Mountain View or small and just getting its feet wet like Duck Duck Go.

Locked up content creates problems for researchers and restarts the cycle of having to have a bunch of accounts or waiting until an appropriate meta-index becomes available.

Stephen E Arnold, June 1, 2010

Freebie

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Financial, News, Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.