Buried as irrelevant
I’m a perpetual reader of xkcd. For those poor souls who aren’t aware, it’s a webcomic that has an immense following. Not only is it insightful into web culture, it has it’s own coherent effects. An example can be found by undertaking some research into xkcd’s post ‘In Popular Culture‘, which resulted in mass edits of wikipedia by xkcd fans, and a flurry of debate and retrovision by wikipedia admins.
Reading today’s xkcd popped a thought into my brain. The ‘alt-text’ (see below for an explanation of the jargon) on the comic referred to the glut of … “enhancement”… remedies peddled on the web. What if, in other situations, there really were phenomenal deals out there? Nigerian 419 scams that actually were real? Products and inventions that could solve the world’s problems, but are drowned out by the noise and spam of herbal remedies and get-rich-quick schemes.
How do we get through the noise to uncover the gems, which usually have much less promotional power than the hordes of spam zombies and schemes, to actually make them noticable? Get people to treat them as relevant?
It’s a thought.
(FYI – all xkcd comics have an ‘alt-text’ that pops up when you mouse over them. That’s what I refer to.)
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