Sep 27
Journalists still falling for Blinkx hype
The Guardian’s media section publishes its Buzz 30 list, today. I hate these things: a few bored hacks do their best to fill a couple of spare column inches with their prediction of what people will consider cool, or hot … erm.
Blinkx, predictably, makes it to the list. The Guardian describes it as:
Dubbed the internet’s “first intelligent search engine”, Blinkx not only searches the web but also news sites, emails, attachments, blogs and your own hard disk. Unlike Google, it also uses artificial intelligence to rate stories, not page rankings. Only three months old, Blinkx has made quite a splash.
This is a perfect example of the crap that makes up these filler “what’s cool” columns. It’s no wonder that one of Blinkx’s founders is a PR expert. Like just about every mainstream hack writing about Blinkx, The Guardian reproduces the Blinkx PR line almost verbatim. I love the reference to “articial intelligence”; ladies and gentleman, I present to you ye magikale arteefishal intelleegence! The only place Blinkx has made a splash is amongst ill-informed, mainstream journalists who are desperate to scoop the Next-Big-Thing.
Why do I dislike Blinkx? Well, here are the first three reasons that occur to me: it relies heavily on Google, throws up poor results and doesn’t fit in with the pro-active way in which people use the web. But if that was all, I’d just ignore it. What I dislike most is the hype surrounding it and the unthinking, lazy press coverage it’s received.
Well done to the Blinkx PR team. If only you’d put as much effort into your product.
September 30th, 2004 at 2:51 pm
It’s not only blinkx that has been getting all the column inches, Amazon, MSN, google all getting in on the ’search revolution’act. I agree that too much press can have a negative effect, but I actually find blinkx really useful. Something that searches all of my MP3’s, web, document and files etc is fantastic. I don’t think they have got it right yet, web results are not great as you say, but it’s early days. I just like the idea of the smaller companies coming up with something like this - rather than the yahoo and googles of this world. I wish them luck.
October 4th, 2004 at 12:08 pm
over hyped - perhaps, I installed it after an article in the UK press as I’m sure many others did - but I’ve got to say, I like it. It doesn’t replace Google, which I will continue to use for quick searches, but it’s useful and quick on local documents and email. Most ‘next big things’ are never heard of again after a few months. I think this will. I don’t think it will continue to get such a huge amount of press, it will just get used by more and more people. I guess time will tell.
October 4th, 2004 at 1:36 pm
Think you guys are right. Whereas I agree with Matthew that ‘What is hot’ lists are usually rubbish, I think Blinkx is something that more people should hear about and why not through a ‘mainstream’ article in the Guardian? Also, Blinkx is constantly improving- have you tested the latest version Matthew? The whole point of Blinkx still being in the Beta version is to get people to try it, so the developers can make it better- and yes, that might be more difficult than generating media coverage, but I’m convinced they’ll get there in the end!
November 10th, 2004 at 7:35 pm
Well I have to say I disagree. Have found it a very useful aid so far and I think they have a far superior product to anything else I’ve seen around with a much wider range of functionality. The likes of Copernic, X1 and Puffin leave a lot to be desired.