Take off the Blinders! Evaluating Internet Reliability By Naomi Bates Updated October 2006

Let’s first look at three generations of who we’re dealing with – then the what

Baby boomers Born between mid 1940’s to early 1960’s Lived through the Beatles era Are the most powerful members of United States society today politically, culturally and academically Beginning of television, production of the hydrogen bomb, first successful satellite in space, first copy machine created

Generation X Born between early 60’s to late 70’s Lived in a world without AIDS Teen years lived in the early to mid eighties Lived without microwaves and cable television, remembers using a cassette recorder, and purchasing the newest technology – the VCR.

The Millennials Born from the late 1970’s to the present Last generation of people wholly born in the 20 th century Has lived with access to the Internet, cell phones, IM’ing, DVDs, Ipods/mp3, MTV and satellite television

Typical Search Engines

Marketing for Millennials

Newer Types of Search Engines 37. com

Newest type of search engine- Cluster engine

Hybrid engine One major engine that has combined typical searching with clustering effects. Most radically changed search engine since its conception:

Typical Search Keyword: vegetable root Use quotation marks around the words to create a better search!

Problems with searches Football research: Superbowl XXX This occurs within every search engine, including: Google Yahoo MSN

Hits on keyword Roosevelt

Wiki what? What is wiki? Derives from the Hawaiian language meaning : fast

What to Look For: Validity: author, contact information provided, link to author’s homepage Currency: when was the site first created and when last updated? Content: what is depth of information offered? Are there link to other useful/reliable websites? Purpose: Is the site trying to persuade you? Educate you? Market a product? Are there any biases? Accuracy: Citation/credit should be used for all sources mentioned

Another typical search Most people surf through the “Top 20 Results” websites without going further! KEYWORD: AIDS facts

Can you decide?

Other common problems Webpage made by another student, not authority: keyword “medieval clothing” Webpage biased: keyword “holocaust”

Which Websites Can You Trust? Online databases from educational companies can be used as websites or hard copy sources:

Web 2.0 tools Social bookmarks