Subject: The Freshmeat Effect

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 05:16:31 +0200 (IST)

Most of you are probably familiar with the Slashdot Effect. However, I
recently noticed another important effect which I call the Freshmeat
Effect. I'll try to describe it here.

The Freshmeat Effect is examplified that if a project constantly appears
on the Freshmeat front-page, it eventually starts to clog the results of
various search engines, especially Freshmeat. I noticed this phenomenon
with my own program - Freecell Solver. Searching for "Freecell Solver" on
Google yields 9 out of the 10 first results as those that are directly
relevant to it. (and the tenth is something I can't quite understand).
Moreover, the other links in this search category are usually relevant to
it.

Note that the query "freecell solver" is quite generic and someone may use
it to search for any computerized (or human) solver of Freecell, not
necessarily my own. But they'll have a hard time finding such relevant
URLs. And FYI, there are several other computer solvers in existence,
some of them much older than my own. (AAMOF, some university courses
require the students to write one)

Of course, there are other places where the Freshmeat Effect becomes
apparent, even if the relevant entity has never appeared on Freshmeat
itself.

I don't think the Freshmeat effect is entirely negative or entirely
positive. It's just there, and until there are going to be "better" search
engines than Google, I suggest people to "release early, release often"
and naturally, "do it yourself, because nobody else will do it for you".

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

There is no IGLU Cabal!
Somebody started out the Interactive Glue for Lightweight Usability
(or IGLU for short) project and constantly posted announcements about its
releases to Freshmeat. The rest is history.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked]
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

If:
1. A is A
2. A is not not-A
does it imply that
1. B is B
2. B is not not-B

---

From: Tzafrir Cohen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 06:47:20 +0200 (IST)

On Fri, 16 Nov 2001, Shlomi Fish wrote:

> some of them much olderthan my own. (AAMOF, some university courses

For google the age is not very relevant (the index gets updated once a
month or so, right?), but it matters where they are pointed from. I figure
that your program/library is linked-to from various sites, not only
freshmeat.

> apparent, even if the relevant entity has never appeared on Freshmeat

I haven't noticed this with Freshmeat before, but this is typical to the
way google works: freashmeat is probably a very trustworthy source (=
pointed to by many other trustworthy pages), with tons of internal links
(is that relevant).

In a way, google can be used here as a "meta-search engine", by indexing
fixed results of some known searches.

Have you tried comparing google to other search engines?

Another example:

Try adding the "keyword" rpm to some search regarding a certain linux
software, and you'll end up with entries from various rpmfind databases.
Again, those are "good" sources for google.

> and naturally, "do it yourself, because nobody else will do it for you".

Of course, you should not abuse it and update freshemat with every small
bug you fix as a new version. Eventually freshmeat will stop taking your
entries...

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:[email-masked]
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir