# Why access to a billion presentations isn’t helping me! - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/12/16/why-access-billion-presentations-isn039t-helping-me/ - Published: 2008-12-16T18:52:42+00:00 - Author: Guest Blogger I’m now officially tired. My Nan used to tell me that I would get square eyes if I stared at the TV screen for too long. I can’t imagine what she would think of our obsession with screens on everything today. I’m tired because I’ve been searching for some precedents to support a theory I’m trying to develop. A friend recommended [slide share](http://www.slideshare.net) some time ago but I hadn’t really had the occasion to review it in any depth until this afternoon.  Wow! For the uninitiated, it is a web-based community portal onto which any member can upload presentations. Generally it is more work focused that social so automatically presents a useful filter which simply doesn’t exist on You Tube or Facebook. ## Advertisement However, having said it is better, that doesn’t mean it is easy to find anything! After three hours, I’ve given up and will revert back to using my own imagination coupled with a sense check from a few valued colleagues. I did wonder about the scale of the site though so tried to find out how many presentations are actually uploaded. I failed in this as well as the in-built search engine seems to stop categorising after the first 5,000!  There are hundreds of categories and countless community groups set up by users, all supposed to make finding something useful or fun easier. So what’s the issue, I hear you cry.  Well, I wonder how long it will be before there is so much information available on such communities that we stop using them altogether because life is too short. We do have a precedent for this kind of growth in the form of search engines.  I can’t remember the last time I used Google or Yahoo or MSN search and wasn’t bombarded with tons of useless ‘white noise’.  We’ve all seen the sponsored search returns which simply insert your search phrase into the advert wording! Things have got better recently but this is mostly due to heavy pressure being applied by advertisers, media agencies and [SEO specialists](https://www.whitehat-seo.co.uk/). Facebook, slide share and other social media don’t have these pressures yet and I am prepared to suggest that a significant proportion of society (admittedly I’m talking about the UK predominantly) will simply switch off. I wonder if social media will be the gym of the next decade? IE; loads of people joining with the best of intentions and then realising over time that it’s not really for them, leaving only the truly committed to enjoy more time on the cross-trainer! * **[YouTube launches free in-video clickable ads for UK and US non-profit partners](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/03/29/youtube-launches-free-invideo-clickable-ads-uk-and-us-nonprofit-partners/)**( 29 March 2009) * **[List of social media sites’ “for good” programmes for charities/nonprofits](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/06/26/list-social-media-sites039-quotfor-goodquot-programmes-charitiesnonprofits/)**( 26 June 2009) * **[YouTube – making it simple for biz and charity](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/08/30/youtube-making-it-simple-biz-and-charity/)**( 30 August 2009) ![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader- 2x.gif) ## Comments ### By: KeithGrinsted - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/12/16/why-access-billion-presentations-isn039t-helping-me/#comment-3452 - Published: 2008-12-17T12:48:56+00:00 If you are searching for stuff that may be in a PowerPoint then add .ppt after your search criteria. Equally if you are looking for data or a membership list or something similar add. xls after. You’ll be surprised how much stuff people have uploaded that you would not otherwise get to through the links on their websites! Keith Grinsted 07841 312711 [kgrinsted@premiercontact.co.uk](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/12/16/why-access-billion-presentations-isn039t-helping-me/kgrinsted@premiercontact.co.uk#comment-3452) Premier Contact Ltd …making your voice heard! [Follow me on Twitter – **keithgrinsted**](http://twitter.com/keithgrinsted) [http://www.premiercontact.co.uk](http://www.premiercontact.co.uk) ### By: admin - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/12/16/why-access-billion-presentations-isn039t-helping-me/#comment-3453 - Published: 2008-12-17T16:00:55+00:00 Well, that’s what I read in various tech/new media magazines at any rate. I think there’s something to that argument. We are all inundated with information and use various ways of sifting through it to find what we need, or think we need. I rather like the idea of returning to trusted personal networks of friends, family and colleagues who have some idea of what I’m interested in or need to know about. In the past it would involve posting me a newspaper cutting or mentioning the item at the dinner table. Now, social media in all its forms can be the medium that helps achieve this. The other development that might support this is the increasing personalisation of search. A more technical approach but one that Google and co are well advanced in developing. In other words, a search engine gets to track what you search for and which results you click on to help fine tune the kind of results it will deliver in future. Both approaches – the human and the technological – are going to have their weaknesses, so I hope I would end up using both of them, but differently. Will all other people use social media? Certainly not. But I suspect a growing number will, whether they’re aware that’s what they’re doing or not. It will just be “the web” to them. So, I don’t think social media is a fad. I think it offers some very useful tools to help us steer through the information overload that is our everyday existence.