October 9, 2002

And here’s why I love Google News: Three articles about the same event, all offering fascinating perspectives. The event in question is Tom Petty’s new album, “The Last DJ,” which laments the current state of radio.

…meanwhile, from an article about the Franfurt Book Fair, an unfortunate typo:

“Yet the picture is not all bleak. Some sectors are booming, notably the comics division, which has nearly tripled in size since being launched in 2000, with 86 exhibitors this year and highlighting cartoon novels from Japan, known as magnas, the most popular comics worldwide.”

Ouch.

Brennen has a little rant about doing “real research.” It got me wondering: What is “real research?”

I’m pretty much convinced that real research, as practiced by professionals, is just as haphazard as the research we all do when looking into any new subject of interest. I think that a lot of researchers type their search into Google. Sure, they may have access to trade publications, and they can do more research than that — library card-catalog searches, for example — but even that is awfully random (“What do you mean there’s no listing for Dune?”). I don’t know why I think this, but I’m pretty sure it’s accurate.

How else can you do research?

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