Comments on: Japanese Advertisers Discover Zooko’s Triangle

By: Tell Dodo

Tell Dodo — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:41:55 +0000

Jens - telldodo doesn’t even try to do an intelligent mapping of the URL (or its contents) to the keyphrase. It generates a random key-phrase from a dictionary I carefully created to avoid ambiguities (eg sail vs sale), or it lets the user pick a specific key-phrase. The mnemonicode library sounds intriguing… I’m going to take a look at that. Thanks!

By: Jens Alfke

Jens Alfke — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:18:31 +0000

TellDodo — Clever idea! Are you using Oren Tirosh’s mnemonicode library to do the binary-to-phrase mapping? I use that in an app I’m currently developing, as part of a mechanism to allow people to verify each other’s public cryptographic keys.

By: Tell Dodo

Tell Dodo — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:24:16 +0000

I created telldodo.com to serve exactly this purpose: replace URLs with easy to remember, easy to pronounce, easy to spell UNIQUE keywords. Perhaps I should hook up with someone in Japan to create a Japanese version of telldodo. Let me know if you have an interest in developing this idea…

By: James Klock

James Klock — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:35:21 +0000

When dealing with non-technical people (which I mostly do, these days) I find that I most often pass on websites by saying “Google _____, it’s the first link.” rather than offering the URL.

Even with technical people, a search term is faster to communicate verbally than any URL that would require spelling out.

By: Justin Knol

Justin Knol — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:23:52 +0000

I’ve also seen this in an ad for a video rental service here is Australia. The line at the bottom of the ad said something like ‘Google Q’.

In fact I couldn’t remember the name of the company just now, but googled Q and there they were with an ad at the top of the result list.

By: Chris Adamson

Chris Adamson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:58:01 +0000

The Japanese have always been heavily into using the internet from mobile devices, so maybe that’s a factor too — easier on an i-mode phone to bang in a short search term than a full URL, right?