Paul Sutton, head of social communications for Bottle, launched a two month experiment of living search engine free, called #NoSearch. Armed with a strict set of rules, Sutton hasn”t used Google, or any other search engines, for the last two months. Instead, he is relying heavily on twitter.
Sutton is using #NoSearch on Twitter to keep his followers and fans apprised to his every move. You can also read more about his expirament on his blog.
Deidre Breakendridge, of the New PR Toolkit, interviewed Sutton to find out what inspired a PR pro to go search engine-less:
“working in online PR and social communications as I do, I’m all too aware that social networks enable us to share and find information like never before. We can research, ask friends and carry out polls in minutes. It’s a form of ‘collective intelligence’, and that made me question whether we can get by online by forgoing search engines in favour of our online networks.”
Now about eight weeks into the #NoSearch experiment, Sutton has found that his social media networks are his lifeline most notably his Twitter following. Paul also surprisingly talks about the importance of the often overlooked world of social bookmarking:
“I’m now seeing a real value in social bookmarking, a side of social media that, to be honest, I’ve never taken that seriously before. Delicious, Diigo and Stumbleupon hold such a wealth of valuable information, and while they can’t compete with Google for finding a website URL, they’re just as good for information.”
The more you read into Sutton’s trials and tribulations on #NoSearch the relevance and application of social media becomes very clear.
