What happens when an article about logging using Facebook Connect achieves a high ranking in Google? You get an extremely interesting and humorous insight into the way many people use the internet.

Rather than typing Facebook into the address bar, many Facebook users get to their beloved social media by searching Google for “Facebook login”. Unfortunately earlier this month Read Write Web published a post about Facebook Connect which appeared above the actual Facebook login in Google results. Believing Facebook had changed it’s design and unable to login, hundreds of disgruntled Facebook users began venting their frustration via the comments on Read Write Web.

Check out the first couple of pages of comments on ReadWriteWeb for a laugh.

From a UX perspective it’s particularly disturbing that so many people missed so many cues that they were on the wrong website. Even when other uses pointed out the mistake they still didn’t understand the mix up and kept commenting.

CAPTCHAS invoke a number of reactions amongst both designers and users. They are a common source of frustration, consuming screen real estate and more importantly the user’s time spent deciphering and completing them. Studies have shown that they are generally bad for business.

However they are still widely used as they are considered a necessary evil in protecting websites against bots by generating tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot.

As you may have heard Google recently purchased ReCAPTCHA to accelerate its massive efforts to scan tens of millions of books and periodicals.

What you may not know is just how Google is utilising this technology to actually use the (re)CATPCHAS you’re filling out. By completing a reCAPTCHA you are directly helping Google in their quest to digitise the world’s books.

Here is a surprisingly interesting presentation on what is a generally dull topic: Why Nerds Rule: Luis Von Ahn and reCAPTCHA

UPDATE: CAPTCHA’s: Tough on Sales & Common Way to Test User Tolerance | UX Booth

A couple of weeks ago I referred to Alex Campbell’s post on the possible drivers behind behavioural changes in the way people use Google search. Personally, my greatest frustration with Google is trying to find up to date information and being presented with articles that are years old. Maybe that’s more of a failing with the user than the algorithm. Whatever the case, I seldom find relevant and up-to-date results the first time.

Since that article Google has rolled out the mother of all updates: A larger search box. Of course it’s not just a larger search box. There’s also larger, blocky, bespoke buttons and a new typeface. There was almost enough discussion about the typeface alone on Twitter to rival the Ikea uproar. Ok I’m exaggerating, but there was significant chatter for something I thought was, well, pretty trivial.

I’m a little dubious about Marissa’s claim that the larger search box is for added fun. Although it probably makes sense in terms of allowing for a wider drop down for the predictive keywords. Also with monitor resolutions getting higher the once sparse and clean Google homepage is really starting to get a little pokey and dated. So how do you keep up while maintaining the status quo? Easy, just upscale the search box and the buttons.

The recent addition of some visual-bling to the once barren text-based domain of search doesn’t just stop there. Google now have Fast Flip which despite the claim it emulates a news stand, it is really just a gimmick. Then there’s bling, er sorry, Bing. I actually admire Microsoft (wow, did I just say that?) for taking such an approach with Bing. The fresh image every day is really just a cheeky alternative to changing your logo every day (don’t get me started on the Google logo). I also like the way Microsoft have built in a discovery component to the images.

Microsoft have taken Bing a step further with the announcement today of Visual Search. This is not a new idea and while it has some merit I think it’s uses are pretty limited. Even in the demonstration most of the focus while using visual search was on the refinement tools on the left. The images really just served to show the number of potential matches or help provide some recognition that you were on the right path. It’s also interesting to note that in some cases selecting an image just dropped the appropriate keywords into the search bar to begin a new search. Groundhog Day anyone?

Finally, I love the way Microsoft are edging into Google’s space, quite literally. While both parties claim that Microsoft has not purchased any questionable keywords as was initially reported, it seems as though the word “search” has been. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

So with all prettying-up of search and tinkering with SEO and keywords, I can’t help but think that traditional search has really run out of genuinely new ideas. Is this as good as it gets? Have we jumped the shark?

UPDATE: Google This: 5 Reasons to Switch to Bing

Twitter is “aging in reverse”. Apparently 12-24 year old demographics are Twitter’s fastest growing audience segment. STATS: Young People Are Flocking to Twitter and a more detailed break down of data on the What, Where & Why Of Social Media?

According to reports Yelp Is Growing 80 Percent A Year, While Citysearch (US) Remains Flat. This is interesting given the the mix of both user and editorial comment on Citysearch versus the purely user based comment on Yelp. Speaking of comments, when you look through the comments following the article there seems to be a strong suggestion that Yelp’s success could largely be attributed to it’s SEO work. As an aside Yelp are also doing some nice stuff in the mobile space. Particularly with augmented reality.