I will do the same once every 4 months or so. Like you said, you never know where you end up, but it’s also surprising when your are far from where you have started and find yourself able to click right back to your origin. But maybe that is just me.
Clicking random links is pretty much how I discovered blogs and blogging, and up until recently, I stopped surfing randomly because the good stuff was being fed to me. I say “up until recently” because as good as the links and articles have been, they got to be a bit too predictable (my weblog is guilty of that too, although I have been a little “off-message” lately). I also say “up until recently” because I have been discovering great articles from subscribing to Feedster searches of my favourite authors, musicians and ideas. They have been fairly random because, while they talk about stuff I want to read about, sometimes they mention things in the paragraph following what they wanted to talk about. Every blogger has read and written weblog posts where the subject of the post changes each paragraph, and it’s been in those paragraphs that I find weird and wonderful stuff. I thought about complaining about not being able to remember where I get stuff, but that’s part of what makes the web so great: if I remember where I get something, I’ll start to rely on them, and will eventually get back to where I started, reading predictable weblogs.
I don’t really know about randomly following links, but clicking on stuff that you think “oh, that’s probably stupid” is good to do once in a while because you know, maybe it’s not.
What I really love to do when I’m bored (if it happens at all) is going to a Dutch blog, clicking the link of a commenter, then checking out his blog, clicking a commenter and soforth and I’m sure after 5 or 6 clicks, you’ll get to a Japanese site 😀 Following links is better than just going to your usual sites, but there are some of which you think ‘Why did YOU leave a comment on that site, dude?!’. Nevertheless, browsing is the better way to use the internet.
Ooh I do that too, sort of. I like opening all links of some random site’s blogroll in tabs and then opening the links of one of those sites in tabs and so on and so on…
A lot of times when I’m “browsing” I’ll start out in my referrer logs so see who is linking to me in some way our another. Once I finally make it through all of the redirects to porn sites, I eventually end up on a few interesting sites, which then lead to other sites. I always find something interesting along the way.
Surfing bad. Browsing good.
I will do the same once every 4 months or so. Like you said, you never know where you end up, but it’s also surprising when your are far from where you have started and find yourself able to click right back to your origin. But maybe that is just me.
How do you think I got here!?! 🙂
I used to get ‘random’ links from a co-worker. Scary stuff including stir-fried kitties and what not. Fun though none the less 🙂
Mmm… stir fry kittens. Wonderful when lightly battered, fried, and dipped in sweet and sour sauce.
Clicking random links is pretty much how I discovered blogs and blogging, and up until recently, I stopped surfing randomly because the good stuff was being fed to me. I say “up until recently” because as good as the links and articles have been, they got to be a bit too predictable (my weblog is guilty of that too, although I have been a little “off-message” lately). I also say “up until recently” because I have been discovering great articles from subscribing to Feedster searches of my favourite authors, musicians and ideas. They have been fairly random because, while they talk about stuff I want to read about, sometimes they mention things in the paragraph following what they wanted to talk about. Every blogger has read and written weblog posts where the subject of the post changes each paragraph, and it’s been in those paragraphs that I find weird and wonderful stuff. I thought about complaining about not being able to remember where I get stuff, but that’s part of what makes the web so great: if I remember where I get something, I’ll start to rely on them, and will eventually get back to where I started, reading predictable weblogs.
I don’t really know about randomly following links, but clicking on stuff that you think “oh, that’s probably stupid” is good to do once in a while because you know, maybe it’s not.
What I really love to do when I’m bored (if it happens at all) is going to a Dutch blog, clicking the link of a commenter, then checking out his blog, clicking a commenter and soforth and I’m sure after 5 or 6 clicks, you’ll get to a Japanese site 😀 Following links is better than just going to your usual sites, but there are some of which you think ‘Why did YOU leave a comment on that site, dude?!’. Nevertheless, browsing is the better way to use the internet.
Ooh I do that too, sort of. I like opening all links of some random site’s blogroll in tabs and then opening the links of one of those sites in tabs and so on and so on…
http://del.icio.us satisfies my need for novelty in browsing.
A lot of times when I’m “browsing” I’ll start out in my referrer logs so see who is linking to me in some way our another. Once I finally make it through all of the redirects to porn sites, I eventually end up on a few interesting sites, which then lead to other sites. I always find something interesting along the way.
It’s how I discover something different.