I Love the Web, But We’ve Got A Long Way To Go

I wish I could distinctly remember the first time I ever used a web browser. I’m pretty sure it was a day or two after the first version of Netscape launched. I read about it in USA Today (a newspaper I still read every single morning, including today). At the time, I was living in NYC and working at the Denise Marcil Literary Agency. I led the way in connecting with all the foreign agents we dealt with via email.

It seems so elementary now. But I was there when all of our interactions with foreign publishers and foreign agents was done via faxes. Hard-to-read faxes. Email made that part of my job so much easier.

Since then, I’ve spent a long time in PR working with digital companies – large and small. I use the Web for 10 hours per day – or more.

But, we still have such a long way to go . . .

Tomorrow, my wife has an all-day seminar in Boston she’s attending, so I’m going to be walking around the city, and exploring the aquarium with my two young sons. I wanted to do some QUICK and EASY online research to find out some basic info about downtown Boston. I wanted to see how I could walk from the Government Center T stop to the New England aquarium. Here’s the walking directions from the aquarium’s website:

If you are already in the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area, the North End, Government Center or the Financial District, the Aquarium is just a short walk away.

That’s great, but I’ve probably spent 4 hours of my life in and around Faneuil Hall and the North End. How about some basic directions to go with that. “If you’re walking from Faneuil Hall, here’s the route to take . . .”

I started writing this blog post, and I immediately thought, some commenter is going to come along and say, “Why didn’t you just Google directions.”

So, I did. I Googled, “how to walk from faneuil hall to new england aquarium.” This is the result I got:

how to walk from faneuil hall to new england aquarium - Google Search

I’m not a search engineer. But, why can’t I spend 30 seconds searching for walking directions from Faneuil Hall to the New England Aquarium, and get a nice street-by-street route w/ accompanying map?

I eventually printed out a Google map of the Faneuil Hall-North End area. If you’re in downtown Boston tomorrow, and see me walking around lost, how about giving me a ride or some decent directions.

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