Toronto, April 2, 2018
How a research accident led to the discovery of a life form believed long extinct.
A team of researchers in Toronto have spent the better part of a year documenting the evolution of the world wide web since it's inception. Last month they were working with archives of the internet from 2008 as they concentrated on some of the more interesting search phenomena of the time.
As part of the study a researcher searched for a "toronto florist" - just as someone of the time might have done were they actually looking for a florist in Toronto.
The search returned almost 100,000 results. This was fascinating - the researchers knew that at that time there were only approximately 350 florists in the GTA. Why would there be almost 100,000 websites falsely claiming to represent florists in Toronto?
For their own amusement they decided to take a look at the very last result on the list. To their surprise they found a real florist - a true brick and mortar flower shop - that had been virtually forgotten.
They passed this information to colleagues in another department. These scientists were finally able to reach the store in question by using a "fax" machine borrowed from the antiquities department. They then visited the store and, hiding behind walls of bizarre looking containers and enormous paper volumes known as "directories," they discovered the creature that we now know as the Florasaurus.
Why did a real florist in Toronto fare worse in a search for Toronto florists than almost 100,000 other enterprises, the vast majority of which were not florists and not in the city of Toronto? The simple answer is that like so many colleagues that did not survive, the Florasaurus made poor choices about website design. After years of using one that had been designed by an eleven-year old nephew they chose to go with a generic template from a wire service - one that was not designed to perform well in search.
Did this help lead to the demise of the Florasaurus? Almost certainly. Economists tell us that in the early years of the century commerce began to shift away from the in-store retail environment to the convenience of the internet. Retailers who were willing to provide a memorable and accessible online experience fared well, while others were left behind. By failing to engage users online and participate in the new social environment, the Florasaurus was quickly forgotten.
