Seeking Help with finding an assertion

Recently I read somewhere (on this list, a blog, a news story, where...?) an assertion that struck me as an interesting passing fact at the time.   As I recall, it indicated that more websites are accessed via a search engine than by typing a URL into a browser web address bar.
 
Alas, I did not save the reference, and now I am looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Namely, what is the exact assertion, who asserted it, and where did they make it?  If anyone in the world has this information or knows how to get it, or or has related data, I imagine they would belong to this list. I would be most grateful for any useful pointer.
 
Along this same vein, if anyone has any statistics, data, anecodotes or information related to the cost of 
 
(1) "friction" arising from inefficient or inappropriate efforts at information retrieval
and
(2) the cost of "negative knowledge" about an existing resource or data,
 
these, too, would be helpful.
 
(For example, with respect to #2 above, we are all familiar with comparison shopping for goods and services. We seek data/information about prices and quality , but at what point does the expenditure of that effort exceed the value of the information learned?)
 
I am not looking for examples at the level of a philosophy or ecnomics Ph.D. thesis, but rather a few examples in the sciences that can be used at the level of an "elevator speech."
 
 
Karen Skinner
Deputy Director for Science and Technology Development
Division of Basic Neuroscience and Behavior Research
National Institute on Drug Abuse/NIH

Received on Wednesday, 4 July 2007 15:55:07 UTC