Search-Engines

[John Simkin]

Mike Davies, senior research analyst at Butler Group, says: "The free internet model - back to the idea of the egalitarian, hippy web - is gone. It's a business environment now. If you want high-value services, you pay for them." Clare Hart, CEO of the giant news retrieval service Factiva, agrees: "People are sick of wasting their time when about 50% of web searches turn up unsatisfactory results."

These are just two of the quotes taken from an interesting article by Kate Bulkley in this week’s Media Guardian. I can understand why Davies and Hart want to believe this but it is just not true. As someone who spends a large part of my working day researching historical information via the web, I know that if used properly, search-engines come up with the goods 95% of the time. When they don’t, they invariably give you enough leads to find the information offline.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/0,7502,,00.html

[Karl Donert]

Have you seen Kartoo?

www.kartoo.com

A very different kind of search engine

Karl

[Sumir Sharma]

Mike Davies, senior research analyst at Butler Group, says: "The free internet model - back to the idea of the egalitarian, hippy web - is gone. It's a business environment now. If you want high-value services, you pay for them." Clare Hart, CEO of the giant news retrieval service Factiva, agrees: "People are sick of wasting their time when about 50% of web searches turn up unsatisfactory results."

These are just two of the quotes taken from an interesting article by Kate Bulkley in this week’s Media Guardian. I can understand why Davies and Hart want to believe this but it is just not true. As someone who spends a large part of my working day researching historical information via the web,

http://media.guardian.co.uk/0,7502,,00.html

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know that if used properly, search-engines come up with the goods 95% of the time. When they don’t, they invariably give you enough leads to find the information offline.

I fully agree with you John.

I think somewhere on this forum someone had remarked that it is where you look that matters. Secondly, if you have the right question and clarity, it helps you to reach the goal on net itself.

What do you actually do in a library? Pick up the books, look at the index, then read a portion of the relevant page and then run to the photostat section. After coming to your desk, you find that there are many such phrases and concepts about which you do not have clarity or the author knows more than you. You spent the time, writing and then rewriting. What is the final result? Waistage of time. Now, with new CDs which is coming with most of the books, there are references of right threads and links and you soon come out with what you really want to write and present like the essay or lecture to your students.

I take up a recent case. There was a comment on the first use of word Hindustan in religious book by a leading scholar on Sikh literature. I just placed this query with a discussion forum. I was delighted to receive answer from Dr. D. N. Jha of JNU University Delhi who is considered master of this field. The answer was well formed with the right sources to quote. Now I do not think that Dr. Jha would have ever got oppurtunity to explain this origin. Even if he had done in any of his lecture, it would have gone unnoticed. But, the exact information of its origin required lot of hardword and sweating. Now I am benefitted from it.

I think what Mike Devis is referring to is that when suddendly you find that there is demand of charges when you are about the get the required infromation. It is there. Some body has worked hard and believe that he should be paid for it. I do not think it is bad. He may think that his item is saleable, he is in every right to ask for money. But it is you, the seeker, who knows what actually you want. It is you, if your question is right, who can find the answer. secondly there are people who believe that the technolgoy is to facilitate the communication and web in a boon. they are not that commercial minded.

What do you think about the information on economy and share market. I remeber that I had to pay for numerous generals to get the figures and datas. Now, all the figures and datas come to me free of cost through emails. Now I am not paying for that.

On the whole, the sellers are there but there are real and serious seekers of knowledge and information who believe in sharing and there are many.

sumir

[Graham Davies]

In one respect I think Davies and Hart are right. The Web is becoming more commercial. Many sites, e.g. certain newspapers, that used to be free are now operating a subscription service if you wish to access the latest information, and many online learning sites now only offer "taster" courses for free - if you want to take part in the full course you pay for it. This is inevitable. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays for it. The BBC website, for example, offers language courses for free (I was involved in the development of one of them and paid well as a consultant), but you, the public, pay for such courses through your licence fee and the BBC, in turn, makes cuts in other areas, e.g. phasing out broadcast TV language courses for adults. The BBC Web language materials are, however, of poorer quality than the TV broadcasts that they used to offer.

Having said that, Google works for me nearly 100% of the time. I rarely fail to find what I want with Google. My business website records statistics about visitors, which search engine they used to find us and which key words they used. Google is the most prominent search engine in our statistics.

[Sumir Sharma]

Have you seen Kartoo?

www.kartoo.com

A very different kind of search engine

Karl

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are right. It is bit different.

However, do you not think it is different only because of its presentation?

After looking to resources on Subalturn Studies through Google, I also tried the same searches on Kartoo. The results were same.

I reverted back to Google with my name and some of my friedns in Search, and tried the same with Kartoo. The results were not much different. I tried with the Sumit Sarkar, a leading historians with Marxist Ideological analysis and Subalturn Studies. Results were not different but I was able to gather more from Google.

The difference was more clear in case of Googel, because there is one more Sumit Sarkar, with engineering background (Computers) and doing some substantial work. In case of Google, I was able to ascertain the desired targets more easily but in case of Kartoo, I kept on moving my mouse in the various icons before deciding which link is more useful for me. The spider software of Google is more effective as far as I have used it. In case of some resources on older books of British authors on India for which I have received a lead from some different sources, Kartoo was not able to find it. I tried different combinations but I did not receive the satisfying results. Secondly, every time you move your mouse, you have to keep your eye on left side also. Then relate it with your desired target.

It may be that I am yet not accustomed myself with Kartoo.

ON the whole, it was a good information.

[Sumir Sharma]

Has any one checked http://www.technorati.com.

It is dedicated to blogs only. What I have found that within in ten mintues, this tool crawl to your posting.

Can other member check its ability the way they have done for search engines for google and yahoo.

lately, even yahoo have also started giving targetted results. Well, it is the elder brother to googles.

I was astonished to learn that google is work of young people who have different idea about business and economics of doing business. They are in their early thirties and they are coming up with new ideas every other day.

I am prompted to comment that they are going to make internet some thing similar to what railways and stem engines did to business in their days.