|
Search Wars
Given Google's dominance of Internet search (about 80% of the market), it may seem surprising that the competition isn't ready to
surrender the field. In June though, Microsoft rebranded its Live Search tool, giving it a new name (Bing), supporting it with a take-no-prisoners ad
campaign and positioning it as a new kind of animal. It's not a search engine, says Steve Ballmer, it's a Decision Engine.
Early reviews suggest Bing might actually be better than Google, at least for certain kinds of queries. But even those who like what Bing is doing don't see themselves switching from Google as their primary search tool.
Given these renewed hostilities, it's worth remembering that there are other tools out there. In fact, there are a lot of them, and a recent article in Wired listed 50 "cool" sites that were
worth a visit. Collecta is an engine that targets real time information, searching news sites, blogs and social networks. It accepts a query, finds the latest matches and updates the results every 60 seconds. It's more like a news wire than a search engine. Trackle claims to have the industry's most comprehensive list of "popularly tracked categories," so you can keep track of everything from birthdays to local news. It's like a personal search robot. Kosmix takes a more structured approach. For almost any topic (it says) it can present a great deal of information in a structured layout, rather than as random results. Like this one, for "Michael Jackson (Singer)." Voyij is a search engine for travellers that finds deals departing from your home location, and Supernaturalrecipes feeds cooking queries only to selected sites that are well reviewed (and all natural).
So there's something for
everyone. In the space we have, we can't describe all 50; if you want to know more, read the original article.
The Meeting is the Message
In these days of virtualization and remote collaboration, we may be missing an important part
of the solution. We have lots of technology that's designed to support human interaction at a distance, but very little that's designed to improve the quality of that interaction. It seems there should
be ways in which technology could help make meetings more productive.
In most Web conferencing tools, for example, people who log in are identified by name on screen, so you can tell when
"John Doe" is the one doing the talking. If you know who he is, that's useful. But why isn't there a way to mouse over a name and pull up a bio, or at least get Mr. Doe's contact information?
Something that would replace the ritual exchange of business cards that used to happen with meetings in the real world. Or how about a cost calculator, that would help keep meetings on track by showing
the dollar value of the participants’ time? A better way to capture the essence of past decisions, perhaps with a recording, text transcription and summarization feature?
PowerPoint is certainly a
step up in overall legibility, compared to hand drawn transparencies. But in the wrong hands, it's not necessarily any better at telling a story. Perhaps that's a uniquely human ability, and beyond the
realm of technology. Interesting to consider, though.
Catching the Wave
Google has announced plans for a new tool to support communication and collaboration on the Web. Without
a beta version to play with, it's a little hard to judge what it's like, but it appears to be a hybrid of email, content management and instant messaging. It's called Google Wave.
A core idea is
that "waves" (think projects, or topics, or conversations) can be initiated and managed dynamically. A user creates a wave, and adds people to it. All participants can use rich text, photos,
gadgets and links to advance the conversation. Participants see everyone's changes in real time, so it supports both quick messages and persistent content: collaboration and communication. There's also a
playback feature, so latecomers can "rewind" a wave and see how it evolved.
You can watch a preview video and read some general information at Google's site, and also sign on to a mailing list to be notified come launch. If you're a developer, you can ask for access to a sandbox where you can experiment with Google Wave's open API. Launch is promised "later this year," so for now, we just have to wait. Stay tuned...
Summer Reading
From time to time, we've offered a Knowledge Street summer reading list, but this year, we've decided to
outsource it. So here are a few links to book recommendations gathered from the Web.
The current issue of Newsweek has a list of 50 books "for our times." It might not be what you’d expect, given that it leads off with Trollope's The Way We Live Now. In the comments section, there's also a heated argument
about the recommendations, which is entertaining in its own way, if a little sad. The Guardian has a list of 50 "best summer reads ever," all of which are novels, including writers as diverse as Raymond
Chandler and Lawrence Durrell. Family Education has recommended reading lists that are age-appropriate, and the Examiner has 11 "intriguing" science books to take on vacation.
And
for that matter, don't forget that most useful, non-virtual resource: your friendly neighborhood library, with its friendly neighborhood librarians. You can be sure they'll have reading lists to keep you
busy.
Subscribe | Unsubscribe | Change your profile
|
