PopGist: A BOSS Powered Search Service
October 13, 2008
One of my two or three readers called PopGist to my attention. You can click here to visit the site. The system takes a query, runs it against the Yahoo index via BOSS (build your own search system), receives the results and performs some useful post processing. I ran one of my favorite test queries–Arnoldit–and received a list of results with discussions grouped under each result. I found the service useful. Take a moment and check it out. I have included a screen shot so you can see how the results appear.To see another search service using BOSS, click here.
Will these services yield the cash Yahoo needs to pay for its heterogeneous computing platform’s operation? Catch up with Google in ads? Break into new markets? No. Yahoo is an aging company. For too long the company has been working of home run projects that usually get a runner to first or second and then leave the runner stranded. Yahoo’s original directory business has morphed into an America Online variant. The model no longer works for AOL, and it no longer works for Yahoo. Is BOSS the super hero search service to save the day? No, but it does yield some useful value adding services like PopGist. Yahoo needs more: more guidance, more astute technology programs, a more pragmatic approach to business. Unless the company gets back on track, I can hear the sounds “ya-whoooo” but when I read the letters, they spell “ya who?”
Stephen Arnold, October 13, 2008
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
