CloudXL: Cloud Services Search
February 12, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to CloudXL.com, a cloud service locator service.
I have been one of the voices of caution about vertical search services. The reason is that a broad indexing methods like Google’s generally provides a method for slicing and dicing results. The vertical search engine targets a specific topic area and indexes it well. But over time the types of indexing that a company like Google does makes the broader index more useful. There are exceptions like specialty indexes for antidotes, chemical structures, and ternary phase diagrams. But for general topics, a big data index like Google has an advantage if you know how to work around the training wheels that Google bolts to some users browsers.
I did CloudXL.com useful. The service uses some Google plumbing but the CloudXL.com service provides some useful one-click filters; that is, a Boolean NOT converted to colorful buttons. If you want to see the most recent additions to the service, you don’t need to search. Just scan the home page. If you want to locate a cloud database, you just click on “Categories” and scan the list. When you spot “database as a service, check the box and click submit.
The system displayed three hits and two of them were useful. If you are looking for cloud services, you might want to bookmark CloudXL. There’s no search system. Perhaps a Google custom search engine will be added in the near future.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because I mentioned clouds, I will report non payment to NOAA.
Comments
One Response to “CloudXL: Cloud Services Search”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
Stephen,
Thanks for the review. Yes, we either going to use gae-search (http://gae-full-text-search.appspot.com/) or Google custom search like you said. We’ve committed to post our new features on twitter.com/cloudxl. Thanks again for the review.
Brian Jinwright
Co-CEO, Demavision Inc.
Co-Creator, CloudXL.com