Ways Bing and Yahoo Are Better than Google
October 15, 2013
With 70 percent of U.S. users relying on Google, here’s a lone voice reminding everyone of the value of Bing and Yahoo. MakeUseOf asks (and answers), “What Do Bing and Yahoo Have that Google Doesn’t?” To be clear, writer Craig Snyder still believes Google is obviously the best. However, he describes a few tips the ruling search engine could pick from its rivals, illustrating his observations with helpful screenshots.
Bing’s top advantage, the article states, is rooted in aesthetics. Though Google comes up with some fun and interesting themes for special occasions, the Bing home screen is a visual treat every day. Snyder also prefers the way Bing handles image searches. He writes:
“I use Google Images frequently, but was a little surprised at how differently Bing handles their image searches. Bing Images includes ‘entity understanding,’ meaning that the search engine can interpret if what you’re looking for is a person, place, or thing and show image results more effectively based on this understanding. Bing Images filters out exact or near duplicates much better than Google. Bing even uses higher quality images as part of their algorithm.”
On the other hand, Yahoo’s strengths seemingly lie everywhere but their search functionality. Snyder complements the site on its start page, which presents quite a bit of well-organized information at a glance. He also wonders why Google has yet to offer suitable alternatives to Yahoo Local, Yahoo Answers, or Flickr. The article concludes:
“In my opinion, it’s not even worth questioning that Google is the best search engine you’re going to find. However, some of us are looking for more. Yahoo! offers a better homepage. Bing looks fresher and offers a more promising approach to searching for images. There’s more out there if you’re looking at the grand scheme of things, and it’s important to stay tuned in with what the other search engines have to offer.”
At least, as Snyder notes, such features from competitors keep Google on its toes. Though it would still lead the field, he suspects it would not be as good without the prodding from its rivals. I suppose that’s what healthy competition is all about.
Cynthia Murrell, October 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Yandex Faces a Possible Challenge in Search
October 11, 2013
I read “Russia Plans State-Backed Web Search Engine Named after Sputnik: Report.” New search engines are not news. Most of the come along with a news release and then disappear. Some linger in a weird online-but-no-visibility mode for years.
The write up reveals an alleged search engine initiative from Rostelecom, a telecom with backing from the Russian government. the source for Reuters is an article in another newspaper. I don’t know how much of the information is accurate at this time.
The idea is not a new one. Several years ago the European Community put some money into a Google alternative. I am not sure what happened to that initiative, but I think user behaviors are tough to change.
The write up includes a remarkable “factoid” from an analyst/expert. Here’s the passage I found amusing:
Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note that developing high-quality search technology may require the best talent and long research and development and that the quality of search results may be well below that of leading firms. “Even if the launch of Sputnik is well-executed, we do not expect it could significantly eat into the market shares of Yandex or Google,” the Merrill Lynch analysts wrote.
Enough of my self-indulgent comments about the nature of “real” journalism.
Let’s assume that Russia wants its own search engine. Several questions struck me as potentially interesting:
- What’s up with Yandex? If I were looking for a decent search engine, why not tap Yandex the way the original FirstGov.gov leveraged Inktomi in 2000?
- Is the initiative an indication that the notion of a free and open Internet is going to be given a bit of Stalinesque revisionism? My hunch is that the answer is, “Yes.” I just don’t have any current information on the concern the wild world of electronic information causes in Russia.
- How much money will Russia pump into the venture? Search is darned expensive, and some pretty big outfits have pumped money without end into search only to end up as a flop.
Interesting development. Too bad the write up did not include some reference to Jike, the Chinese search system. Jike may have some useful lessons to offer.
Stephen E Arnold, October 11, 2013
Alert Relevance: Off the Rails?
October 10, 2013
I signed up for alerts via the Yahoo.com service. My topic has been “enterprise search.” In the last month or so, I have noticed that the Yahoo alerts are cheerleading for an outfit called TopSEOs.com. Here’s a snap of the alert I received today:
The top hit is not about enterprise search in my traditional context. The “enterprise search” refers to TopSEOs.com’s ability to push content to the top of a results list. On one hand, manipulations that give a company focused on spoofing results pride of place in an alert is evidence that Yahoo and other systems cannot detect methods of manipulation. On the other hand, the ability a marketing manager struggling to “prove” that his/her efforts are of value to a company will want to hire these manipulators as quickly as possible.
What does this type of “alert” manipulation suggest to me?
First, the notion of relevance is completely subverted from objective results germane to a query. That’s too bad for those who don’t know the difference between a relevant result and an off-point result.
Second, the endless discussions about whether the results lists bias one site versus another or boost one concept in relation to another are irrelevant. The systems seems to be more under the control of the spoofers than the folks responsible for the search system. I hope self-driving automobiles work better.
Third, the hype about systems understanding context, semantics, and personalization seems to be either unworkable or too expensive to implement. Enterprise search does not connote SEO or search engine optimization to me. Why am I seeing these results?
Answer: One more example of search becoming less and less reliable and useful. You can set up a Yahoo Alert and judge the utility of the service for yourself at http://alerts.yahoo.com/.
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2013
Xenky Search Vendor Profile: Convera
October 9, 2013
I have begun to put up early drafts of profiles I have written over the years. These are descriptions and commentary about vendors of search, content processing, and analytics systems.
The first profile to go live is one of my early analyses of Convera, a vendor which has largely dropped out of sight and out of mind—the famous Excalibur Technologies which reinvented itself as Convera. Anyone remember ConQuest Software. That was absorbed into Convera and made maintain word lists and controlled vocabularies an interesting task.
You can access the Convera profile at www.xenky.com/vendor-profiles. If you want to argue about one of the comments in this draft profile, use the comments section to this blog post.
The profiles will not be updated or maintained. I am providing the information because some students may find the explanations, diagrams, and comments of interest. The information is provided on an “as is” basis. If you want to use this for commercial purposes, please, contact me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Remember. I am almost 70 years old and some of the final versions of these profiles commanded hefty fees. Enjoy the tales of search systems that sometimes work okay and sometimes don’t work.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2013
Progress on Personalized Search
October 9, 2013
Some searchers have become excited about algorithmic breakthroughs that promise more personalized results, allowing us to more easily find what we need. A team at North Carolina State University , led by Dr. Kemafor Anyanwu, is advancing the contextual search field with a fresh approach, we learn from “Scaling Up Personalized Query Results for Next Generation of Search Engines” at the University’s Newsroom. Writer Matt Shipman tells us:
“Anyanwu’s team has come up with a way to address the personalized search problem by looking at a user’s ‘ambient query context,’ meaning they look at a user’s most recent searches to help interpret the current search. Specifically, they look beyond the words used in a search to associated concepts to determine the context of a search. . . . And the more recently a concept has been associated with a search, the more weight it is given when ranking results of a new search.”
That makes some sense; if I’ve recently been researching wild animals and search for “jaguar” (the article’s example), it is likely that I would rather not have to sift through results about luxury automobiles. The trade off with personalized search, however, has always been the dramatically increased computational power required to run such a system. The team from NC State has addressed that, too. The article tells us:
“Anyanwu’s research team has now come up with a technique that includes new ways to represent data, new ways to index that data so that it can be accessed efficiently, and a new computing architecture for organizing those indexes. The new technique makes a significant difference.”
How significant? Well, Anyanwu says her team has found the new approach to be about 170 times as fast. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but is it enough to make personalized search feasible? We’ll see. A paper [PDF] on the project is scheduled to be presented at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, being held in Santa Clara in early October.
Cynthia Murrell, October 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Tickets Search Engine Helps Sports Fans See Their Favorite Teams
October 7, 2013
Digital Journal recently covered a new search engine that is sure to benefit Houston Texans fans looking to attend games on the cheap in the article “Ticket Search Engine Whiztix.com Helps Houston Texans Fans Find Tickets to Sold Out Games”.
According to the article, fans can find tickets as low as $20 on the Whiztixs site which consistently provides an affordable and efficient way to search for resold event tickets online.
Here is how it works:
“The free-to-use tool aggregates results from different event ticket selling sites all in one place, allowing users to find the cheapest tickets available, often below face value, and the best deals on seats. WhizTix has saved customers money on tickets for sporting events, concerts and plays—even events that are sold out.”
As someone who tends to wait til the last minute to purchase tickets, this sounds like a great alternative to finding tickets on Craigslist. I am not a huge sports fan, but I would certainly be interested in using this service to see concerts or plays.
Jasmine Ashton, October 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Vulnerable to IBM Watson: Interesting Sort Of
October 5, 2013
Wired Magazine has done some interesting things. Once headlines were invisible to those who suffered from color blindness. Then there were editors who morphed from real journalism into global media magnates and Drukeresque business pundits. Now there is a story which pits IBM search technology against Google’s ad based search machine.
Crossing the search swamp. Image source: http://englishrussia.com/category/entertaiment/page/10/
Navigate to “Google in Jeopardy: What If IBM’s Watson Dethroned the King of Search.” Read it. Now. I cannot do the write up justice. I did mark a couple of passages as worthy of my “Use Later” file. At my age, I don’t think I will get to this burgeoning file. The addled goose is ageing and losing hope for eternal life. I will leave that the the Kurweilians of the world.
Passage One:
If IBM did search, Watson would do much better than Google on the tough problems, and they could still resort to a simple PageRank-like algorithm as a last resort. Which means there would be no reason for anyone to start their searches on Google. All the search traffic that makes Google seemingly invincible now could begin to shrink over time.
What strikes me is that IBM “did” search. There was STAIRS. There were prescient search initiatives which went from IBM to outfits like Google. Anyone know about CLEVER and Dr. Kleinberg? Anyone remember WebFountain? What about Ramanathan Guha? ATS? Inform/360? Patent Miner? Text-Pac? Aquarius? Elms? And more! IBM has been in search for decades and pretty much shifted from proprietary search to open source search with proprietary wrappers. Open source search allows IBM to use nuts and bolts from open source and redeploy resources to “add value” to a search system which is free to download. Do you have an IBM supercomputer and the funds to pay IBM’s engineers to get content into Watson, tune it, and integrate it into your organization? Better do some back of envelope cost analyses before inking a deal for Watson.
Exorbyte: From eCommerce to Next Level Info Management
October 4, 2013
I read “Next Level Information Management mit Exorbyte und InovoOlution.” My German is as lousy as my English. I think the main point of the write up is that the eCommerce technology company Exorbyte is now in the “next level information management business” via a partnering deal with InovoOlution.
The first thing that I noticed in the news release was the name “InovoOlution.” The word did not dance trippingly on the tongue. Some folks in Italy did not like the German language in an opera, but then there was Mozart, right?
The second point that caught my attention was this statement:
The partnership delivers integration of the intelligent and fault tolerant search and the NOVO information platform Matchmaker system to improve key processes, in particular the classification , extraction, indexing and classification and search.
My recollection is that Exorbyte’s SearchCube system was once called Matchmaker. Maybe I am wrong. I am not sure if the tie up delivers “next level information management.” The partnership seems to be a combination of a search vendor with a services company. You can get more information about Exorbyte at www.exorbyte.com.
InovoOlution is a company that offers software and services to help licensees optimize and automate the processing of mail, email, and faxes. The firm asserts that it creates “human information technology.” InovoOlution’s Web page is at http://inovoolution.com/en/
Three observations:
- Search vendors are pursuing partnerships. This is a good idea because “selling” a standalone search system is getting more difficult based on the information about the difficulty of selling “search”
- Company names are becoming quite interesting. I suppose the good names like “Verity” and “Convera” are difficult to match as everyone chases a snazzy domain to help findability
- The notion of making information technology human is interesting. The assumption is that organizations will have the money to jump to the “next level of information management.”
One hopes the European Union’s economy remains at its present level. The next level might be a reach. Watch out for the double “O” in InovoOlution when you search for the company via a Web search system.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2013
ISYS Search Morphs into Content Management
October 2, 2013
I received a PRatronizing email today from an outfit called PRWeb. I get quite a bit of baloney, cheese spread, and faux butter from this outfit. The write up has a darned amazing title:
I suppose this is the influence of the PR savvy folks who want a high Google ranking. With relevance blown out of the water by Fiverr-type operations, I think I understand the wordiness.
Several items jumped from my screen:
- An azure chip consulting firm has rigorously reviewed, tested, analyzed, and tweaked dozens of enterprise content management systems and named ISYS Search Software’s owner (Lexmark, the printer outfit) as a “leader” in a “magic quadrant.” No problemo. I understand “objective” analyses and consultant reports.
- The angle is not “enterprise” as I understand the concept. The “enterprise” narrows to health care. I find this interesting because health care is much in the news, heavily regulated, and a sector under some scrutiny via the MIC RAC and ZPIC initiatives. I won’t go into these US government efforts because the links are not working due to the shut down of the super efficient US government. So I suppose I am to understand that what works in health care will work for Allied Van, JetBlue, and Google. I suppose MarkLogic will assert that its system serves JetBlue reasonably well. Googlers are probably not focused on internal document management in quite the way a hospital in rural Kentucky is.
- There is a link to download the azure chip consultant’s report. I find this interesting because most consultants sell analyses. The right to offer unlimited downloads comes at a price. So if a firm pays for a license to give away a report, I wonder if the report is one of those Fiverr.com-type services with a price tag higher than five bucks.
You will not find too much information about ISYS, the search system which was coded by some Australians in 30 years ago.
Navigate to the “story” and learn about how a printer company is able to deliver a wide range of services to companies struggling with paper and findability. I recall that the new book about McKinsey by Duff McDonald had some harsh words for the simplification that the original Boston Consulting Group’s diagram brought to stressed managers. I suppose the derivations from the BCG model are much better than the original cash cows, dogs, question marks, and stars.
And search? I suppose in the midst of the enterprise content management solution, ISYS and maybe Brainware are chugging along. Lexmark, a printer company, is about one hour from my modest cabin in a hollow in rural Kentucky. Keep that in mind when you tell me I have misunderstood the PRWeb information, the content management thing, and my lack of sensitivity to a square with a plus sign in the middle.
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2013
Microsoft Gives Users Better Features in Update
October 2, 2013
Microsoft decided it was time to give its SharePoint Cloud users more features, says ZDNet in “Microsoft Raises SharePoint Online Upload Limits To 2 GB, Allows .Exe Uploads.” What is exciting users the most is the upload size has been changed from the miniscule 250 MB to 2 GB. In a world where users are producing more video and image driven content the measly 250 MB could not handle user content. Other updates include an extended period for files in the recycling bin, more file types are supported, and raised limits on site collection and list lookup thresholds.
The update is a big jump for SharePoint Cloud users, who have been working with the equivalent of a basic package for years. While users are happy about the update, there are security concerns will the new file additions:
“Addressing security concerns that could arise from allowing users to upload .exe and .dll files, Microsoft notes that SharePoint will “not execute any arbitrary EXEs or DLLs” uploaded by users from a team site or SkyDrive Pro account. It points out that SharePoint only accepts uploads from authenticated users and has Microsoft’s inbuilt AV engine amongst other layers of defense.”
It is all taken care of nice and neat. Microsoft is looking to improve SharePoint user experience and they are on the right track. Stephen Arnold of Arnold IT, a renowned search expert, wonders how search will be handled with the upgrade. They may need to beef it up just like the other features.
Whitney Grace, October 02, 2013
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