Comments on: What do you need to find, and what do you already know?

What do you need to find, and what do you already know?

iffley — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:52:40 -0800

"Which search engine should I use?"

By: bingo

bingo — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:11:06 -0800

That's a really well-designed site. I trust that person to tell me about the world wide web.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:18:01 -0800

Personalised Google! GTFI!

By: reflection

reflection — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:18:43 -0800

search is dead. add your query to the end of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ OR use your imagination

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:18:58 -0800

I think is great and I could care less if it is pretty...

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:21:18 -0800

"Which search engine should I use?"

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:27:59 -0800

It's a really useful list. I don't understand the objections.

By: TungstenChef

TungstenChef — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:34:55 -0800

bingo thinks Flash interfaces are teh kewlness.

By: MLIS

MLIS — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:36:09 -0800

JKF - Good luck with that.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:44:48 -0800

JKF - I used to think like that. Then I noticed that Yahoo has far better image search - fewer dead links and better results. I have yet to make major comparisons on basic search functionality. From the fpp link: Google Images has over 1 billion indexed Yahoo Search has over 1.5 billion images Google isn't always the best.

By: MLIS

MLIS — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:45:50 -0800

I know from experience thatInfomine, Librarians' Index to the Internet and Online Etymology Dictionary are three excellent resources. There are other sources included in the link that I would not use. But why don't you guys, you know, click some of the links, explore and learn, rather than rush in here to make snarky comments?

By: sachinag

sachinag — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:45:57 -0800

No Gizzogle, no credibility with me.

By: NickDouglas

NickDouglas — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:48:58 -0800

[This is indeed good.]

By: mischief

mischief — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:50:34 -0800

Nice find, iffley.

By: mgkaelen

mgkaelen — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:57:11 -0800

thanks for this link.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:07:46 -0800

This is good. Flash for flash's sake is feh.

By: dammitjim

dammitjim — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:20:39 -0800

Holy crap, I had no idea there was still variety in this space. After all the old guard (Altavista, Excite, Lycos, etc.) went all portal-wacky, and then went all tits-up, I just haven't even looked. Plus, as JKF pointed out, Google is the definition of default. One exception is A9, Amazon's (internet) search engine. I've played with it, and they're doing some neat stuff. I don't stop to consider using it before going to Google when I'm, you know, actually doing work, though. Google wins. A funny thing about A9 is that, because they're Amazon, they know where you live, probably. And where you work. When I show people the site for the first time they are invariably shocked by the fact that their home address comes up in the search results.

By: timyang

timyang — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:29:44 -0800

Apparently the author of the list doesn't consider question-based search engines like askjeeves.com and brainboost.com as search engines. I don't like askjeeves.com, but I find brainboost.com quite useful, though.

By: bingo

bingo — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:48:03 -0800

I didn't say anything about flash. Love it if it suits you, but there is quite a bit of spectrum between that layout and a flash interface.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 21:31:34 -0800

"I want to see thumbnails of pages before visiting them" Also possible on google with the googlepreview Firefox extension.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:06:07 -0800

Google is the definition of default. I wonder if that's not as much image as reality. Last figures I saw (earlier this week), Google had 34% market share, Yahoo! had 31%, and MSN had 16%. I know those kind of ratings analyses are 2/3 bullshit, usually, but they're the only numbers we have at this point. Judging by those and taking into account the couple of percentage points sampling error that always hangs around this kind of thing, seems to me that Yahoo! and Google are currently neck and neck. Unless you have other numbers, it doesn't make sense to speak of Google as the "definition of default" in search engines.

By: swell

swell — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:13:51 -0800

timyang - he includes ask.com and brainboost under "I want a quick factual answer".

By: gd779

gd779 — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:22:25 -0800

I wonder if that's not as much image as reality. Last figures I saw (earlier this week), Google had 34% market share, Yahoo! had 31%, and MSN had 16%. I think that Google is probably only the default among the technically-literate. Yeah, lots of casual surfers use MSN and Yahoo. But when you need to ping a site to test a connection, what site do you use? More and more people are using Google (it used to be yahoo) which I think reflects the mindset at work.

By: clevershark

clevershark — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:23:59 -0800

When I show people the site for the first time they are invariably shocked by the fact that their home address comes up in the search results. My guess is that the people you show the site too fall within the category of "not too bright Amazon customers". I wonder if that's not as much image as reality. Last figures I saw (earlier this week), Google had 34% market share, Yahoo! had 31%, and MSN had 16%. And hence, google being the default. You kind of defeat your own point there.

By: reflection

reflection — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:27:30 -0800

Last figures I saw (earlier this week), Google had 34% market share, Yahoo! had 31%, and MSN had 16%. do you have a cite for those numbers?

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:07:19 -0800

I'd put Yahoo's search up there with Google, just because they index their image results more often. That, and they don't censor searches. There have been a number of questionable image search results problems with Google, most noteworthy being the Abu Gharaib prison abuse photos which mysteriously didn't show up on Google's image search. Google's explanation was that they indexed their image results every 6 months (which is a savory crock-pot of slow-steamed horse shit).

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:08:24 -0800

My guess is that the people you show the site too fall within the category of "not too bright Amazon customers". I almost jumped out of my chair the first time I went to a site I'd never been to before but had a little amazon badge which said "Hello [firstname]!" Dont know if thats the same thing but I think its less about brightness than with being confronted directly with something even though you may already know it to be true.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 23:58:01 -0800

do you have a cite for those numbers? Sure, reflection, here's the latest Media Metrix data from SearchEngineWatch: Other - 2% Ask - 2% Excite - 4% AOL - 9% MSN - 16% Yahoo - 32% Google - 35% Again, I treat any marketing numbers like those with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I was definitely surprised the latest "official" figures put Google and Yahoo! so close. It seemed at odds with what I think is many folks' perception of the market share breakdown. And hence, google being the default. You kind of defeat your own point there. Huh? I thought I was pretty clear, clevershark. Calling Google the "default" in the face of those numbers and what we know about margins of error seems just a teensy bit of a stretch. Anyway, the point is this race is currently far from a M$/Netscape overrun scenario. Not yet, anyway. And yes, Google's been my default for years. :) Whether that continues depends on whether I enjoy any of the alternatives I'm just now beginning to try. I'm sure it'll be tough to wean myself away from dependence on the one company I've been using most heavily, but I think it's ultimately going to be worth it to start splitting my time between search engines and make Google start earning its default status again.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:03:29 -0800

Well, I think it's a cool list, organized in a method that makes sense, and structured so as to use minimum bandwidth. I think it's a good find. Yay, Iffely. :)

By: sophist

sophist — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:56:28 -0800

The people responsible for the seach numbers keep track of 1.5 million people and their habits, so I think it is pretty good data. They did say almost 60% of the people that go through yahoo are there for for the channel-based searches. I think Google is the default in more techno-literate, broadband subscribing, firefox using circles, and yahoo probably get a lot more hits off those people still using AOL with internet explorer on dial-up.

By: adzm

adzm — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:06:26 -0800

I realized I love MSN's Encarta Answers. As this technology gets better and better, call-in trivia contests will become extinct (if they aren't already... (the answer is dendrophilia))

By: nthdegx

nthdegx — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:41:52 -0800

That's a really well-designed site. I trust that person to tell me about the world wide web. Thank God the web is moving away from misuse of tables. This site, however, is *perfect* use of a table. You really have no idea what you're talking about. I wouldn't mind, but since you were slating the site at the same time...

By: taz

taz — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:57:30 -0800

Thanks, iffley — this is helpful.

By: bingo

bingo — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 05:03:19 -0800

nthdegx, it is functionally a good use for a table, but it looks like shit. It was nice for iffley to go out on a limb and post this FPP and all, and it's nice of some of you to defend him, and an argument might be made that it's the content that matters more than the form in this case (though I disagree with that, too), but none of that changes the fact that the web site in question looks like shit, shit, shit. Oh, were we talking about shit? Comscore Media Metrix is shit. Their numbers are based on conjecture. They draw data from a small group of respondents (they won't reveal how small, or where they got the respondents, and they won't release the raw data), and extrapolate it by orders of magnitude, apply fancy charts, and eventually it starts to sound like they have some vague idea of what they're talking about, but they don't. Neilsen ratings are more reliable, and Neilsen ratings, as we all know, are worthless.

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 06:05:25 -0800

I found it an interesting post, and an interesting question to ask.

By: Bort

Bort — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 06:54:50 -0800

and an argument might be made that it's the content that matters more than the form in this case (though I disagree with that, too) Its not so much your critique of the looks of the site that people are disagreeing with; its your dismissal of the information there due to its looks. Its a little like saying you won't get your news from Dan Rather because, hey, look at his hair cut - I wouldn't trust a guy with that hair cut to tell me about the world.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:17:16 -0800

Its not so much your critique of the looks of the site that people are disagreeing with; its your dismissal of the information there due to its looks. Exactly. You could bury all the information in stunning graphics, but it wouldn't make it work better. The site is transparently useful. I like that.

By: bingo

bingo — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:02:09 -0800

Its a little like saying you won't get your news from Dan Rather because, hey, look at his hair cut - I wouldn't trust a guy with that hair cut to tell me about the world. That's a bad analogy. It's hard to imagine a connection between Rather's haircut and his ability and/or resources to tell me about the world. Although, if his haircut was bad enough, some people would start to wonder whether his lack of interest in looking good for his audience was related to sloppiness of any other sort. But here we're talking about the value of a site that purports to teach me something about the nature of the web in general. And yet the site itself could be designed by someone who, an hour or two before, had picked up a five year-old copy of 'HTML for dummies.' In other words, the person(s) responsible for the creation of that site clearly doesn't know (or perhaps care) much about the nature of the user's experience, or how to improve it. And that is not the sort of person who I want to take advice from about a subject as nuanced, controversial, and directly related to user experience as which search engine to use.

By: dodgygeezer

dodgygeezer — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:30:40 -0800

and an argument might be made that it's the content that matters more than the form in this case bingo sorry, couldn't resist

By: etaoin

etaoin — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:33:38 -0800

does the same thing.

By: Cyrano

Cyrano — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:23:22 -0800

I want to find porn. Lots of porn. No dice...

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:31:34 -0800

bingo, I think you're over-reacting. Information presented in a simple and unfancy layout is fine. Could the list be made easier to navigate with a more effort? Yes. Does that matter? Not a bit. The information is presented in a clean and easy to read layout that serves the purpose. Could be the guy who put that together has no head for web design. So what? It's a list. It's just a goddam list. The form serves the function adequately. Distrusting it because there's no sign of extra hours of wankery to present the same information? Nuts. Snobbery.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 10:12:29 -0800

Distrusting it because there's no sign of extra hours of wankery to present the same information? Nuts. Snobbery. Very well said.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 10:26:55 -0800

Neilsen ratings are more reliable, and Neilsen ratings, as we all know, are worthless. Again, bingo, I agree on the overall shittiness of ratings schemes like this; I think they're usually ridiculous. My main reporting gig for 4 years was media, so you don't have to tell me about Nielsens, et al. But SearchEngineWatch's Nielsen NetRatings page notes Nielsen only reports what it calls "audience reach" - the percent of 'unique visitors' [i.e., the 225,000 folks in Nielsen's sample) that came to a given search engine during a given month. So a person who used MSN to search 20 times a day in December is counted equally to a person who searched with Yahoo! once during the same period. You can consider that a "more reliable" measure if you like, but from here it just looks like "easier for Nielsen to handle." (Wouldn't be the first time Nielsen's pulled that kind of move.) SearchEngineWatch actually states on its Nielsen page that if you're looking for info about "search share" - the volume of searches that each search engine handles - you should use Media Metrix instead. Again, bingo, I agree these numbers are highly questionable, but your fury here is thoughtless and misplaced. Anyone who wants to better understand the search industry's own take on the market share issue should spend an hour or three at the SearchEngineWatch reports page.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:58:08 -0800

cyrano, there's even a site for that: Xahara. (Beta, technology demo)