Web of Research

June 17, 2009 1:58 PM

"Worio is a discovery engine that works alongside keyword search to expose you to stuff you've been missing using search alone." (via)

FAQ

posted by gman (17 comments total)

I prefer the red-capped friendly version, Morio.
posted by boo_radley at 2:03 PM on June 17 [5 favorites has favorites]

Worio learns about you and populates your discovery feed (on the right) with stuff you like.

...something something Skynet something something something...
posted by owtytrof at 2:20 PM on June 17

Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment. The Internet is saved.

(Except our princess is in another castle)
posted by educatedslacker at 2:20 PM on June 17 [8 favorites has favorites]

Just trying it out now... (yes, I posted before testing)

I noticed in the FAQ:

"What if I prefer the keyword results from another search engine (Yahoo, Google, etc.)?

Simply choose the engine you prefer in the box above the keyword search results. This way, you can enjoy Worio recommendations in conjunction with the keyword results you are most comfortable with."
posted by gman at 2:24 PM on June 17

Heh, I like that their "about" has "investor information"

I tried searching for "webhosting" and it asked if I meant "web".

Anyway I don't even get what's supposed to be interesting about this. It says "There is a vast amount of useful information that you're simply not aware of." Like what? Stuff I'm not searching for? The searches I did brought up related information in the "Worio" sidebar but it wasn't clear why I was supposed to be so excited about it.

Recommendation engines like this won't be very practical until someone figures out a way to make it easy for people to give them training data. Doing tons of searchers and clicking on the links doesn't seem like that much fun.

And of course the other question is: why do I want to give these people all my data? The sparse marketing speak on the front page isn't exactly confidence inspiring and the FAQ is pretty uninspiring. I realize you might be able to get better search results by "knowing" the user, but do you really want to be "known" by some random company?
posted by delmoi at 3:00 PM on June 17

...do you really want to be "known" by some random company?

Nope. This is one reason I stay away from Facebook.

*Having now tried it out, I actually agree with what you've said, delmoi. I'm not really sure I like the results.
posted by gman at 3:08 PM on June 17

> And of course the other question is: why do I want to give these people all my data?

Well, you're already giving it to Google (or some other search engine company), it's not like what you're searching for isn't stored if you don't use Worio (although I guess you're giving that data to two parties instead of one if you do use it).
posted by bjrn at 3:53 PM on June 17

Remember that commercial for Super Mario 3, where all the kids were waving their fists around and chanting 'Mario! Mario! Mario!,' and then they kept zooming out and it was, like, Mario Planet?

When I was a kid, that thing had a sort of Triumph of the Will quality that totally freaked me out.
posted by box at 4:09 PM on June 17

Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment.

Sound like Rorshach. Good. Ng.
posted by poppo at 4:14 PM on June 17 [2 favorites has favorites]

Remember that commercial for Super Mario 3, where all the kids were waving their fists around and chanting 'Mario! Mario! Mario!,' and then they kept zooming out and it was, like, Mario Planet?

That Commercial was awesome.
posted by delmoi at 4:52 PM on June 17 [1 favorite has favorites]

I was prepared to find it fairly un-useful (I mean... who needs a new search engine?) but it actually pulled out some interesting articles on the sidebar when I searched on my company's name.
Not sure if it will be more useful then if I just searched blogs published in the last week for some known keywords for my area of work, but interesting enough to keep in my bookmarks.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 4:54 PM on June 17

... to expose you to stuff...

I choose to expose myself.

Please, there are ladies present!
posted by DU at 5:25 PM on June 17

I posted before testing

Maybe, uh, that's not the right way to find the best of the web? It's bad enough when commenters don't read the link before posting a comment, I don't want posters to start making posts without reading too.
posted by Super Hans at 6:13 PM on June 17

Normally I'd agree, but because of how the concept for the site works, I didn't want to spend days or weeks waiting for it to learn my "interests" before posting.
posted by gman at 8:58 PM on June 17

Wow, a DISCOVERY ENGINE!

I've never used one of those!

What will those geniuses in marketing come up with next? I already got to use a DECISION ENGINE earlier this week…I think I'll hope the next one is a FUN ENGINE or a HOLY ECSTASY OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING ENGINE.
posted by koeselitz at 10:03 PM on June 17 [2 favorites has favorites]

poppo: "Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment.

Sound like Rorshach. Good. Ng."

Hrrm.
posted by boo_radley at 12:40 PM on June 18

Doesn't StumbleUpon already have this covered? You can search through like-tagging people's favorite pages and everything.
posted by LogicalDash at 2:21 PM on June 18