Comments on: Web of Research

Web of Research

gman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:58:31 -0800

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

FAQ

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:03:49 -0800

I prefer the red-capped friendly version, Morio.

By: owtytrof

owtytrof — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:20:27 -0800

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

By: educatedslacker

educatedslacker — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:20:28 -0800

Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment. The Internet is saved. (Except our princess is in another castle)

By: gman

gman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:24:48 -0800

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."

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:00:46 -0800

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?

By: gman

gman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:08:41 -0800

...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.

By: bjrn

bjrn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:53:21 -0800

> 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).

By: box

box — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:09:41 -0800

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.

By: poppo

poppo — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:14:44 -0800

Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment. Sound like Rorshach. Good. Ng.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:52:35 -0800

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.

By: bottlebrushtree

bottlebrushtree — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:54:21 -0800

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.

By: DU

DU — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:25:30 -0800

... to expose you to stuff... I choose to expose myself. Please, there are ladies present!

By: Super Hans

Super Hans — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:13:06 -0800

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.

By: gman

gman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:58:59 -0800

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.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:03:44 -0800

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.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:40:32 -0800

poppo: "Came for Wario joke. Satisfied with first comment. Sound like Rorshach. Good. Ng." Hrrm.

By: LogicalDash

LogicalDash — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:21:42 -0800

Doesn't StumbleUpon already have this covered? You can search through like-tagging people's favorite pages and everything.