MetaFilter posts tagged with search

How Google Plans to Stay Ahead in Search

geoff. — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:50:02 -0800

"We ran over 5,000 experiments last year. Probably 10 experiments for every successful launch. We launch on the order of 100 to 120 a quarter. We have dozens of people working just on the measurement part. We have statisticians who know how to analyze data, we have engineers to build the tools. We have at least five or 10 tools where I can go and see here are five bad things that happened." Udi Manber, Google’s vice-president of technology, explains the business of running a search department. "It takes a very, very good engineer about two years to really understand search." From a surprisingly candid series of articles detailing the business of Google, "Can Google Stay on Top of the Web?" CEO Eric Schmidt on the economy, “If you go back to last year, we began to see slowdown in U.K. quite early. We initially thought it was an error in our system. We made adjustments, and it wasn’t until September and October, when it became clear that it was a global collapse. From our perspective, the low point was somewhere in the spring…somewhere in May or June.”

An infinitely expanding field of boxes, each containing one thing

ardgedee — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:01:43 -0800

Spezify is a metasearch engine. The interface is in Flash.

Top things the < 18 set looks for on internets

ShadePlant — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:49:34 -0800

Top 100 search terms of the <18 crowd during summer. If you're Glenn Quagmire, don't read this. All others, continue! An article with at least superficial credibility (they admit kids search for porn, etc.) about what kids, tweens and teens search for online. Randomness includes Megan Fox, Walmart, Youtube and Naked Girls. (And Craigslist. What the hell do kids need on Craigslist?)

Search Patterns

netbros — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:06:48 -0800

Peter Morville is widely recognized as a father of the information architecture field, and he serves as an advocate for the critical roles that search and findability play in defining web user experience. His recent project titled Search Patterns, is a sandbox for collecting search examples, patterns, and anti-patterns; for example spime search, the ability to query objects in motion and find things in the real world. Morville is also on the editorial board of the new Journal of Information Architecture.

Microsoft! now! provides! Yahoo! search!

jaduncan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:18:23 -0800

Microsoft's Bing now provide Yahoo! seach. Yahoo, a 1994 internet pioneer of search, has now agreed to stop researching search tech and start using Bing. Some say it's a small deal, a Google deal rerun, and one says it's a tar pit. As pointed out, nobody yet knows if Yahoo can choose another provider if it all goes wrong.

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

Just a hunch

Man with Lantern — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:28:35 -0800

Hunch picks up "where a search engine leaves off," according to cofounder Caterina Fake, who previously cofounded the photo-sharing site Flickr and later worked on Yahoo Answers. Fake points out that a normal search engine would provide a user interested in buying a digital camera with links to hundreds of sites that review and compare the latest models. The user then has to sort through that information and figure out which camera is right for her. Instead, Hunch asks users pointed questions and narrows down the list of results for the user.

BankTracker

A dead Quaker — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:07:23 -0800

Curious about the health of your bank? You might find BankTracker helpful. This site crunches the FDIC's publicly available numbers on banks' deposits, loans, and nonperforming loans, and makes them available in a search interface for banks and credit unions. Also interesting are the blog posts. From one of the most recent: Total troubled assets – the sum of loans more than 90 days past due and the value of foreclosed property banks on bank books – increased to $285 billion at the end of March, up from $237 billion at the end of 2008. At the end of March 2008, the banks only had $137 billion in nonperforming loans and foreclosed property on their books. The combination of lower profits and more bad loans meant that more banks saw their capital under growing stress. As of March 31, 238 banks had more troubled assets on their books than they had in capital and loan loss reserves. At the end of December 2008, 165 banks had a “troubled asset ratio” of greater than 100 percent. Only 44 banks fell into that category a year ago.

Google x Google

Zarkonnen — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:13:05 -0800

Google has released an experimental search tool, Google Squared, that presents search results in the form of a table. Each column represents some attribute or dimension of the things returned - for example, searching for US presidents yields a column for date of birth, and rows for Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, etc. Being experimental, Squared does well on some things but (perhaps amusingly) less well on others. (The precise results keep on changing due to curation and whatnot, so things may have changed by the time you read this.) The idea of returning structured search results is hardly new or unique to Google, of course.

Gang Bing

boo_radley — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:46:06 -0800

Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, goes beta. Cribbed from live.com, the layout for bing is... strangely familiar. Early reviews are mixed, with mixed results, mostly noting that the results less useful than google, especially when it comes to google.

FCC claims authority to conduct warrantless searches

notashroom — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:42:45 -0800

The FCC investigated a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month and left a copy of their official inspection policy asserting that they have the authority to perform warrantless searches of private property if there is any FCC-licensed equipment on the property, including cordless phones, cell phones, wireless routers, intercom systems, and baby monitors.

Section 303(n) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, (Act) gives the Federal Communications Commission the "authority to inspect all radio installations associated with stations required to be licensed by any Act, or which the Commission by rule has authorized to operate without a license under section 307(e)(1), or which are subject to the provisions of any Act, treaty, or convention binding on the United States . . ." 47 U.S.C. 303(n) Both Section 303(n) of the Act, and the Rules which implement the Act, grant the right to inspect most radio operations to the Commission, and by delegated authority to the Commission's Bureaus and agents. The Enforcement Bureau conducts inspections of radio installations as part of the Bureau's function to "[e]nforce the Commission's Rules and Regulations." 47 CFR 0.111(a). Both licensees and non-licensees must allow an FCC Agent to inspect their radio equipment. Along with the privilege of possessing a license come responsibilities such as knowing the applicable rules, including allowing the station to be inspected. Licensees should be aware of the Commission's right to inspect. Equally important, FCC Agents are allowed to inspect the radio equipment of non-licensees. Non-licensees include those individuals or entities operating in accordance with Part 15 of the Rules. Non-licensees also include those who should have a license to operate their equipment but have not obtained a license and are operating without authority.

Question the Answers? Answer the questions!

rollbiz — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:49:08 -0800

Wolfram Alpha is about to go live. Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine which may just change the way we think about search results.

Find Any Recipe

netbros — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:36:34 -0800

Cooks around the world deserve a simple place to find any recipe. Enter RecipeBridge. Have an ingredient you don't know what to do with? Enter it into RecipeBridge for recipe ideas returned from more than 200 cooking sites. C'est magnifique.

Offal off-limits? Officially, no.

Lemurrhea — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:00:10 -0800

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a search of your trash doesn't violate your privacy. This decision is in line with that of the United States. For those interested in the issues surrounding privacy in Canada, the blog of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner is an invaluable resource. (prev)

This is phenomenal.

painquale — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:19:36 -0800

Dave Chalmers has just launched PhilPapers, a directory of nearly 200,000 online papers in philosophy. This is a jawdropping and amazing resource for philosophical research. For evidence of the scope of this project and the care that has been given to it, see the taxonomy of philosophy that was developed for the site.

Getting to Work

etaoin — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:48:26 -0800

You might get lucky and find work from home but it won't be easy. You could try wading through the many sites offering advice and opinion on the dire job situation. The Wall Street Journal looks at short employment stints, employment test cheating and who's especially vulnerable to layoffs; Lindsey Pollak offers tips to students and others on tips landing a first job. There are lawyers to help older workers avert discriminatory layoffs and a job bank for people over 50. There are, of course, many job search sites, some better than others. Some are avoiding search engines and going directly to Facebook or Linked In to make connections with potential recruiters. In addition to Monster, there's Craigslist and Indeed.com, as well as CareerBuilder. Then there's The Ladders, although some people rip the last site as a scam. And there's this article on the top job search engines. Your best bet might be self employment. Meanwhile, Dean Baker argues for a larger stimulus package to preserve jobs, while Henry Blodget says there's no quick fix and quotes another expert saying that the jobs situation is worse than you think. If all else fails, perhaps you should think about jobs in Canada. But you may find yourself not welcome in Mexico.

Two Google searches use as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea

nthdegx — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:39:25 -0800

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches - "Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea."

Where Search Meets Research

netbros — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:07:31 -0800

middlespot.com is a search interface for teachers, librarians, researchers and anyone who wants to interpret information faster from their search results, collect and annotate relevant results into groups, and share those collections with people relying on their expertise. * see your results as screen shots that you can pan and zoom like a map * save and annotate relevant individual results to collections in work pads * share work pads with others who are looking to you for your expertise * try the tutorial to catch on quick

Be careful drawing conclusions from this data

sambosambo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:50:39 -0800

StateStats: Explore the popularity of search queries in U.S. states StateStats shows you how popular a particular Google search is in each state. It also shows correlation with other state rankings such as obesity, income, or unemployment. Here are some examples to get you started, and remember that correlation does not imply causation and all that. MetaFilter/Bacon Porn/Church Christmas/Hanukkah Tequila/Vodka/Rum/Whiskey/Wine Ghosts/UFOs/Bigfoot/Elvis

But will it work on the subset of searches sent via avian carriers?

grouse — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:03:26 -0800

Google Flu Trends brings us epidemiology through search analytics. The prevalence of certain search terms seems to be a good predictor of CDC flu reports a couple of weeks later. The New York Times has a story on this project.

"I wanted to hug him, for him to meet my son."

WolfDaddy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:23:15 -0800

"Girl, he died a hero with tons of people loving him." A jack-of-all-trades worker from Florida came to Houston to help clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, and was killed while trying to save three dogs on a freeway. At first, it seemed the man, while praised as a local hero, and receiving tons of support in death from animal lovers, would remain an unknown loner in death as he had been in life. Then a Google search and an exchange of e-mails led one Houston woman to the man's daughter, living in Pittsburgh. The young woman had been searching for her father for thirteen years.

Search like it's 2001...

HaloMan — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:35:47 -0800

To celebrate their 10th birthday Google have brought back their oldest available index dating back to 2001.

Chris Harrison's gorgeous visualizations

cortex — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:54:59 -0800

Word Spectrum; SearchClock; Digg Rings; Bible Cross-references: the gorgeous analytical vizualizations of Chris Harrison. See also his research projects, including a webcam-driven headtracker riff on Johnny Chung Lee's Wii-hack (previously).

Where's my image?

monospace — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:30:35 -0800

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. Every day TinEye's spiders crawl the web for additional images. Using sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms, TinEye creates a unique and compact digital signature or 'fingerprint' for each one and adds it to the index. When you want to find out where an image is being used on the web, you submit it to TinEye. The attributes of the image are analyzed instantly, and its fingerprint is compared to the fingerprint of every single image in the TinEye search index. The result? A detailed list of any websites using that image, worldwide.

Individual Google

tkolar — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:47:25 -0800

Things [blank] people like. New search engine RushmoreDrive is a first step into the waters of Identity Based searching. Specifically, it weighs your demographic heavily when ordering your search results.