Data issued by comScore shows that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) searches fell from 6.14 billion to 5.86 billion from January to February, causing Google's dominance of the worldwide search market to dip to 62.8 percent in February, from 63.1 percent in January. While showing negative news for Google in particular, the data also shows that, overall in February, global searches were on the decline. Perhaps a signal we're bored with basic search?
New developments are currently taking place in search that emphasize our want for something new, and our slow move away from the static search engines of yesteryear. One example is the impending threat of the Semantic Web (albeit unrealized thus far).
Another method is human-powered search, or search engines that incorporate a mix of human brains and algorithms to produce specific results. Mahalo is one engine currently stomping around in that space, and a new competitor -- called Topicle -- is on the rise, claiming its selling point in comparison to Mahalo will be its simplicity.
Topicle uses Google Custom Search Engine Technology, but according to founder and former Google employee, Steffen Mueller, it utilizes human-powered search as a much needed supplement -- because our current search engines "don't understand what the user is really looking for."
"Topicle search engines focus on one very specific topic and provide high-quality results," he says. Each individual Topicle search engine is supported by URLs submitted by the community, which are then rated by that community to weed out spam and irrelevant choices. Unlike Mahalo, Topicle doesn't require that users sign in to create search engines.
According to Mueller, with human-powered search -- providing the engines are "fed with the right URLs" -- you only need a handful of choices to find what you need.
In the coming week, Topicle plans to enable users to add a search box to their Firefox browsers and incorporate a Topicle search box into any Website.
But, says Mueller, human-powered search will not be the force that slaughters Google.
Human-powered search engines "will never be able to search billions of URLs like algorithm-only-based search engines do, as the sheer number of URLs could not be managed by a community," says Mueller, adding that they might be "a nice alternative for frequently requested general search queries."
Sigh. Perhaps we'll have to leave the Goog slaughtering to the impending Semantic Yahoo...
Hi there. I think a better or alternative way to label these search engines would be to call them "human-built." This search engine in particular combines a Google Custom Search Engine with a database of URLs physically submitted by the community of searchers. The "human" aspect of the search derives from actual involvement by the community: With Topicle, the broad search engine is broken down into mini-search engines suggested by the community (e.g., Digital cameras) and then those search engines are stocked with URLs submitted by the community. So, when performing a search within the digital camera search engine for a specific digital camera, for example, the results will reveal URLs supplied by Topicle users. In this sense, it's really up to the Web community to build and supply the fundamentals of a "killer" search engine.
I'm a little confused by what "human-powered" search really means. Are we talking about an engine that combines a google algorythm with human-inputed information from sites like delicious? Or perhaps it is more along the lines of an engine that recognizes what sites other people have visited that are connected to the subject you are looking for similar to how Amazon suggests books to you based on people who bought the same book you are looking for. Or is it something completely different?
I'm not sure how they measure search, but if it's total searches in the month, then this doesn't make sense to compare. The only way to compare it is to either look at the previous February, or take an average of searches per day.
If you do the average searches/day, February search rate actually went up:
Jan: 6.14 Billion/31 = .199 billion per day
Feb: 5.86 Billion/29 = .202 billion per day
So, as the first commentor points out - February is shorter!
Comscore either should be more clear/precise, or they should hire a new analyst. I'm just a geek with a calculator.
Hello everybody, yesterday i ran into an article of the NY times that talked about Twine that accordinly to the article "may provide some robotic secretarial help in organizing and retrieving documents."
you can check the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/business/03novel.html?ex=1359867600&en=80fc4fb4a0b9a6e5&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
the website is http://www.twine.com/ but It is still on beta, so you need an invitation to try it, i am trying to get one (i even have created a group on facebook!) i hope to get one so i can comment further.
Best way to start browsing from POV is still Google, than Del.Icio.US, best maybe with combination - online desktop. There are planty better options then Google.
Google become to spamy and comercialized, so it's less and less usable, people are switching to 2.0, where google doesn't play so important role anymore. Personaly I am switching to Del.ICIO.US. Service is human powered, there is less spam and you can find "proper" and quality match faster. I belive that human powered search is influenting to google.
Those two services, mentioned in the article are not developed for serious usage, yet.
It's too premature to even put the so call "human search engines" on the ring with Google and to suggest that they can collectively deliver the killer punch is simply to blow up expectations. It's similar to my fiancee expecting me to win a fight against Mike Tyson during his prime!!!
The good thing though is that whilst i can't loosen any of Mike's tissue in the ring, these 'serach engines" will at least loosen Google's seemingly eternal grip on us and give us much needed worthwhile alternatives:
I do share your concerns about the long time viability of these so called human-powered search engines. Infact someone rightly calls them "Interractive Blogs"!!
I think Google was running a similar one called Google Answers but has since being closed. I don't know the reasons why it was shot down but may be due to the financial lapses you mentioned.
I believe this huma search engines would be successful if they are restricted to a specific profession. Certainly they can't compete with Google on a large scale nor give it the killer punch but they can be pretty effective if they are design to provide search results for a specific field. Take for instance in the area of education which the following article refers to:
While reading all your interesting posts here, a question came up in my head... how exactly should or can we evaluate search engines?
Beside the statistical data like number of search queries, how do we actually tell which search engine is really better than the other? I have a feeling that most of the time when we say one engine is relatively good or bad, it's probably just a matter of opinion. But I wonder if there are any concrete measures or evaluation steps one can use to test and rate how good a search engine is. Is it just the search result performance that matters? Some search engines may be able to return certain results that the others do not, and vise versa. What about the look and feel, simplicity, functionality, speed and even creativity? These together may have to be looked at or benchmarked in order to evaluate how good a search engine really is. Perhaps, our experts can shed some light on this matter.
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Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s recent unveiling of its "magical" iPad may have fanboys counting the days until March, but if a recent poll on Internet Evolution is any indication, not everyone is buying into the hype.
We do a lot of grousing here on Internet Evolution, and usually for good reason, considering the amount of nonsense that keeps this industry afloat on its cloud of hot steamy air!!!! But... we can still happily acknowledge those titans who have succeeded in leading the way or paving new ground in their respective fields and, in turn, give credit when it is well deserved.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been working with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to look into the attacks on its Chinese servers.
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In the final episode of this series about the death of Internet anonymity, Saunders describes how the Internet of the future will start to attain a level of intelligence that requires no human intervention. Scary.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
Now that Bing has struck a deal with Twitter, its search service will have to process a tsunami of Tweets, many of which are worthless junk. Stefan Weitz, director with Bing Search, explains to Michael Singer how his service will make sense of the Twitter mayhem to provide relevant results to end users and enterprises.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
Bing, Microsoft’s search service, has struck a deal with Twitter. Here Stefan Weitz, director with Bing Search, talks through how the deal will work from a technical perspective, and what’s in it for users.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
Steve Saunders talks about the risks inherent in uncontrolled, widespread profiling of Internet users, and how one day this practice could form the basis of a new industry, the Outernet, which in economic terms will have outgrown the commercial value of the Internet itself.
Search companies and social networks are collecting incredibly detailed information about their users, says Steve Saunders, who predicts that these 'profiles' could one day become commodities to be bought and sold by companies on 'profile markets' or 'identity exchanges’ – the digital DNA equivalents of the financial and commodities exchanges on which stocks, oil, and gold are traded.
Research shows that the youth of today like Facebook – but not blogging or Twitter. Does that mean Facebook has won, or just that it's not yet out of favor? Will all the services we see today fade into Ovaltine-or-Wheaties status in just a few years?
What kinds of companies are doing the most innovation in the data center? Turns out it's midtier enterprises that are taking the "Just Right" approach.
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