Search Results for: wolfram

While Bing’s busy launching its new decision engine and Wolfram Alpha tries to wow us with its computational prowess, Google has publicly launched Google Squared.

Previewed back in May, Google Squared is “an experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, similar to a spreadsheet.”

And to that, I say whoop-dee-doo. OK, maybe I’m missing something here, but can I ask a question? WHY?

Over at the Official Google Blog, we get the cute story about being able to compare roller coasters–and I know my wife will love the data for dog breeds and Hawaii–but do we really need this?

Here’s how it looks in practice:

You’ve heard if the expression "If it’s not broken, don’t fix it," right?

Apparently the search engines haven’t.

The "ten blue links" that have served the search engines well for over a decade could be going the way of the dodo and I can’t help wonder just how much of this is driven by the desire for innovation rather than the actual need for it.

Last time I searched, I was pretty happy with the simplicity of the search results page. It was familiar, it was accurate, and aside from perhaps needing a few minor tweaks, did exactly what I needed it to do. Well, it appears the search engines are in a hurry to see who can break search the most and then piece it back together as something completely different.

There’s a new search engine kid on the block: blekko

blekko is different because it uses what it calls “slashtags” to help the searcher refine their search results.

There are two major problems that will prevent blekko from reaching mainstream success. I’ll reveal both, after this video intro to blekko:

OK, so the two big problems? You just watched one of them. Any search engine that requires a video tutorial is not destined for mainstream success. When was the last time you had to explain how to conduct a search on Google? If I had to explain slashtags to my mom, sister, or just about anyone, I’d likely get a ton of questions and they’d ultimately end up going back to Google. Google became popular because it was easy to use and did all the heavy lifting for you.

That’s right there are zombies on the horizon, and no I’m not talking about Sears or this week’s episode of Community. These zombies will be homegrown from soon to be launched blekko.

blekko is a new search engine that is expected to make its public debut on Monday, November 1, and it is sure to foster its own army of zombie followers. What’s that? You are scared? You don’t want search engine obsessed zombies on the Internet? Well don’t worry I’m not actually talking about real brain eating zombies but rather the marketing equivalent.

Are you sure you’re using the best search engine available?

What if I told you that you, your friends, and your family spend almost half their time looking at search results that aren’t relevant?

What if I could show you a brand new search engine that has better results than the one you are currently using?

Would you want to try it?

Those questions are exactly the ones I’d ask consumers if I were in control of the estimated $80 million to $100 million Microsoft plans to spend on marketing its, yet to be launched, search engine.

We’re just days away from Microsoft releasing “Kumo” (the current working name) into the wild and for once, mounting an honest-to-goodness challenge to Google’s dominance. But, Microsoft can’t possibly expect something flashy and new to convince Google users to make the switch, so it needs to play the only trump card that it has.