Does the World Need Another Way to Search?
By Alistair Croll, Saturday, February 9, 2008
Google’s dominance in online search hasn’t stopped hundreds of startups from trying to build a better mousetrap. Each is trying a new twist on search: geography, crowdsourcing, tags, user annotations, learned hierarchies and timelines. With $20 billion spent on online advertising every year, a killer search application can make a lot of money.
But will new types of search catch on? A recent study of the Google Generation, conducted by University College London, found that “users make very little use of advanced search facilities, assuming that search engines ‘understand’ their queries.” Many of today’s Internet users still don’t know how to use a search engine, preferring instead to type a domain name into the search box (which is why Yahoo is a top search on Google and vice-versa.) The reverse, known as type-in traffic, involves typing a search topic into the address bar to find results. So why are there so many new search sites springing up on the Internet? Building a better mousetrap There are two main reasons companies want to reinvent search. First, new approaches can deliver better results.
* Some search tools use additional context — such as location, tags or the wisdom of crowds — to find more relevant information. Circos, for example, provides clusters of themes so users can tailor their results easily.
* Some search for new kinds of things, most notably people. Redux helps people find people, and Delver and Streakr tie search results to friends’ relationships. Even e-commerce is changing, with sites like Wize and buzzillions combining search with opinion rankings to recommend purchases.
* Others present the information on a map (like Atlaspost), a timeline (the way Capzles does for photos,) or a dynamic hierarchy ( like iLeonardo http://www.iLeonardo.com ) to make it easier to understand.
http://s.wordpress.com/wp-content/themes/vip/gigaom3/images/elements/rss.png
http://gigaom.com/2008/02/09/does-the-world-need-another-search/
1
iLeonardo.com Social utility to connect you and others to research on the Web. A fast and easy way to find what we want. Collection are called notebooks. Links, content, and images the authors have entered, iLeonardo goes out and looks at all other collections that share similar information on the subject and presents them to you as similar research. You can access the notebook and public libraries of different authors. You can also get information pushed to you.When you collect other people's notebooks, you can get updates on their recent activities.So no need to search for information, it gets pushed to you. Do a Web search, select a link, find info you want to save, choose Save to iLeonardo and then create new notebook, name and make the notebook public, editable or ready only and it's save to library. Fusing machine search with humans, who can make contextually relevant collections. Notebookz.com, Inc. [ Interesting, and could really help researchers collaborate and end redundant work. Not sure broad audience will get as excited as I am.] Feasibility Rating: 4
http://encounters.typepad.com/photos/demo_2008/ileonardo_product_guyjpg.jpg
PHOTO: iLeonardo Co-Founder KIRK CHEN
http://www.appscout.com/2008/01/demo_08_lance_handicaps_the_pr_2.php
2
