Monthly Archives: May 2009

Bing = Bing Is Not Google

As reported by Scoble: http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/01bbb409/i-love-that-bing-means-is-not-google-very I agree — very clever and quite funny.  A recursion that all computer scientists should appreciate, tipping its hat to similarly-constructed acronyms, such as GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix) and Pine (Pine is not Elm). It’s … Continue reading

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Wired Article on Bing

I just came across a Wired article today on a new search push from Microsoft, which will supposedly be named Bing. It touches on some of the issues that we were discussing in yesterday’s comment thread, in particular:  People thought … Continue reading

Posted in Exploratory Search, General | 2 Comments

Machine Learning and Search: Action or Reaction?

I have a question that has been bothering me, kicking around in my head, for at least half a decade now.  And I can’t seem to come to any solid conclusion on it. I suppose it can’t hurt to throw … Continue reading

Posted in General, Information Retrieval Foundations | 13 Comments

Week Links, Volume 1

This was a particularly busy week, and I did not get a chance to post many thoughts.  Instead, I’ll do a quick roundup of articles that I enjoyed reading this past week+. First, a tongue-in-cheek post from Nick Carr entitled … Continue reading

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Google Search Options and the Paradox of Choice

Google finally acquiesces, and starts exposing more advanced, user-controllable search result refactorization options.  See here, here, and here: But as people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems. To stay on top … Continue reading

Posted in Exploratory Search | 1 Comment

Opposite Day

Two pieces of recent news have my head spinning. Both are instances of technology companies acting in exactly the opposite manner from their ideals (and public statements). The first is Microsoft announcement of an open-source version of BigTable:  Instead of creating … Continue reading

Posted in General, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Personal Branding and Search Results Integrity

Google is an information retrieval company that prides itself on the purity of its results.  It does not allow the integrity of its ranked list ordering to be tampered with by sponsored results. It also has claimed for years that … Continue reading

Posted in General, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Universal Search is not Exploratory Search

In a recent response article, Danny Sullivan takes Forbes CEO Spanfeller to task on the whole Google vs. The Newspapers issue.  There are a lot of things I agree with Danny about, and an equal number of things that I … Continue reading

Posted in Exploratory Search, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Search Engine Rotation: Wolfram Alpha vs. Google

Apropos to my post yesterday, Technology Review has a short comparison of Wolfram Alpha and Google.  Here are a few samples: Here’s what I entered, and what I found. SEARCH TERM: Microsoft Apple WOLFRAM ALPHA: I got side-by-side tables and … Continue reading

Posted in Information Retrieval Foundations, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Do You Rotate Your Search Engine Usage?

It is good practice to rotate the mattress on your bed, to prevent lopsided wear-and-tear from shortening its useful life.  The same thing applies to car tires; they need rotating.  Smart travelers know to rotate the airlines from which they … Continue reading

Posted in General, Social Implications | 1 Comment