Comments on: The Great Debate was last night!

By: PhilScott

PhilScott — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:06:08 +0000

While this is an old debate the discussion is still relevant today….By combining personalization with continuous search, a user can now search, get results, personalize or “fine tune” and then continue the search. And that’s the ultimate goal… helping people find what they are looking for.

This is the problem that topikality.com is tackling with a new approach. Happy to talk to anyone about this.

By: Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » The Great Debates on AltSearchEngines

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:13:13 +0000

[...] of our past debates in case you missed them. Just click on the first word for the whole debate. Continuous Search: and [...]

By: Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » The Great Debates on AltSearchEngines

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:22:14 +0000

[...] first debate! Continuous Search Engines with Allth.at, Swamii, and [...]

By: Kaila Colbin

Kaila Colbin — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:01:06 +0000

Hi guys,

Welcome to the blogosphere, Alt Search Engines!

Thanks for the interesting debate, guys. Mark, I’m particularly interested in your comments about keeping user history as a filter. As you’re no doubt well aware, privacy is a major concern among users. What has reaction been to having Searchbots store user activity, and what is your privacy policy?

I’m also intrigued by your comment that you’re always going to be niche engines. In one of my recent posts I proposed that the search engine network currently has a ‘winner take all’ topology — essentially, that Google has become such a monolith that the industry no longer follows a power curve (I pinched the terminology from Barabasi’s book ‘Linked’). Do you think that’s true? Or do you think there are any search engines out there that stand a chance of occupying more than ‘just a niche’?

Best regards,
Kaila Colbin

By: Charles Knight

Charles Knight — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:17:58 +0000

Readers: Even though this live debate is now over, feel free to comment on the coversation above. The three debaters, Kalem of Swamii, Mark of Searchbots, and Morgan of Allth.at may pop in later and respond to your comment. We’ll consider the comment period closed after 24 hours.

By: Charles Knight

Charles Knight — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:11:55 +0000

Well it’s been an hour, and I’ve got to let you go. Feel free to stay and see if we have comments from readers. But please check back occasionally as many people may read this conversation later. I will keep it posted. Thank you very much for being our first debaters!

By: Morgan Snyder

Morgan Snyder — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:11:37 +0000

Yes, it seeems that all of these things (machine, human, social network) are all somehow on a collision course… I don’t think there is one “right” answer. I’m also not sure that the next great algorighm is the answer. It certainly is interesting to watch and be a part of.

Personally, I’m in favor of a neutral, search platform… a search application (not an engine) that can leverage all of these great things as they evolve. This way, when the next thing does come along, it can be added as a source to the platform. And ultimately, users can find what they are looking for.

I’m done. Thank you Charles!!

By: Mark Zeman

Mark Zeman — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:58:43 +0000

Hmmm… how up to date id the API you’re accessing though? Alerts are great but the problem is that they are just literally “alerts”. I think the benefit we offer is personalization over time. For example at a very simple level Searchbots keeps a full history of what you’ve visited or been sent in your reports. It then uses that history as a filter so only new websites with a high quality rating you haven’t seen before are sent to you. I’m not sure if Google Alerts is linked to Web History yet? It should be?

The idea of machine vs human or index vs social network start to come up. How do we merge the two in an ongoing fashion. Eurekster takes a crack at it but not in a continuous way.

By: Morgan Snyder

Morgan Snyder — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:48:57 +0000

This has been my experience as well… users really do want interaction. I suppose this gets to how the alternatives compare to Google and Yahoo
Alerts

Google and Yahoo alerts both work well. The problem is that they are both married to their index… which can only be updated so often. The best example of this would be when you are looking for something and they serve an ebay result, you click on it and get a message like “bidding for this item has ended.”

By using a combination of API’s, RSS and index results, we are able to get more timely results because we are most time directly linked to the source database through the API.

By: Mark Zeman

Mark Zeman — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:41:56 +0000

We’re always going to be niche engines but I see that as a strength. Users that are more interested in search and interacting with the search results. I’ve just run a user survey and it was interesting how many people loved Google’s breadth and speed, but really that just wanted to interact with what was spit out. “Never show me this result again.”, “Show me a thumbnail preview”, “Turn off ads”, “Turn off commercial websites’. It seems to me people are very keen to contribute. Does anyone know what happen to Wink and why they veered away from rating Google results?