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Google Has Dumbed Down Search... Isn't That A Good Thing?
from the straw-men... dept
It's no surprise that the folks at Autonomy may be feeling a little neglected by the press lately, as all of the "search" hype focuses on Google, Yahoo and others. Autonomy always was much more focused on enterprise and corporate uses of search and data mining technologies. However, to say it's "unfortunate" that Google has "dumbed down" search is being controversial just for the sake of being controversial. Google (and others') "dumbing down" of search is part of what made search so successful. While the guy complains about people punching in a couple of keywords, it's that simplicity that has made search so valuable. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for more advanced search, but it's not "unfortunate" at all that Google has made it so much easier and effective. His other claim is that Google may run into trouble because search is becoming a commodity. Perhaps he hasn't been looking lately, but Google seems to be working pretty hard to make it clear they're an ad network built on the core of their search capabilities, rather than "a search company."
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"so much easier and effective"
easier yes, effective, no. It is very easy to get bad/useless/popular/wrong/outdated information quickly with google
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Crybaby?
I didn't really get anything more out of that article than a bitter developer with poor understanding of HCI sulking because Google won.
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"Penguin"...
What idiot would only type in the word "penguin" if they are searching for something more specific?
RIGHT...
This clown uses a hypthetical example of people searching for oil pollution effects on penguins (or whatever) and he actually thinks they are typing in only "penguin" and then clicking through "hundreds" or even "thousands" of google results until they hit upon what they want...
What a load of crapola.
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Re:
Of course, if you search "oil pollution alaska penguin population", Google actually returns some pretty relevant results right at the top - including several scholarly articles on the subject:
http://tinyurl.com/ccbwj
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Mr. Lynch is being dumb
Mr. Lynch is the one that has dumbed down searching on Google. If someone is looking for something as specific as the effect of oil pollution on the penguin population of Alaska, they will likely enter the words 'oil pollution penguin alaska'. Entering those terms into Google will bring up several relevant results. Who is the one being dumb, Mr. Lynch?
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What a duche bag
what a duche bag. If you actually google "effect of oil pollution on the penguin population of Alaska" you get exactally when your looking for!
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Alaskan Penguins?
That must be some search engine...
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good
I have been using Google since many days.....and it is simply great. Yes sometimes it does deliver crap....but most of the times it is great.
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No, that's what used to happen, with old search engines. Google is so good at guessing what you want, you tend not to do that any more.
That's not dumbing down, that's dumbing up.
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Autonomy ... ugh!
I shiver when I read about Automony - I worked for them earlier this year. What an appalling, ruthless sweatshop of a company. They're infamous for their evil working practices around Cambridge (UK), and I write this as a warning to anyone who thinks of going near them!
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If we want to get into technicalities...
If he took time to try Google. The first page of results for the word "penguin" offers up http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/main.html. Follow the "Habitats of Penguins" link to discover the appalling facts.
Google also offers advanced search capabilities. You just have to have (A.) The need for those capabilities, and (B.) A little motivation to find out.
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(a) Penguins don't live in Alaska.
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We use Autonomy at work. It's not very good. I wish we had Google.
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