Wikipedia fanboys gunning for Google
IT SEEMS that the blame for Jimmy Wales' decision to pull the plug on Wikia.com, his daft idea to allow his crack team of fake penis experts to tell punters if their search was relevant or not, is being laid squarely at the feet of Google.
Wired has run a yarn essentially claiming that the fact that Wales' open source, human-powered 'Google killer' Wikia.com failed because Google was too big and powerful.
The article lists a number of those who have tried, unsuccessfully, to take out the big search giant and said they failed because "Google was too big and powerful".
Amazon's A9 failed, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com all continue to struggle, while Google continues to grab its 60 per cent. Technorati, the blog search engine, has been all but abandoned by Web users.
The article claims that Google is too effective at killing opposition, however it does seem to be assuming that the opposition had a good idea in the first place.
Letting Wales's chums anywhere near search decision would be suicide for anyone who wants information. Wales' inner circle of drones, will almost certainly give higher priority to Wikipedia and sites that have been enthusiastic backers of his empire.
As for competition, Yahoo does not search news as effectively as Google and Microsoft's search engine has not found any useful links for us for years.
Last year Cuil claimed to be a smart way to build a deep index of the Web without needing millions to build sprawling data centres. However it didn't work very well either.
The problem for those that want to take on Google is not because it is big. It is mostly because it is better and simpler. So far people have not come up with an idea that matches it and when they do, Google could be history. µ
L'Inq
Wired
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
My answser is that Google just works, because:
- The name is easy to remember
- The page is uncluttered
- You generally get sensible results.
I haven't found another search engine that gives all these - to be honest, I can't name a search engine that even gives one of the three.
You cannot remember yahoo.com? And you claim your boss reads this?
If I was your boss, I would be worried.
Oooh, personal attack? You don't have shares in Yahoo, do you? Or maybe you are a management wannabe, not actually trusted to manage anything?
When I think of yahoo, I don't think of searching for some reason. What comes to mind is toolbars, pointless exclamation points and lots of unrelated services, like yahoo answers.
I visited the yahoo page, and yes, it had the obligatory news panel and a navigation bar on the left with masses of yahoo services linked.
I appreciate that google has also diverged into other services, but you don't hear of people saying "Just yahoo! that for more information", do you?
Would any of us have heard about Wikipedia if wasn't Google directing us to it for years?
Google usually "suggests" Wikipedia pages as top results, not that they're always a good/reliable source of information. Google gives you the most visited results, not the best ones. And this is where Wikipedia succeeded.
And now Wikipedia wanted its own traffic redirector... I think it needs to get rid of its fake penises first.
Its pretty simple, unlit alta vista , yahoo, ask, and all the others both old and new. Google stuck to what it did best, finding you relvant results fast.
I remember when a search engine was just a text box, you put in what you wanted and it came back with results.
Then everyone decide that they needed to be a portal and could force everyone to use them.
No matter what the others did , google have never ever forgotten why it got where it is now.
Simple front page, returen reults that are relatively accurate in a reasonable space of time.
And plenty of those blind donkey's are employed by MS and Yahoo.
MS seems to think that fill a page full of adverts, junk, shit, crap and rubbish, and hide a search box amongst the bollocks and it will lead to search-riches. F#ckin' idiots.
Yahoo, similar to MS except they just use simple text with a few images. Again it's clutter, some more clutter, and some video link clutter. And a search box somewhere.
Google - only a search text box, plus a few word hyperlinks for mail etc.
MS have made Vista Mail not-working with Hotmail. Why does MS shoot itself in the foot so much?
XP has Outlook Express, which works with Hotmail.
Vista has Outlook Express "Vista", but this doesn't work with Hotmail.
It's just another example of MS doing it's best to shoot itself in the foot, make things harder for customers, and drive them towards Apple.
why would anyone use Yahoo when they want to google something?
That screenshot alone should be reason enough to stick with Google. Category sites are a relic from the 1990s.
Google figured out long ago that most people aren't interested in the search engine itself, but want to find their results quickly--even if it means clicking on a relevant ad. The idea that you could "portal" people into hokey content sites and make money on ad impressions was flawed from the beginning. Good riddance to these failed search engines. You will not be remembered.
Last I knew, MS had stopped outlook express from working with hotmail and forces you to use Windows Live Mail. So now Vista Mail and Outlook Express are consistent in their operation. broken by design.