Tech Status Quo

Joe Anderson is running a critique on Google - not the search aspect, gmail, or Reader - and the failure of many of its applications.  He discusses the dismal ‘Google Answers’ and even less popular ‘Google Video’, but missed what I believe are the most “use-less” Google applications.  When I use the term “use-less”, I do not mean that the applications are poorly designed or implemented, they just are not as useful as the competition.

1. Google Product Search - The description of this application is, “Search for stuff to buy.”  Great, a second search engine that crawls the same websites as Google itself.  I am yet to find a use for this.
2. Google Finance - Come on, we already have Fidelity, E*Trade, CNN Money, and a myriad of other financial repositories;  stay out of this are Google.
3. Google Health - No matter what anyone tells you, putting medical records online is an awful idea.  For that matter, medical records should not even be on your computer where they are easily accessible by anyone with computer knowledge.

What Google application is the most “use-less” to you?  Which is the most “use-ful”?

Tag this at Technorati: applications, Google, google answers, google finance, google health, google reader

Update: Check this story out on Slashdot!

A few days ago I talked about Twing, a new search engine that crawls the internet looking for forum posts and spits them back in relevant order. After doing a bit more searching, an even better “forum search engine” popped up, Omgili.

Now Omgili does make some powerful claims, namely to be the best search engine in the known universe. I don’t know if I agree with that, but so far it seems damn good. A description of Omgili from the about page:

Omgili is your way to find “subjective information”. As opposed to traditional search engines, which search for sites and pages, Omgili finds consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, answers and solutions. Most of the questions have already been answered - find the answers through Omgili. Most of the technical problems have been solved - find the solutions through Omgili. Most of the experiences have already been described - Find these descriptions through Omgili.

Omgili claims to crawl over 100,000 forums on a regular basis, cataloging millions of forum posts in their search database.

Probably the coolest thing about Omgili is the Buzz Graph that shows up on every search page denoting how frequently that search term is talked about on the internet. Below is an example of a Buzz Graph with Google and Microsoft on it:

Overall, Omgili is a good resource for finding opinions and extremely obscure facts. For general knowledge searches, turn to one of the big three.

Tag this at Technorati: Buzz Graph, Google, microsoft, omgili, search engine, twitter

In the search world, competition is fierce. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo pour millions of dollars into advertising their search engines to gain every last user on the internet. There is a new player in the business now thought, and it looks like Twing is going to hit the ball out of the park.

Twing is an “alternative search engine” that I found while perusing the farthest corners of the internet (yes, the internet is square). By alternative, Twing is just “not one of the big 5″. That’s catchy. But the important question to ask any new search engine is, “Does your search work?”

I was pretty skeptical about Twing when I first arrived at their homepage. Supposedly, it searches forums and forum posts, rather than searching plain old static pages. Interesting, haven’t ever seen that before. This is what Twing has to say about itself:

We’re dedicated to the world of online communities and forums. Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities. Members of Twing also can track activity on their favorite forums and stay informed on updates via custom alerts.

Again, you can promise the world, but can you deliver?  Let’s see what Twing can find for me…

Me: Simpsons Bartender
Twing: 255 results, first one included ‘Moe’
Not bad….

Me: 1980 Olympics
Twing: 2100 results, second one was about the USA hockey team - exactly what I was looking for
Very nice

Me: Tetris creator
Twing: 312 results, first one including Alexey Pajitnov.
I am extremely impressed

Overall, Twing did a great job handling search requests and providing an easy way to find information without following deep link trees.  The user interface is also very nice and easy to use.  Twing is definitely going to make an impact in the search engine world, watch out Google.

Tag this at Technorati: 1980 Olympics, Alexey Pajitnov, forum, Google, google rival, microsoft, new .com, search engine, SEO, Simpsons, Tetris creator, twing, Yahoo

Thats right folks, Google is going to update their page rank within the next 12 days. That would bring the time lapse between two PR updates to 100 days, leading to the belief that it is time to update the PRs. Below are the last 10 PR updates by date and days between.

Date Updated	Update Type	Days Lapsed
4/26/2006	TBPR Export	45
7/13/2006	TBPR & BL Export	100
9/28/2006	TBPR & BL Export	76
1/10/2007	TBPR & BL Export	101
1/25/2007	TBPR & BL Export	18
4/30/2007	TBPR & BL Export	98
10/28/2007	TBPR & BL Export	181
1/10/2008	TBPR & BL Export	74
2/26/2008	TBPR & BL Export	47
6/06/2008	TBPR & BL Export	100

Many people have been spreading the rumor that the PR update happened on April 30th. I personally checked the blogs of those claiming that their blog PR was updated, and none had been (most were still at N/A).

“Many of you has already noticed their new PR, and the rest will be noticing it in the next moments or days, so keep checking your Google Toolbar or use any of the Backlinks and Page Rank Checkers. for me and my 3 months site I have noticed my first new PR at the first moments of this day - the first of May (the labor day! and the month that holds my birthdate (May 7th) in its days! what a coincidence lol) - I was so excited for this Update as it’s my first update to know how good did I work and how much do I understand Google PR and the Search Engine Optimization concepts, so what was the result??”

The PR update has not yet happened, but it is coming in the near future. Get your final links in now before the update, the next one won’t be for another 100 days or so.

Tag this at Technorati: blogs, Google, google update, page rank, reach, search engine optimization, SEO, traffic