Bing : A Google Killer???

Recently, I wrote about Wolfram Alpha, a computational search engine. I also wrote about Cuil last year. Definitely they are not google killer. But they have killed themselves by the hype created before launching.

So now we have another new search engine to unveil, this time from Microsoft. But doesn’t Microsoft already have a search engine called Live Search? Yes they do, but they’ll be killing that off in the next few days.

Bing: which type of name is it? I asked the same question to one of my friend who works for Live Search. He replied “Dude I have no idea what does it mean and why they are shutting down live search”. Well, what's in a name? All we want a good search engine.

The most significant change is that Bing now organizes search results into categories. it’s a “decision engine” that will help consumer to make decisions about travel, health, and shopping. Microsoft also launched a new site, Discover Bing, that goes into all the details of how Bing works and the decision process behind the creation of it.

As we can see the snapshots given below, there are mainly 3 columns on its main page. Left most is “Explore”, basically categories like images, videos, shopping, news, maps and travel , The middle one is for searched result and the last one is for “similar links”. I am not sure whether this last column is for sponsored link or not. It also has suggestions (not a new thing for today’s search engines). The software giant is set to launch an $80 million to $100 million campaign for Bing while Google spent $25 million on all its advertising last year.

To know more about Bing watch this 2.47 minutes video.

Bing is going to be launched on 3rd June worldwide. I am eagerly waiting for that day. Currently I can’t say anything about its search results but I am highly impressed by it’s categorized search. This is something new for search engines or you can say an improvement to the search engines.

I never used Live Search. I don’t see myself giving up Google, especially given the default Firefox browser integration. But after seeing Bing’s features , definitely I would like to use it and also would like to compare it’s results with google’s results.

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Wolfram Alpha (The Good, The Bad or The Ugly ? )

A few days ago another internet search engine named Wolfram Alpha was officially launched. It was the hottest topic in my friends circle and amongst my batch mates . People were spamming and filling each others mail box. Their main queries were, will this search engine survive in front of a giant like Google? or will this search engine produce better results than Google? Did they implement semantic search? Etc.

I used it for a few hours and found some good and some bad results. I also compared it’s search results with Google. I will explain all of this and more in the latter part of this post. But the thing that interests me the most is Wolfram's profile.

Stephen Wolfram, a British prodigy who earned his PhD in Physics at the tender age of 20 . He published an article on particle physics at the age of 16 and entered Oxford University at the age of 17. He wrote a widely-cited paper on heavy quark production at the age of 17. This same person made a calculation and graphing software package called Mathematica, the only fully integrated technical computing software. No doubt he is a genius but we are here to explore Wolfram Alpha.

Is Wolfram Alpha a search engine?
Search engine is a tool which enables one to find what he is looking for on the Web. For example if you search "geekonnet" on google or on other search engines, it gives all the websites where "geekonnet" is present. If we search the same query on Wolfram Alpha it gives information about geekonnet like daily page views, domain information etc. The site's best trick is its ability to make calculations for certain types of queries. It tries to dissect a question into its components and then performs calculations using its own source materials to compute an answer. The results are presented as a sleek collage of tables, charts and graphics.

It would be unfair if we call wolfram alpha a search engine. Wolfram Alpha is a "computational knowledge engine." In simple word a " question answering system". It is interesting to know that whatever result you get on Wolfram Alpha you can also get the same result on google within 3 to 4 searched result links.

Some facts about Wolfarm Alpha:

1. Wofram Alpha's page is 18 times havier than google's home page: I compared the size and dowloading times of wolfram alpha and google on www.websiteoptimization.com . I found that the homepage Wolfram Alpha is 18 times heavier than Google's home page. The size of Google's home page is 14.449 KB with only 4 HTTP requests. But I found that the homepage of Wolfram Alpha is struggling with a size of 257.411 KB along with 37 HTTP requests. Google page takes only 3.75 seconds to load on a 56Kbps modem. whereas Wolfram Alpha takes 59.93 seconds to load on the same 56Kbps modem.
   No doubt wolfram Alpha needs a huge website optimization.
   
2. Wolfram Alpha is built using Mathmetica: Wolfram Alpha is built primarily using Mathematica; it contains 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code.

In short Wolfram alpha acts like a nerdy accountant who is equipped with the latest set of calculators and endless stacks of books and encyclopedias. Wolfram Alpha is completely useless for me. I don't think I will ever use it. But I am not entirely happy with Google. Google still uses the same old search algorithm based on page rank and key words. If any Google guy is reading this post, here is a question for you : When will you implement semantic search in Google?

PS: Dear readers please write your views and experiences about Wolfram Alpha as comments to this post.

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Micro-blogging

Sometimes blogging applications like wordpress, blogger, typead etc. are too much for a post. Just imagine if we start updating our status or sharing a link to a friend on wordpress or blogger then what would happen. There will be thousands of posts on a single page without any comments or there even won’t be any followers. Its horrible to imagine such a thing.

Micro-blogging is the solution to all this. Micro-blogging refers to publishing very short status messages or updates generally would be of two or three sentences. There are several emerging startups in this area, most famous being twitter. Also a few big social networking players like Facebook and bebo have converted themselves into this area.

Lets start with definition of Micro-blogging from Wikipedia. Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia-blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

Let’s see some famous Micro-Blogging tools and the features and services they are offering to users.

Twitter: this famous Micro-blogging tool was launched publicly in August of 2006. The idea behind twitter was very simple; the co-founder (Jack Dorsey) was interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's success. Twitter asks one question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web. Twitter accepts messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party, API projects like Tweetie, twitterfeed, DestroyTwitter etc. and makes it easy for folks to stay connected. You can also make money through twitter. Follow me on Twitter.

Mood Mill: While surfing different Micro-Blogging websites, Mood Mill impressed me the most. Mood Mill is a social mood management website. It's a personal mood management, a log, a quick 'n easy website for managing and sharing your short logs with your contacts.

Tumblr: The things here attracted me after signing in were it’s simplicity and elegance. Tumblr lets you share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme's HTML. Even use your own domain name. We can say that Tumblr is a combination of blogspot and twitter but in simpler form.

I Rate My Day: This site tries to understand one of the greatest mysteries of human being: feelings. IRateMyDay allows you to share your feelings with the rest of the World in total simplicity! Each time you rate your day, you bring your salt grain to a global vision of the human feeling.

There are many more micro-blogging websites like Emotionr, Hictu (video microblogging), Pacmee, Twingr, Socialtext, Blellow, Plinky … etc. This list will never end. That’s all for now. Very soon I will come with the comparisons and services provided by different Micro-Blogging websites as I have done in past.

Follow me on twitter.

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