Web Search–Google
Source: Financial Times
Full-Text article: “Why Google’s technology may have reached its peak” (subscription only)
A bit more cautious writing about Google’s future by FT writer, John Gapper. Those of you who read ResourceShelf on a regular basis are more than aware of the fact that I’ve never bought into the “nothing will ever be better mindset.” Google was in the right place at the right time and was able to market itself in many unique ways. In my opinion, the most interesting history of Google’s early years will not be about their technology but will be how they marketed the product. Here are a few quotes and comments from the FT article.
+ “Already the bulletin board of Slashdot, provider of “news for nerds”, is full of gripes that Sergey Brin and Larry Page are taking the stock market shilling.”
I sometimes think that to be a reader of Slashdot you need to have a complaint about everything. What the Slashdot community is realizing is that Google is a company that has more goals than satisfying the personal search needs and wants of every single user. One tool Google has used to get it to where it is today by managing how it uses the media. Google has never been seen as a big company because in many cases big companies advertise and then advertise some more. They spend, spend, spend trying to “sell” people on their product. Google hasn’t needed to do this because they get plenty of positive advertising (and that’s putting it mildly) for free via hundreds of newspaper/magazine articles, radio segments, and television features. Then, toss into the mix all of the “Google is great” pub they receive on various web sites and you’ve created a massive marketing powerhouse using non-traditional tools. It not only promotes but enhances Google’s “just some people building a search engine” image. Google is a case study in how to market a company.
+ The loudest complaint against Google is that it has lost some of its original arm’s-length attitude to commerce.
The article does not mention that all of the major search players have done a good job of labeling results and that all search results are manipulated in one way or another by search engine optimizers.
+ The more pertinent question is whether its business model will retain the lead. To start with, it can no longer rely on others failing to grasp the importance of search. Algorithmic search engines are tough to design and maintain but others such as Teoma, owned by Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo’s Inktomi are catching up.
I agree 100%. Again, those of you who have been a regular on this site know that I’m a big fan and supporter of what Jeeves and Teoma are up to. No need to repeat myself. Let’s not forget that Yahoo is now the owner of powerful technology from AllTheWeb and AltaVista.
+ Yahoo is augmenting internet search with its own information. Its Yahoo Shopping service not only allows users to search for the cheapest outlet for different models of digital cameras but also combines the results with its own guide to buying cameras, and with user reviews.
Again, Mr. Gapper is correct. After preparing for a recent seminar on web consumerism and looking at the various shopping search tools, Yahoo Shopping is my current fave. Yahoo’s just announced “SmartSort” personalized results tools show plenty of promise.
Of course Google’s founders have shown before that only a fool underestimates them, and its technology remains hard to match; there is still plenty of scope for further growth. Still, if I were on the board, I might well think that it was time to sell a few shares.
+ Gapper is right again. However, I think he would have made an already interesting article better by also mentioning the fact that the need for smaller, niche-based engines is still very strong and important. In other words, one search tool cannot be the end all, be all for all types of searches and types of searchers. I sometimes think that some information professionals have forgotten this point. Google has done MANY good things for the search community but it has created a belief in the general public that it’s perfect technology and home to all of the answers (if it’s not in Google it doesn’t exist).
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AND SPEAKING OF BAD SEARCH HABITS….
Barbara Quint reports about how OCLC is allowing Google to add records (on a trial basis) from WorldCat. Quint corrrectly points out that many issues come into play here including the likelihood of an end user doing a basic Google search and a link for the book (via OCLC) appearing in the first few results (where most people look). The article also mentions that IEEE material is being added into Google. We’ve reported on this several times. From several test searches I’ve noticed estimates of less than 150,000 citations being available as of today. The full IEEE xPlore Database is closing in on 1 million records.
Some questions to consider
1) I’ve found even with the technical nature of IEEE material, you must run an exact item search to access the abstract. Running a basic keyword search does not often produce IEEE material.
2) Searching on an author’s name or initials will often not produce IEEE abstracts.
3) Here’s a known item search for the article, “Scene detection in hollywood movies and TV shows”
The first result is the full text of the paper from the author’s web site. Who needs IEEE? Also, a database like CiteSeer not only offers a link to the full text (if available) but it also acts as a citation index.
4) An author search for Zeeshan Rasheed or Z Rasheed does not retrieve the IEEE abstract, for the paper mentioned above, anywhere in the first 100 results.
5) In the case of the soon to come OCLC/Google database, will links to the library record appear near bookstores trying to sell the book? How will this be determined.
6) Why are libraries spending so much time and effort in cataloging material for it to be thrown into a free-text database where the power of a cataloged record can be exploited?

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