Duck Duck Go Reimagined
June 30, 2014
Duck Duck Go has launched a sleek redesigned web presence, complete with a flashy “What’s New” page to go over the highlights. Duck Duck Go is gaining more traction for users who are interested in secure search, so there will be great interest in what the team is bringing to the table.
Their overview says:
“DuckDuckGo is a search engine driven by community – you’re on the team! We’re not just servers and an algorithm. We’re so much more. Real Privacy. We Don’t Track You. Smarter Search. Get Answers Quicker. Less Clutter. Fewer Ads and Reduced Spam.”
Of course details are provided for those who want to seek them out. But as Google gets bigger and bigger, some users are looking for smart search that allows them to remain an anonymous face in the crowd, and that is Duck Duck Go’s specialty. It may not quite be a David and Goliath situation as the giant does not look like it is going down anytime soon, but Duck Duck Go is on the rise and worth keeping an eye on. But do keep in mind that DDG is a metasearch system, so its weakness is that it has to rely on others’ search indexes.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 30, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
X1 Search 8 Moves to Unified Search
June 30, 2014
With the move to more data across a wider variety of repositories (SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox, and more) the need to search across platforms is becoming more urgent. X1’s search model has responded to the need by introducing X1 Search 8. Details are covered in the CollabShow article, “X1 Search 8—Unified Search for SharePoint, Desktop, Mail and More…”
The article begins:
“X1 has been analyzing the needs of the information worker and consumer in this space for over a decade. With their analyses, they have identified the need for fast retrieval and an intuitive, simple interface and powerful filtering across all of the repositories that a user uses and values. When you’re searching for information, you don’t want to have to go to a dozen different places across a variety of user interfaces. You’re likely to give up and end up spending hours duplicating effort or emailing someone else and wasting their time because you couldn’t find the email or document you were looking for and that you know you’ve seen somewhere.”
X1 is using familiar language – unified search, everything search, etc. And while it is perhaps trendy, it is not exactly original. The term “unified” is also used by Attivio, BA Insight, and Sinequa. Keep an eye out to see whether this trend turns into the norm in search. It stands to reason that all enterprise search has to be unified because of the natural direction of the technology. Time will tell.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 30, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google and Disappearing Locations in Satellite Imagery
June 29, 2014
I am okay with information disappearing. Whether it is a pointer or the actual content, information is fluid. When doing routine updates of my information about enterprise search vendors, I come across file not found errors or documents that are different from the ones I previously accessed. Some content has vaporized, the target page displaying a blank white screen. A recent example of this is information about the Aerotext entity extraction system now owned by an outfit called Rocket.
I read with some interest “Erasing Your Home from Google Maps Is Way Easier Than You Think.” As satellite imagery for public access creeps toward higher resolution, certain locations require blurring. The article explains how you can “blur” your property in a Google Maps’ image. I learned:
The process is relatively simple. First go to Google Maps and enter your home address (or the address of whatever you want blurred). Enter ?street view” mode by dragging the little man on the right side of the screen to the spot you want blurred. Once there, hit the ?Report a problem” button on the lower-right corner of the screen. It will pull up a page where you can specify whatever image you want to have blurred.
The write up explains how a criminal can use online imagery. The list is incomplete, but it may create more awareness of the consequences of not knowing what one does not know.
How is this relevant to search? Well, if it is incorrect, altered, or not there, it is tough to make certain types of informed decisions. Ignorance can be bliss as long as those who are ignorant are not making certain types of decisions that require precise, current, and accurate information.
Stephen E Arnold, June 29, 2014
Predicting the Future of Search
June 27, 2014
Enterprise search dates back to the 1960s under IBM, but Google has definitely dictated the average user’s expectations regarding modern day information retrieval. So while the past is important, the future is uncertain and inquiring minds want to know what to expect. Docurated turns to the experts in their article, “Enterprise Search: 14 Industry Experts Predict the Future of Search.”
The article begins:
“We wanted to gain a clearer understanding of current state of the enterprise search industry. Given the steady evolution of enterprise search, we also wanted to gain some insight into what the future may hold. To do so, we gathered a select number of industry experts and asked two simple questions:
1. What is your assessment of today’s enterprise search industry?
2. What do you think the future of ‘search’ will look like?”
The results from the experts are mixed. Few think that the model will change dramatically though many do mention continued innovation in the areas of big data, open source, visual search, and others. And even if all the experts did agree, the future would still be uncertain. Those interested in the future of search should stay tuned in for the latest news as it hits, and just hold on for the ride.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 27, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SonicSearch and EasyAsk: Some Work to Do
June 26, 2014
I read “EasyAsk Helps Sonic Sense Offer Unprecedented Search Flexibility and Accuracy on Magento Site.”
The EasyAsk for Magento solution has allowed Sonic Sense to deliver a much richer user experience with visual Search-as-you-Type, natural language search with highly accurate results and dynamic relevant navigation.
EasyAsk is a better choice than Solr, according to the write up:
“Sonic Sense is another shining example of the dramatic improvements in customer experience that EasyAsk delivers for Magento or any e-commerce site, said Craig Bassin, EasyAsk CEO. “EasyAsk’s solution is head and shoulders above the SOLR option and other third party search solutions for Magento Enterprise which is proven by the results at Sonic Sense and dozens of Magento customers flocking to EasyAsk.”
I navigated to www.sonicsearch.com and ran some queries. I will boil down my experience to one representative query, and invite you to run your own queries to make sure I did not miss a key point.
My test query was “audio mixer recorder.” I received three results pages. The results on the first page did include audio mixer with recording functions. However, the results on pages 2 and 3 were not relevant. This type of query relaxation allows a company to display more results, giving the impression of a hefty line up of products.
However, the faceted navigation function did not work. On page three, when I clicked on the option for the two products between $1 and $100, the system did not return a results page.
Response time struck me as sluggish. I did not expect Amazon-type displays, but I found myself wondering about the suitability of the SonicSense infrastructure to the demands of the search system.
For more information about EasyAsk, a natural language search system once owned by Progress Software, navigate to www.easyask.com.
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2014
Elasticsearch Roundup
June 24, 2014
Followers can keep up with what is going on with elasticsearch by following the elasticsearch blog. The latest entry, “This Week in elasticsearch,” is a regular roundup of the latest news and need-to-know items.
The entry begins:
“Welcome to This Week in Elasticsearch. In this roundup, we try to inform you about the latest and greatest changes in Elasticsearch. We cover what happened in the GitHub repositories, as well as many Elasticsearch events happening worldwide, and give you a small peek into the future of the project.”
Moving through the content, lots of code updates are listed, as well as plugin and driver releases throughout the whole elasticsearch ecosystem. New slides and videos are also listed down the page. All in all, this is a helpful one-stop shop for those who follow elasticsearch but cannot commit the time to endless searching and browsing. Updates occur weekly on Wednesday, so set your bookmarks and stay tuned for the latest news.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 24, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Trying To Make A Search More Relevant
June 20, 2014
Here is a thought that does not make much sense when taken in the bigger picture scope. PRLog explains the conundrum in “BA Insight To Discuss How To Make Enterprise Search Relevant Through Unified Information Access.” BA Insight’s CTO Jeff Fried and David Schubmehl, a research director at IDC, will host a webinar that shares the same name as the above article. The webinar will discuss how enterprise search technology is lagging:
“Due to the vast explosion of structured and unstructured data, users are experiencing increasing challenges locating and accessing the critical information and expertise needed to excel in their roles. Even the enterprise search technology that has been implemented to resolve these issues is failing to locate relevant information while providing a sub-par user experience. This can have negative consequences, such as the inability to effectively respond to customer queries, widespread duplication of effort, and decreased employee productivity.”
Fried and Schubmehl will focus on how enterprise search is changing, how organizations are driving demand, and how to make enterprise search a killer application. The bigger question is if BA Insight is using this to make their own products more relevant? Has enterprise search really lost its relevancy or is it one observation? The “unified information access” tag is one used by other companies like Sinequa and Attivio. These companies appear to be cut from the same cloth when touting their talents.
Whitney Grace, June 20, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Sindice Support Comes to an End
June 18, 2014
Another semantic system turns out the lights. SemanticWeb hosts a guest post from the founders of Sindice titled, “End of Support for the Sindice.com Search Engine: History, Lessons Learned, and Legacy.” The article delves into a wealth of technical details. It opens, however, with this modest introduction:
“Since 2007, Sindice.com has served as a specialized search engine that would do a crazy thing: throw away the text and just concentrate on the ‘markup’ of the web pages. Sindice would provide an advanced API to query RDF, RDFa, Microformats and Microdata found on web sites, together with a number of other services. Sindice turned useful, we guess, as approximately 1100 scientific works in the last few years refer to it in a way or another.”
The team decided to end support for the specialized search engine in order to focus on serving enterprise users. Besides, they say, their vision has been realized. They write:
“With the launch in 2012 of Schema.org, Google and others have effectively embraced the vision of the ‘Semantic Web.’ With the RDFa standard, and now even more with JSON-LD, richer markup is becoming more and more popular on websites. While there might not be public web data ‘search APIs,’ large collections of crawled data (pages and RDF) exist today which are made available on cloud computing platforms for easy analysis with your favorite big data paradigm.”
The account begins at the beginning, with the team’s first goal of developing a simpler API, and ends with their transition to the startup SindiceTech. In between are interesting details, like a description of their 60-machine “Webstar” operations cluster and details on how they leveraged Hadoop for their RDF analytics. We may be sad to see support for Sindice.com go, but at least the team has shared some of their wisdom on the way out.
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PadMapper Crowned Most Popular Apartment Search Tool
June 17, 2014
If you foresee a new apartment in your future, you may wonder which apartment search tool you should turn to for guidance. Lifehacker is here to help with their article, “Five Best Apartment Search Tools.” The short answer—PadMapper, which uses Craigslist data, won Lifehacker’s poll hands-down with 44 percent of the votes. Writer Alan Henry tells us:
“Not only does PadMapper source data primarily from Craigslist, it packages it—and data from other services—into an attractive format. We’re bundling them together here because honestly, even though Craigslist has their own tool now, PadMapper is, and always was, just better. You can view all of the listings on Craigslist and those other services on your computer, take them with you on the go thanks to PadMapper’s mobile apps, filter to match your preferences, and save leads for later. The whole service is a top-down Google Map, and you can quickly jump between a location’s Street View, WalkScore, and photos without leaving the site. Those of you who nominated and supported PadMapper (including me) noted that the service is essential for today’s busy apartment hunters, and the fact that you can set up alerts for new listings and that the data is updated in real-time is essential to snagging something good before someone else scoops it up.”
Despite this ringing endorsement, the other contenders are worth checking out. The article notes the features that make each special. Hotpads, for example, is said to be trustworthy and easy to use. It is easy to view property and contact landlords through Lovely, and fans of Trulia like the ability to limit a search by neighborhood. WalkScore, as the name implies, is for anyone who wishes to spend less time in cars. Whatever you’re looking for in an apartment, one of these sources is sure to help.
Cynthia Murrell, June 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
ISPs and Pay TV, Making Search Vendors Look Good
June 16, 2014
The article on Eweek titled Customer Satisfaction With ISPs, Pay TV the Lowest of Any Industry relates the findings of the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index. To start, Samsung has received a higher rating than Apple for the first time ever. Samsung jumped from a 76 out of one hundred to an 81 this year, whereas Apple fell from an 81 last year to this year’s score of 79. The article also notes the other important news from the survey. It states,
“The second, particularly notable as the number of merger proposals in the federal government’s inbox increases, is that customer satisfaction with subscription TV and Internet service providers (ISPs) has sunk to a new low. So low, said the report, that these industries are the worst performing of the 43 industries the ACSI tracks… Specifically, Time Warner Cable (TWC) received the lowest score of any subscription television service, falling by 7 percent to 56 out of 100.”
ISPs and Pay TV have sunk to a new low in customer satisfaction. That makes Time Warner Cable the lowest of the low. (No surprise there if you are a customer.) Compared to these dismal findings, search vendors look pretty darn good.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
