1) Type in at least three queries in Blindsearch, hit search, and then vote for the column which you believe best matches what you were seeking. The columns are randomized with each search. How did your favorite search engine rate in the three tries? Do you think this will affect how you search in the future?
Quiry 1 “Doctor Who” I voted for search engine on the left, which turned out to be Yahoo. Because it started with the BBC site in the UK, which is where the program is produced and then went to the Wikipedia site for a broad overview of the show. The other two went to a particular page on the site which was about a particular recent broadcast. It all had to do with the final “/”.
Quiry 2 “Harris County Public Library” but they all produced pretty much the same results, so I’d call it a tie.
So, I tried Quiry 2a “Sharon Shinn” an author whose book I had just finished reading. But it was another tie. The same results with slight variations in the display of the results.
So, I tried a geekier term for Quiry 2b “Bildungsromans”
The first site was the same, Wikipedia; #2 in all cases was a dictionary definition, but after that the left and center columns gave links to bibliographic databases that had lists of examples. Left column linked to World Cat with about 6,514 examples; the center column linked to LibraryThing with a more manageable list of a thousand or so. Once again, I voted for the left column, which turned out to be Bing.
For Quiry 3 I decided to try a Reader Advisory topic “Science Fiction Love Stories,” a subject that I’m investigating for a Topical Blog posting.
The center and right columns both lead me to a very informative thread on Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine's online Forum with a lot of author and title suggestions. I got so excited I registered on the site and added a title I’d just read. I voted for the right column, which turned out to be Google, because it’s second listed site was an interview with the editors of Quantum Kiss: The Journal of Speculative Romance, and from there to their online publication.
2) What search engine was #1 on Hitwise the week that you searched?
Google
How did it compare to its closest competitor?
72.25% for Google to 14.83% for seach.yahoo for volume of searches for the 4 weeks ending 01/02/2010
Do the usage statistics match your own personal choice of a favorite?
Yes, Google is my default search. If I’m worried about not getting enough results, I will use Agent 55 USA to do a meta seach, or if my brain is fuzzy I will use Quintura for a visual display of results, or if I’m looking for a scientific formula or calculation I will search Wolfram Alpha. But I would say, I consulted these sites less than a half-dozen times during all of 2009.
My conclusion: Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. We will all be assimilated by Google and turned into Soylent Green.
3) Marketing of search engines requires that they continually add new features that they hope will appeal to you. Explore the features of one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, or Bing). What new things did you discover that you would find useful?
I discovered "knols" in Google, but did not find them useful. It appears to be an attempt to construct an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, but currently has very little content.
I then tried Google translate.
I tried it on a German libretto for the first scene of Richard Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold.
Not bad, except for the “hinauftragt” in the last sentence of the stage directions that didn’t make it over to English. Another site Reverso translates the infinitive form of the verb “hinauftragen as hinauf+tragen vt sep irreg to carry or take up.” My guess based on my High School German is that it means something like “brought up” in English.
I decided to compare it to translation services offered by the other search engines. Here’s Yahoo’s Babel Fish version:
Well, “up-carry” gives me the same direction of motion as my choice of brought up. Bable Fish did fail on schroffe and Schlüfte . Reverso gave precipitous or steep as translations for schroffe. But it also was unable to comprehend Schlüfte. Google translates it as “gorges” It’s an infrequently used irregular plural form of the feminine noun Schlucht ; the more common plural form is Schluchten.
Next I tried the Bing Translator. I appreciated the caution statement that appeared in the translation block even before any text was present: “Automatic translation can help you understand the gist of the translated text but is no substitute for a professional human translator.”
Bing had the most untranslated words including the ones Google and Yahoo failed to translate. In addition to Schlüfte and hinauftragt, it also missed: VORSPIEL, Rheines , wogendem, dahinfliesst, Wolkenzügen, Felsenriffe, zerspalten, dichtester, dämmernde, Wasserflut, and Rheintöchter.
Interestingly, on the next to last line Bing Translator recognized the geographical name of the Rhine in Rheintöchter while it left the river’s name in its German form in the first stage direction. Also, a “Rhine subsidiary” doesn’t carry quite the glamour of a Rhine Maiden. Other unintended chuckles come from the translation of “Auf dem Grunde des Rheines.”A word for word translation would be “on the ground of the Rhine,” in other words, on its riverbed. Google gives the best rendering in English with “At the bottom of the Rhine.” Unfortunately, Yahoo and Bing don’t make the connection between ground and river, so they use the other meaning for the German word Grunde and come up with “On the reason of the Rhine” and “On the basis of the Rhine.”
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