Comparing Search Engines

For the search topic I chose the Essendon F.C as they are currently a figure of controversy for drugs in sport and are part of a wider investigation nationally of organised crime that is making news around the world. The three search engines that I used was Google DuckDuckGo and Instagrok.

GOOGLE:

Google was the first search engine that I used. I typed in Essendon and the above results emerged. Google knew that by typing in Essendon that I was not referring to the town but the football club and immediately it brought to the top of the page all the news articles of their surrounding controversy. It was quick and efficient but most of all the news articles only took up part of the page and there were still clear options to look at the Essendon website and wikipedia page.

INSTAGROK:

Instagrok did not display the instant results like Google. Instead when I typed in Essendon it presumed I meant the term “Fessenden” and I had to clarify the term. Once I arrived on the Essendon page I found that the engine seemed practical if you were researching something as it presented a mind map and also had a list of facts down the right hand side including those to do with the recent controversy. However the page is not easy to navigate- there are too many options as it makes the layout confusing.

DUCKDUCKGO:

Duckduckgo was my least favourite of the search engines it only displayed facts pages such as the Essendon official website, its Facebook and Wikipedia pages and quickly the results changed to Essendon itself. This engine seems like a good platform for getting an understanding of what something is but not what is currently happening to it and its relationship to other things.

Therefore my preferred search engine is Google followed by Instagrok then Duckduckgo.

Flipped Lecture 3: Web 1, 2, 3

This third flipped lecture is a series of videos describing Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, their evolution and what the Internet will be like going forward.

The first video simply put forth the idea that Web 1.0 was simply a one-way conversation from producer to consumer. While Web 2.0 is a multi-directional conversation not just from producer to consumer and vice versa but also from conversations between different consumers or rather Internet users.

The second video explains this development from Web 1.0 to 2.0 by explaining that with the developments of Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia and blogging the Internet was and is being shaped and produced by users. It goes on however to explain Web 3.0 which is where the internet starts to recognize what the user wants and can pull information that suits their needs. It also expands into the notions of the Internet not just being something on a PC but it also now being used in cars and mobiles and is expanding into things such as kitchen appliances.

The third video details the evolution of text from being something written and linear to something dynamic and changing. It then moves to describe how users grew to have more freedom on the Internet as blogs sites meant that users did not need to know code and that they could begin linking Internet information for themselves. This discussion of the evolution of text poses the question that we need to rethink ideals such as copyright and authorship.

The fourth video details the semantic web explaining that computers could only understand syntax not semantics. So when users used things such as emoticons it would not be understand the meaning. Going forward the video proposes the idea that for the web to develop it would need to learn semantics so it can be useful to the user as it can find things automatically relating to what the user is looking for.

The fifth video is with the inventor of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee who explains that the Internet is still exploding and exploding everywhere as users and creators move forward to creating the semantic web. He goes onto describe the values that it would have not only to individuals but also to industries and services as the Internet would be able to quickly collate the necessary information that could help cure diseases and help with disaster relief and responses. He emphasizes the importance of hypertext because that is one of the main factors bringing the Internet together.

The last video is a summary of the story of Web 1.0 to the direction of Web 3.0 by marking distinctive developments such as Yahoo and Google merging with Amazon to indicate that the Internet is headed to being the semantic web.

The collaboration of these videos explains the Semantic web and why the Internet is heading in this direction. When I researched the semantic web I found that it is somewhat of a controversy as essentially servers such as Google are building data files on users to guess what they want and need so that the computer can understand rather than mimic a user.

FLIPPED LECTURE 2- The History of the Internet: Search

The emergence of search engines in the 90s Internet boom was of high importance in commercializing the Internet. Before Google and Yahoo, users could only access websites through following the links on sites and it was simply luck to find something that your were specifically looking for.

This documentary is the second part of “The True Story of the Internet” and details the development of the search engines in particular Google and yahoo.

There were two main issues that arose from this documentary. Firstly it talked about the problems Internet companies have with making money. Second and finally it talked about the privacy implications that search engines have.

After witnessing the emergence of companies like Yahoo and Excite exploit the integrity of their search engines by simply showing advertising and smut Google wanted to set themselves apart. To be more user friendly they listed sites not by advertising but instead by calculating the most popular sites in relation to the key words searched by the user. This made the engine highly popular and investors soon flocked but it offered no key to making money. The founders did not want to compromise the engine and turn off users so they changed the way advertising was used. Allegedly Google stole the idea (but modified it) of having the advertising match or be in relation to the key words searched while still listing in the method of popularity that Google was known for.

The second issue discussed in the documentary was the privacy associated with recording people’s searches to generate data to know where to place ads. This is still a prevalent issue of the internet today where advertising matching your past searches follows you through different sites. Just this week in the news Google and Yahoo are joining in advertising deals to collaborate with this technology.