Search Engines and Algorithms: New Social Search
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Social Search engines are based on the combination of machine-generated results and a people-driven search method. Instead of relying solely on a search algorithm, Social Searches allow people to help each other find the the most relevant and useful results. Social Search compliments web search, driven by publishers and web sites, by providing a better search experience that is powered primarily by people and communities.
What is a Social Search Engine?
In the second article of this series, I addressed the new Social Search engine from Yahoo! Search. The approach to Yahoo’s Social Search engine is one that complements web search by enabling users to search the knowledge and expertise of their friends and community in addition to the web. Let’s review it for a second.
Yahoo has added the ability to save a page or site, tag that page or site with keywords, and then share information with other people. There is the ability as well to obtain the information that other people wish to share. This allows a user to comment on pages they find useful, then give extra information about it to others in the community the user builds. Then, when web searches are performed, not only algorithmic findings are used, but also the information in the personal tags saved by the user, which provides personalized search results based on the shared knowledge of the people they trust.
Yet, even as the news is reported regarding Yahoo’s Social Search, another player has stepped onto the field. A new search engine, called AnooX, announced its own version of Social Search recently. According to AnooX, their search engine is fundamentally better than any traditional, machine-only driven, search engine, including Yahoo’s. (I might add here though, that AnooX is probably only referring to Yahoo! Search’s Slurp algorithm, and not their new Social Search.)
AnooX search results are democratically generated. They state, “On [one] hand Google and Yahoo! are based on machine only generated search results, where the knowledge of the people (that is you) [is] ignored. Because their search results are generated in some mysterious ways where the people (that is you again) have no say or input in the search results. Put simply, they represent information (search result) dictatorship. That is they tell you here is the search results, ‘just take it’ - you cannot do anything to change it.”
AnooX claims to be a fundamentally better search engine than either Yahoo or Google, even though they readily admit where the traditional search engine leaders have advantages, but AnooX emphasizes it’s not because they have better technologies. AnooX claims the reason is simply that the search engine giants are running on many more servers than AnooX, and that they are simply better funded. Google and Yahoo “are armed with billions of dollars to buy any computing resources they want, AnooX as a ‘boot strapped’ start up does not have that luxury.” It might be moot to point out that when both Yahoo and Google started, they had to raise capital, “boot strapped” like any other start up company. Be that as it may, this is still an awfully bold claim to make: that if money wasn’t the question, AnooX would beat Google and Yahoo hands down. How is it they feel they can say this?
Next: AnooX, Explaining and Testing >>
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