Perennial Searcher

Google’s Knol Launches

brian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:38:17 +0000

According to the official Google blog, Knol is open. This response to Wikipedia features authoritative content:

“Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we’re making Knol available to everyone.”

I wonder how this tool will play out in academia? Will academic librarians and professors endorse it?

Stoopid . . . Why The Google Generation Isn’t as Smart as it Thinks

brian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:02:41 +0000

This editorial from the Times Online (UK) seems like a companion piece to Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. The author Bryan Appleyard claims that companies such as Microsoft, Google, Intel, and IBM are the Great Distractors of our epoch. Yet these giant corporations recognize the problem and impact of technology . . . so much so that they’ve formed the Information Overload Research Group. Appleyard is no technophobe. Rather, he’s a fellow struggler, trying to survive and thrive in the data deluge of phone calls, emails, text alerts, etc. Overall, this piece asks important questions about multitasking, productivity, attention, cognition, and distraction.

It seems appropriate to now quote T.S. Eliot:

“Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

AOL Health Expands

brian — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:19:48 +0000

According to CNET, AOL Health plans to expand. It will feature content from the following: Caring.com, Health.com, and HealthCare.com. Doing so will AOL Health to better serve the needs of the elderly as well as help searchers find medical and dental professionals. In short, these partnerships will lead to a more comprehensive portal of health information.

Ologeez

brian — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:01:48 +0000

Ologeez is a hybrid social networking tool and academic search engine. “Ology” is a Greek root that refers to every branch of knowledge under the sun - - from biology to the social sciences. Users who create an account can save as well as tag documents and participate in wikis. Google Scholar could perhaps learn something from this Stanford University-hosted resource.

Which Search Engine Captures 70% of the Search Pie?

brian — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:25:37 +0000

It’s no surprise that - - according to Hitwise (as summarzied by CNET) - - that Google’s search share is at 70% as of June 2008. This figure is based on a sample of 10 million Internet users in the United states. You can probably guess that Yahoo!, LiveSearch, and Ask account for the remaining 30%.

Why should libraries care about search share? In the words of Stephen Shankland, “Search share is important to the companies’ business because it means there’s a potentially larger inventory of search results against which advertisements can be sold.”.

All the more reason for libraries to consider buying Google Adwords, is it not?

SIPA Alert

brian — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:49:09 +0000

SIPA created this list of must-see links. It covers the gamut of social networking, search engines, public records, and training resources. In addition, it includes a section on websites that every reporter needs to know.

Flash Files . . . Not so Invisible Anymore

brian — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:03:04 +0000

CNET reports that Adobe has partnered with both Google and Yahoo! to help make Flash content indexable.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

brian — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:03:39 +0000

Nicholas Carr’s provocative piece: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”.

No doubt an interesting article about the malleability of the human brain and how technology reshapes it.

As machines become more intelligent, does human intelligence grow more “artificial”?

Cogitate on that! The question is: Do you have the patience and attention span to read Carr’s entire article?

100 Useful Niche Search Engines

brian — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:52:58 +0000

Laura Milligan catalogs 100 Niche Search Engines. They cover the gamut of subjects (e.g., business, medicine, law, etc.) as well as media (pictures, video, audio, text, etc.).

Live Search and Microsoft News

brian — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:19:10 +0000

Live Search now includes a paragraph of text under Wikipedia entries. See, for example, the hits/results for the word blog.

In other Microsoft news, the company has bailed out of two endeavors: Live Book Search and Live Academic Search. Here’s more on this development from this Information Today newsbreak.

So Google Book Search and Google Scholar it is.