Resources
From Seeks
Contents |
The seeks project aims at fostering an alternative view on the state and future of websearch. As such it plays at the crossroad of databases, p2p, collaborative filtering and social networking. Below are listed some resources of interest (websearch, engines, p2p, social net & sharing, important articles).
Remarks:
- Today's dominant websearch scheme is based on the combination of crawling / indexing / searching & advertizing. Several websites are tied to this model, and provide information to SEOs (Seach Engine Optimizers), marketers and webmasters.
- However, there is a vast offer of alternate search engines, some of which appear below.
General articles and news
A good article on the state of alternative search engines. Lots of good links in the comment section!
Some thoughts on why social websearch might have a chance.
Websearch challenger Yahoo!Search is opening its engine's results to third-party engines. Typically, Google constrains a similar usage in the conditions attached to its engine's use.
Another good piece at Wired, that suggests that the recurrent hip for search startups may be simply long lived, as the dominant engine on the market is in fact the killer.
An interview with (now dead) Wikia Search founder Jimmy Wales. In the end, the community was not there, a lesson to be learned, no doubt.
Alternative Search Engines
Anonymous query (truely: if you trust them):
Some websearch engines:
The most innovative interface for a search engine. Bravo! (Engine now closed).
Some real-time search engines:
Decision engines (or so-called):
Computing engines:
Mathematica-based engine. Provides good numerical answers.
Categorization engines:
A surprisingly good engine with categorized results.
Human powered websearch:
Unfortunately, it's dead. This was the closest engine to the one defended by the seeks project.
This engine allows a human touch over some of the knowledge returned to the most popular queries. Looks more like a Web directory than like a search engine.
Information Websites
A business an marketing news website with focus on search engines. Premium members get double voodoo information on the current doxa of proprietary, advertizing-based models for websearch. If there is a future for consensus-based, collaborative websearch, these guys aren't to see it.
A rather weird galaxy of French websites. Seems less pure business oriented than its US counterpart, but still, neither social or alternative models of websearch are considered. Though the author seems well inspired, sometimes.
Another business and optimization oriented news websites whose articles are technically more interesting and original than that of its competitors. The weekly news wrapup is worth a look.
Interesting, academia oriented, blog on websearch
P2P search has retained the attention of many computer scientists. However, it is well known that its efficiency is well below that of centralized systems. As such, P2P keyword search (and thus websearch><) appears as a holy graal of P2P research.
Discusses the feasibility of the P2P search, using an indexing mechanism. Basically, it shows that P2P websearch is challenging, and remains some order of magnitude slower and less efficient than centralized architectures.
Interestingly, this paper's introduction outlines many goals that are closely similar to those of the seeks project. Though clever, the proposed solution appears less appealing, lacking some central features, such as self-publishing.
