OK. We are in the information age. We are flooded with information including an incredible amount of spam, but I digress. We have amazingly powerful, networked and often wireless computers of all sizes and shapes that should in theory help us master and exploit the information that's coming our way. But no! Google is king of search engines but is reminding me more of a poor Microsoft product that stands on its laurels than anything else.
It's too bad because being able to get the information we need when we need it is crucial to our productivity and probably even to our satisfaction and perhaps even happiness. If I could find that ideal apartment I've been looking for, that would help make me happier, no doubt.
Correct me if I'm wrong. But, Google is not innovating much. They've got their so called mysterious search technology that seems to be about as complicated as multiplying the number of hits by a weighted average of the number of hits of the pages that are hitting. Great! That means I always get the megasites and index and aggregator sites at the top of my searches. I get the *big* sites. And top that off with a bunch of paid sites that get in the way at the top of the lists.
What I'm looking for is usually the smaller sites run often by one person who does it as a labor of love. Someone who doesn't have an axe to grind. So I get good information with authentic voice not corporate speak.
And, frankly, I want a desktop tool that I can set so that my preferences and perhaps list of searches I find valuable are used. I don't want Google to decide whose on top of the lists. Let me tell it what *my* priorities are and go from there.
And then add in what software like Grokker is starting to explore. Putting information into meaningful clusters. This is important and I hate it that we've got a practical monopoly in the search engine industry slowing down and squelching the innovation we need to take advantage of all this information processing horsepower we have at our disposal. Google is better than nothing, but let's get on with it!
References:
Microdoc News - Online Magazine about exercising personal power in the Information Age: Is Google Keeping Up With The Information Revolution?. Jan 13, 2004.
eWeek: Vivisimo, Grokker, Teoma Engines Help to Narrow Search Results. Jan 2, 2004.
