Netizen: Roller coaster

Friday, February 04, 2011

You Have To Be A Little Wild

City of Los Angeles, Koreatown neighborhood sign

Image via WikipediaYou have to be a little wild to be doing the tech entrepreneur thing.

For one, the risks are high. All else equal you will more likely fail than succeed. The success stories make it to the press. The sob stories? There's not enough newsprint on the planet. And it is not one risk, one hump you get over. There are risks after risks after risks. Every step of the way. It is roller coaster. If you are not going to enjoy the ride, the solace of some day reaching the destination might be false. You might never get there. The journey is where it is at. The journey itself is the reward. If you don't think so, get into another line of work.

You have to be able to look at the establishment and look the other way. You have to be able to look at the status quo and sneer. You have to jolt. You have to give them the finger.

Square your search results with Google Squared Google Blog requiring you to visit ten, perhaps twenty websites to research and collect what you need. ..... I'd find roller coaster sizes on one website, heights on another, and speeds on a third. By manually comparing the sites, I could get the information I was looking for, but it took some time. With Google Squared, a new feature just released in Google Labs, I can find my roller coaster facts almost instantly. ....... As you remove rows and columns you don't like, Google Squared will get a fresh idea of what you're interested in and suggest new rows and columns to add. ..... Once you've got a square you're happy with, you can save it and come back to it later.

Wolfram Alpha says it is an answer engine, not a search engine. Microsoft's Bing says it is a decision engine, not a search engine. Yahoo wants to "kill those 10 blue lines." Twitter claims to have real time search. All such premises are enticing because search is so raw still.

And now we have Google clamoring with Google Squared. Google would also like some of the search buzz. Can you imagine?

Raw search is great. I like to know there are a million pages on the term I am searching. And raw search should stay the center of the action. But maybe Google would like to service an alternate version on the side to face the reality that most users don't go past the first page of search, and most certainly don't go past page 10. So they should go find many interesting ways to display the first 10 pages of search results. That would not be Google Squared, that would be Google to the power of 10.

Google still has the best search algorithms, and I still prefer "those 10 blue lines" to any other search display formats that I have seen. I like to do my own exploring. But for the sake of the consumer maybe Google wants to work as hard on display options as it has on search. It has been super at search and it started out super at display. The simple search results page had and still has its allure. But Henry Ford stuck to his generic model, and competitors created new niches by designing fancier cars.

Maybe Google does not want to keep the search market to itself and give the display market to others, especially when display is where the interaction happens with the end user.

Blogger Search Gadget: What Took You So Long?
Wolfram Alpha: An Answer Engine, Not A Search Engine
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Distributed Search
Google Falling Behind Twitter?
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
Google Is Working On Search
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream

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Friday, February 04, 2011

You Have To Be A Little Wild

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Square Search