Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Emerging search engines; feeding the counter narratives


With tensions rising around Google's current domination over "free" online information access there are some alternatives emerging:

Cuil (pronounced COOL), a search engine directly challenging Google, is indexing the web across 120 billion sites and offering content-based relevance methods, with complete user privacy is also providing a rich display of results with organising features, such as tabs to clarify subjects, images to identify topics and search refining suggestions to help guide the user to the information they need.

Intelways provides an online search service through a comprehensive set of search channels organised into different categories. It locates content in different formats and media types for multiple interests and topics, by retrieving results from multiple search engines and online providers.

Silobreaker is an online search service for news and current events. It pulls together content on global issues, science, technology and business from over 10,000 news, blog, research and multimedia sources. It focuses on finding and connecting related data then presents a tapestry of graphical, visual and textual links to assist the user to identify connections, trends and topics or to navigate deeper into the most relevant information for to suit their information need.

4 comments:

Neal Barber said...

Is there not a danger in using counter narratives so? Do we not run into the danger of simply replacing one metanarrative with another? I believe the focus should not be on authorising particular voices but on NOT authorising one particular voice...

Allison Brown said...

There has always been an alternatives to Google. Maybe this post should simply say that these are some alternatives to Google.

Simon Hart said...

Neal you are right in framing this dialogue to hear all voices. To think our communities consider alternatives is naive. Chat amongst yourself Google's hegemony has taken hold. I am asking that we listen to these emerging (read: new, fresh, developing) voices going beyond the danger of our taken for grantedness. "Fight the Power" (Public Enemy, 1991)

Unknown said...

Cuil is definitely NOT cool. My eyes just don't do the black screen thing. Sigh - what a shallow comment!

 
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