We all know that Google is PigeonPowered™ – now, we have a search engine ran by trained monkeys. Well, not exactly monkeys, but semi-trained people. Yes, you heard that right. When you do a search, it doesn’t hit some massive database containing every web page known to man, it goes to a human for them to figure out.
If I didn’t know better, I’d call it an April-fools’ joke. But, alas, it’s not.
Here’s how it works: You type your query in a very Google-like homepage, but when you hit ‘Search with Guide’ (pressing ’enter’ will get you a glorified set of InfoSpace results) instead of getting a list of results, you get a chat window. In that chat window you can tell the guide more about your search, and you might, eventually, get an answer. While there is some value to a human edited directory such as DMOZ, I can’t see a human built search engine working out.
I have to wonder how this will work out from the business side, this doesn’t seem to be the greatest business model, as it can’t be cheap to have an army of people sitting around searching for other people. It looks like their business model is based around selling ads, and while that is a high profit market, I can’t see it being enough to cover the expense of having the guides. It’ll be interesting to see how long they last.
Sorry for the rant, but I found this one just too odd to ignore.
It wasn’t long after Google went live that they became my search engine of choice – with the only other (somewhat) viable option being Yahoo, it was an easy choice. In the years since then, I’ve not questioned that choice, but now that Google is focusing on killing features and building little-used social features, the time seemed right to see if there are better options.
So a month ago I began an experiment, I committed to using DuckDuckGo for a month – here’s what I’ve found.
There are hundreds of guides on how to get more traffic directed to your blog, and most are wrong. Seth Godin recently posted on this topic, and I have to disagree with most of his points. While there are a few basically good ideas, there are many more that I just don’t see holding up.
Here’s what I look for in the blogs I visit:
Writer is an expert in the field.
Does your business model thrive as your customer thrives, or does it drain the life from your customers? After a recent1 conversation on the impact of improved privacy tools (i.e., the eventual elimination of third-party tracking cookies), I realized that the most significant effect of these improvements would be to companies with a parasitic business model. A business model which I see no problem in disrupting.
For many years, the web has existed as an advertiser’s dream2 — minimal privacy limitations, technical controls that had little impact, and a strong lobbying arm that has been able to derail many efforts to improve the situation.
The cultural phenomenon that is Hamilton, brought back to the forefront due to its streaming release, is an artistic feat, but it also serves as an opportunity to refresh our memories on the history behind these characters, and look for opportunities to learn lessons that apply today. This is exactly what I’ve been doing.
For all of his flaws, one thing that I have to respect about Alexander Hamilton (as well as his wife, Eliza) is the understanding of the long-term impact of the written word.
During a recent discussion about the DarkMatter CA on a Mozilla mailing list, it was found that their 64-bit serial numbers weren’t actually 64 bits, and it opened a can of worms. It turns out that the serial number was effectively 63 bits, which is a violation of the CA/B Forum Baseline Requirements that state it must contain 64 bits of output from a secure random number generator (CSPRNG). As a result of this finding, 2,000,000 certificates or more may need to be replaced by Google, Apple, GoDaddy and various others.
