The hype machine has busy again. The new kid on the block of search engines, cuil.com has not delivered what it promised. Granted it is early days for the search engine, the disappointing results it provides from its searches will probably mean that it is quietly forgotten.
The following article goes into more depth on the failings.
Cuil Search Engine: After Hype Wears Off, Nothing Remains
Careful what you post online, be very careful.
Steven J. Murdoch , a security researcher at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory recently had his WordPress blog hacked. The hacker created an administrator account on the blog. However Steven quickly deleted it. He then began investigating how this happened. In the process of doing this he was curious about the password that the hacker used.
WordPress stores raw MD5 hashes in the user database. It is believed to be computationally infeasible to discover the input
of MD5 hash from an output. Someone would have to try out all
possible inputs until the correct output is discovered.
Steven looked at various lengthy methods of uncovering the password, but in the end he turned to Google. It seems that many sites use hashing for query strings. His search led him to a genealogy page with the surname of Anthony. Bingo, this was indeed the password.
More detail can be found in his original posting about Google as a password cracker.
Want to find out the latest secret nuclear submarine technology? Then just pop along to Google Maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth and seek your nearest top secret naval base.
A man looking for a new home on an online mapping service has stumbled across an aerial image of a US nuclear-powered submarine in dry dock showing a part of the vessel that wasn't meant to be seen.
The image which appears on Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping service - is of the seven-bladed propeller used on an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine.
A similar incident occurred recently when Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, spotted an aerial image of China's new Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine on Google Earth.
One has to really wonder about military and security establishments don't you. They really don't have any grounds for demanding that internet be sanitized for the sake of national security do they. So much security, and secrecy yet a commercial satellite snaps sensitive information, so who knows what the spy satellites have got.
Maybe nations could seriously reduce their (excessive) military spending and just use the internet to find the latest "secrets". It seems to work for everybody else.
Following a posting by Adrian Lukas, I was reading Web 2.0 is now Business as Usual 2.0. They raise some interesting points. There was one in particular that grabbed my attention.
Why Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google’s butt in four years
The only reason you’ll watch these videos is because you trust me to add value to your lives and not sell links.
Now, I don't know the poster, and therefore can confer trust to them, but the title was enough for me to watch the three videos on offer.
Robert Scoble is of the opinion that the business models of the large search engines such as Google are so locked into their search methods, that they will not be able to change and keep up with innovations and expections. He points out that current search engine results are suffering from the new industry of Search Engine Optimization. People have become so adept as optimizing their pages, that it is become in difficult to find meaningful results. Even the search engine designers are complaining.
Scoble then goes on to say to say that there is a new future in search, and that being via social networks, such as Facebook. He goes on to explain that a website suggested by a social network friend, and one that has considerable social network behind them carries more more weight. The proof in his argument being that the only way you came to view his discourse was via social networks, he did not publicize it any other way. So the search engines of the future will be driven by social networks, as people come to expect more quality and less marketing pumped at them.
He's got me thinking.
Google has long been the top dog of search, with all of the others trailing far behind. But could that be about to change with the announcement of Yahoo's customizable Alpha Search Engine?
Yahoo Inc. is quietly testing a search engine which users can customize
by adding, removing and rearranging components, suggesting that the
company may plan to make it easier for users to tailor search sites to
reflect their interests. Having done some preliminary tests, it appears to do a good job. Initial searching is easy, but to customize the engine one needs to register. Yahoo Alpha Search is still in beta, so there could more changes to come. Time will tell if it delivers want people want.
The original article can be found on PC World, Yahoo Tests Customizable Alpha Search Engine.
Increasingly, Google Inc's impartiality is being called into question, especially when it comes to living up to their motto, "do no evil". From complying to requests from the Chinese government to censor search results, to allowing the American military to post video clips of Iraq operations on it's newly acquired YouTube, to the recent doctoring of Google Maps satellite imagery. Up until this week, Google Maps displayed the damage to New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Google Maps now displays pre-Katrina imagery of the city. One is left questioning why.
Google Maps returns to pre-Katrina status, leaving some wondering why
One is also left to remember that we are dealing with a corporate giant, and it of course has vested interests. We tend to forgo the thought of any bias, and look to Google as our trusted source of answers and information. How much of our online business is being shaped by the designs of one company? The term "google" even has a place in dictionaries now, a clear mark of the impression Google has on our minds. Is Google really that a good of a search engine, providing us the results we want, or have we now been trained to provide Google with the information it wants?
When we talk in terms of SEO, it is almost always in terms of what Google wants.
