Comments on: Yahoo Testing Alpha (Beta) Multi Search

By: gary price

gary price — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 01:56:34 +0000

Btw, don't forget Yahoo also has a shopping search "test bed" site called Trovetopia that's been around for many months. http://www.trovetopia.com Brian Smith wrote a bit about the site on SEW last June. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060612-094804 Yahoo registered for a trademark last May. In the app they say the term was first used on April 14, 2006.

By: zdview

zdview — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:55:35 +0000

Nothing new in the search result, even found some SPAM sites. just a search with Ajax+more content from Yahoo community.

By: gary price

gary price — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 03:45:21 +0000

Danny:
I agree with your comments and in the past hour (with a bit more time looking at) Yahoo Alpha I see lots of A9.

Perhaps the most useful thing about Bio-Meta Cluster is that not only can you perform a simultaneous search of several databases (you select) but the searcher also gets the dynamic clustering.

Now, wearing my Ask.com cap for a moment, the AskX prototype
http://www.askx.com
offers results from disparate sources one a single page with one click.

Take this search for Los Angeles.
http://www.ask.com/w#q=los+angeles&page=1

With one search and a single click you find:

+ Smart Answer with direct links to various sources (chamber of commerce, official city site)

+ A selection of a few images from the Ask Image database, click for more.

+ Current Time in LA.

+ Current Weather

+ Dictionary definition

+ A blurb from AMG about the LA music scene.

+ Organic results

OF course, with one more click, you are at the actual data source to dive deeper.

You’ll also see Zoom related results to narrow or focus a search.

Here’s another example for a popular television program that ended its run last season.
http://www.ask.com/w#ch=web&pg=1&q=%22the%20oc%22&qsrc=1&rnd=1175742991927

One-stop, meta, cross-database, or what others call “federated searching” is growing rapidly in the library world. I’ve written many times about what libraries (of all types) offer in terms of content, 24x7x365 with just a library card required (for a particular library). Here’s an example of what the San Francisco Public Library offers. They call it cross-database search.
http://search3.webfeat.org/sfplAdvSearch.html

Also, allow me to amend me past comment re: job search tools. While they do provide one-click access to job postings from various databases and specific sites, they are not exactly the same thing as what we’re talking about here.

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:29:48 +0000

For me, it resembles Google’s experimental SearchMash the most. I mean, consider.

SearchMash: Web in main column, then side column results in boxes that open up, Images, Blogs, Video, Wikipedia.

Alpha: Web in main column, then side column results in boxes that open up, Images, Answers, Video, News, Wikipedia, Paid Links.

So Alpha has a few more data sources, but the concept in general is the same other than the significant ability to add custom sources for searching (which, of course, A9 offers).

By: gary price

gary price — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:52:15 +0000

oops, a bit quick on the post button. I wanted to add that for several years all of the major engines in have gone directly to specialty/vertical databases and posted results or links to results) directly on a web search results page in the Smart Answer, OneBox, Shortcut, Direct Answer format you mentioned. Examples: Ask http://www.ask.com/web?q=market+cap+csco&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir Google http://www.google.com/search?aq=t&oq=weather+in+&hl=en&q=weather+in+las+vegas Live http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=barry+bonds&mkt=en-us&FORM=LVCP&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Search Yahoo http://tinyurl.com/ypx96b Also, most of these engines will also pull material from their non-web databases and place results inline on a web results page: A couple of Many Examples: A http://www.ask.com/web?q=pics+golden+gate+bridge&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir G http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=news+iraq L http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=pics+australia&go.x=0&go.y=0&form=QBRE Y http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=starbucks+seattle+wa&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

By: gary price

gary price — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:38:15 +0000

Chris: Also reminds me of Vivisimo's Bio-Meta Cluster http://tinyurl.com/yqa4du or Pretrieve. http://www.pretrieve.com Of course, engines like Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com, and the new Hound.com do the same type of thing for job searching. Back when I was at SEW, I wrote about how meta or federated search just might be the next big thing. So many databases, so little time. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060113-140357 and this article about using Clusty to search multiple blog databases. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050718-151216