The Raging War of Search Engine Domain

Search Engine War
I still remem ber when my friend talked to me about the wonderful new search engine called ‘Google’ which provide the results in a fraction of second. Till then I kept using a myriad of search sites including some meta search sites. I started using it tentatively and in no time Google became the only search I use. For many years, primacy of Google in the search area was never challenged. It extended its reach as global depository of knowledge. Since the scale of its operation was huge, many of these initiatives were controversial too. Google books rubbed the publishers in the wrong side and many countries are not happy with Google maps. However, the growth of this firm has been phenomenal while extending its reach to many related areas.

Google’s presence and reach got people to think outside the box about how a PC works. Why not replace the operating system of a PC with the Internet browser itself? It is interesting to note that Google already made an announcement that it will be launching an OS based on its browser platform Chrome. While all these were taking place, an interesting development is the challenge to its search engine business from various quarters. These are not me too launches… it actually provides something better or different. Let’s review a few of these.

WolframAlpha (www.wolframalpha.com): Wolfram refers to Stephen Wolfram who is an entrepreneur and a scientist. He is a prodigy who published his first physics paper at 15, earned his Ph.D. from Caltech at 20 and two years later, in 1981, became the youngest MacArthur ''genius'' fellow. In 1988, he founded Wolfram Research Inc. to market his program, Mathematica. He always had an aura of genius and people use to bet that he will receive a Nobel prize but not sure whether it will be in Mathematics or Physics. He has proposed a new way of looking at science and universe through a series of patterns. I made many attempts to read his book ‘A new kind of science’ and failed. I always use to keep track of his activities and was not surprised when he made the announcement of the new search engine.
In the strict sense, this is not a search engine because it doesn’t give a list of websites containing the terms you have searched. Alternately, it is a computing platform and tries to answer the factual queries. WolframAlpha actually computes the answers to a wide range of questions — like questions that have factual answers such as “What country is Timbuktu in?” or “How many protons are in a hydrogen atom?” It also accepts open algebraic equations like lim(x->0) x/sin x. This yields the expected result, 1, a plot, and the series expansion as below.









A search of Bangalore will yield its position on India map, population, elevation and current climate. The tool also provides how it interprets your query. For example if you search ‘growth of Indian population’, it will state that it interpreted the query as ‘India population growth’. The result provides the population chart, average growth rate, life expectancy and population density.

No doubt that WolframAlpha provides many results which will wow you. But you also should be prepared to receive no results as it will not provide any result if it cannot interpret your query. We also will have to accept lower scope as my effort to get any reply related to BSE SENSEX failed.

BING (www.bing.com):- This a surprising offer from Microsoft. For long, the strategy of Microsoft has been ‘wait until somebody has it, and then copy it’. Hence, no body took this search engine offer from Microsoft seriously. However, now there is a shocker as in many ways Bing seems to be better than Google. There are even websites (like bing-vs-google.com) which provide Bing and Google results side by side. At a glance, both seems to look alike. However, just point your cursor over the Bing result and a popup balloon shows you the first few paragraphs of text on it. Without leaving the result list, you know if is going to be helpful.

Bing does a much better job providing associated information. For example, if you search for a celebrity’s name, it offers an attractive table of common-sense links: News, Movies, Quotes, Biography and Images. When you search for a sports team, you see Schedule, Tickets, Stadium, History and Wallpaper. When you search for a medical condition, that table offers Causes, Remedies, Treatment, Prognosis and News. It also provide related search which is organized neatly at the left panel. For example, if you search for analytics, it provide various options like web analytics, business analytics etc.

Both Bing and Google offer an Image Search page, where you can find photos from the Web of anyone or anything. On Bing, however, the results page scrolls continuously — you don’t have to keep clicking Next. More photos fit in less space, too, since all the text details (pixel size, file name, originating Web site) are hidden until you point at a thumbnail. And you can adjust the thumbnail size.
Bing has incorporated lot of improvements related shopping categories like: travel, shopping, health and local business information. These sorts of searches produce special displays that trounce Google’s text lists. For example, if you search for a flight, a table offers the cheapest fare (“$259 JFK>LAX”) and links to other deals. An icon tells you whether prices are about to go up, down or stay the same. That detail is brought to you by Farecast.com, which Microsoft bought last year.

Google is still way ahead on other kinds of searches, like movie showtimes: You get a complete table of nearby movies, complete with trailers, reviews and even links to IMDB.com (the Internet movie database). It also wins with maps and driving directions; it offers features like Street View (actual photos along your route) and the ability to drag the colored route line to alternative roadways with your mouse (to avoid a traffic jam or take a favorite shortcut). Bing still lacks some of Google’s mature additional services like book searches and Google News.

Don’t think that people will start dumping Google as it is a habit. Everyone already knows how to work it, and it may be built right into your Web browser. But it will be great if you can try Bing as well as WolframAlpha. Very soon you will find some queries which either of them might give better answer and save time.