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The next Google

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Re: The next Google

#211

Post by wormer »

airstrike wrote: post #176
ggpsv wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tends to work for me as well but signal vs noise ratio has worsened over time. Despite Reddit's questionable decisions in the past years it still has useful information for all sorts of things. Reddit's own search has become less reliable so I search via DDG like ` 'site:reddit.com'`, falling back to `!g 'site:reddit.com'` if the former doesn't get me anywhere.

> Reddit's own search has become less reliable Not sure what you mean... It's always been an absolute pile of shit

Yea I always just put in the question I want into DDG and then just add reddit in the end. It's so much better than any blog or anything because at least it gives the semblance of real users giving their opinion.

Re: The next Google

#212

Post by spiderice »

fallat wrote: post #88
sillysaurusx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A paid search engine? Bold. I'd pay if it could do anything close to what the old google code search could do. I miss it every day.

It's actually so good I plan to pay when they start charging.

It's really good in some ways, and very lacking (for me) in others. The search is fine. Good enough that I would switch. However, if I was out and about and quickly needed directions to Walmart, my normal flow with Google is

Pull out phone -> Safari -> type "Walmart" -> click on the map -> Maps app opens and starts guiding me

When I switched to Kagi, the flow went like

Pull out phone -> Safari -> type "Walmart" -> top result is Walmart.com... no address to nearest Walmart to be found -> Close Safari -> Open Maps app -> search for Walmart

And it got so annoying to have those extra steps. I know I can change my workflow and get used to it. But it wasn't just directions. It was other basic searches. Like if I needed a phone number for a local business. It drove me crazy. I really hope Kagi gets better at those sort of things. I want them to succeed. But it was just too much friction for me.

Re: The next Google

#213

Post by donnoit »

Nitpicking here.. but the title and article are presumptuous are out-of-touch in 2022. Google is primarily an advertising company. Gmail, YouTube, Android, Mobile Apps, Google Home, Maps, devices, Search App all synergistically funnel users towards advertisers. G-Cloud and G-Pay may be among the few exceptions to that but also constitute Google. Point being: you cannot be the Next Google by building a better search engine, just like you can't be the Next Microsoft by building an email system better than Outlook or a desktop OS better than Windows.

Re: The next Google

#214

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

legohead wrote: post #98

I just went on a mini vacation to Vegas, and was thinking how nice it would be to just call up someone and ask for some simple advice. I did a bunch of online research before I booked things, but man was it painful. There are so many copy-cat blogs who just throw together a bunch of basic information with no real research done in order to get those clicks/adwords. For example: best hotel pool in vegas. Seems simple e…

> So, personally, I think the future will be actual human service.

I love the idea. However…

You have invented an influencer hellscape. Not to mention the complete subjectiveness of so many things.

Re: The next Google

#215

Post by logicx18 »

I've been using you.com for a couple of months now and I think it has a lot of potential for one reason: choice. You can choose to be in private mode where they don't track you or you can choose to see some sites higher than others. Feels more customizable and the layout feels new

Re: The next Google

#216

Post by telchior »

legohead wrote: post #98

I just went on a mini vacation to Vegas, and was thinking how nice it would be to just call up someone and ask for some simple advice. I did a bunch of online research before I booked things, but man was it painful. There are so many copy-cat blogs who just throw together a bunch of basic information with no real research done in order to get those clicks/adwords. For example: best hotel pool in vegas. Seems simple e…

A paper was posted here a few days ago about how to use individual tasks on crowdsourcing marketplaces to put together articles on complex topics: https://joe.cat/images/papers/knowledge-accelorator.pdf

I can imagine the first two steps of their process working for a human-assisted search machine. Specifically, the "finding sources of information" and "filtering information" steps. But, I'd imagine the human workers would still need more complex / configurable search tools than Google (which is probably what the workers in the study used to find their sources).

Re: The next Google

#217

Post by Nextgrid »

ouid wrote: post #185
idiotsecant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

What the market has produced is not ipso facto what the people want. The market is simultaneously optimizing many things. Walled gardens are much better explained by companies benefitting from not having to allow their competitors access to their customers than by "being what the people want".

The market can trivially get stuck in a local maximum.

Re: The next Google

#218

Post by wormer »

egeozcan wrote: post #54
ezekg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Give me relevant links to my term, with no SEO spam. Don't correct my term, especially when I'm searching verbatim (which I almost always want). It'd also be nice to be able to downvote certain results.

> Give me relevant links to my term, with no SEO spam I think achieving this would be worth billions, at least? We really tend to underestimate the amount of spam on the internet. Google does badly here: it overcorrects and you get only super safe results. Yandex? Unless you get lucky, lots of spam.

I think it would probably be worthless. SEO means money spent to the search engine company, and why improve UX when you could buy your seventh super yacht?

Re: The next Google

#219

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

sanxiyn wrote: post #153
mikehollinger wrote: post #142

There's an opportunity for helping with enterprise data. There's: - Files (Box/DropBox/Google Drive/SharePoint) - Static(ish) Pages (Wikis/internal CMS's/Actual websites hosted on some random nginx/apache) - Web Apps (eg Internal Learning Platforms or helper HR apps or whatever) - Chat (Slack/Discord/Teams/??) - Email - Files stored on my actual laptop - Source Control (eg GitHub/GitLab/whatever ... which have their…

Remember Google Desktop? I want Google Desktop back. (Google Desktop was discontinued in 2011.)

I want Google 2011 back.

Re: The next Google

#220

Post by KarlKemp »

simion314 wrote: post #131
Barrin92 wrote: post #45

I think 'more customization' which is a theme with a lot of these alternatives is a fundamental dead end. I don't know where this persistent myth comes from that people love choice and tinkering, because they clearly don't. There's a huge cost associated with having to make choices, and one feature of successful modern apps is that they're frictionless. That's why TikTok is so successful. There's no login, no user ch…

>I don't know where this persistent myth comes from that people love choice and tinkering, because they clearly don't. People want to accomplish stuff, this means they need tools to do stuff and if a tool can be customized to do the stuff faster or better people want the customization. At my job we have paying users that requests features that indeed are work related(not moving shit around). I know GNOME-minded peopl…

MacOS is the perfect example: it's both easy to use and the preferred choice by many professionals.

"Hold on", you say, "professionals want options, like user-expandable RAM etc". No, that's the misconception about the concept of a "professional". Unless you are a hardware engineer, tinkering with your notebook's internals is the absolute opposite of professionalism, its either a completely misguided waste of time and money, or a perfectly fine hobby.

Real professionals get work done. Customizing their workspace is something they feel ashamed to do, because it's procrastination at best.

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