nerds like nerd knobs... not sure customization has a mass market appeal. I also fundamentally disagree with the sentiment that the general public cares about privacy... though nerds do.
Good luck!
The next Google
311–320 of 561 posts
Re: The next Google
#312Earlier 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.
This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.
Er, isn’t the whole point of Google tracking you and knowing your mothers blood type so they can give you better search results tailored to you ?
Re: The next Google
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is anything but a simple box that gives you answers now. It hasn't been that for a very long time. I wish it was. It is a box that gives you a screenfull of ads, some spam copycat sites I wish I could remove, and a lot of clutter. As many people on here have said before, it only gets away with it because it owns the web browser through Chrome, Android and its Apple deal for Safari.
>it only gets away with it because it owns the web browser through Chrome, Android and its Apple deal for Safari. From someone who tried the switch to duckduckgo and uses ddg as the default engine: I can't remember the last query I typed without adding "!g". Google doesn't get my queries because the service is shoved down my throat, it gets them because the alternatives I tried are worse wrt the total scope of my que…
Would love your feedback on https://you.com - actually has most capabilities that G has and also has the same bangs as DDG.
Re: The next Google
#314A lot of the snooping does have an actual role with search - they need to guess the intended domain of the query [1]
Welcome to my side project, a better organized directory of domain specific search engines, based on duckduckgo !bang operators https://github.com/MoserMichael/duckduckbang/blob/master/REA...
The project also adds some explanation on the role of each search engine, also the page has been auto translated into several languages.
Ideally this directory/thesaurus should help you with finding an appropriated domain specific search engine for a given task, without the need of snooping on the part of the search engine.
[1] of course they also need the snooping for targeted advertising, but that's a different story!
Re: The next Google
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.
Desiring choice isn’t elitist. Early web adopters were passionate and willing to put in more work. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with liking simple default settings either.
Wondering if, by “elitist”, GP meant more like “out of reach to many laypeople because of learning curve.” Is there a good single word for that? “Difficult” and “complex” aren’t quite right.
Anyway - you’re right, nothing at all wrong with wanting choice. I think the point being made here though is that “layperson gravity” / mass market appeals / lowest common denominator is going to mean that tuneable web search will be a niche product, forever. Even if we’d both like that niche.
Re: The next Google
#316The older I get the less I want to waste time on customizing things.
Re: The next Google
#317I 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.
So...a travel agent? Nothing beats talking to a person one on one who is actually trained to do this stuff and personalize it to their client.
We've come full circle.
Re: The next Google
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.
Er, isn’t the whole point of Google tracking you and knowing your mothers blood type so they can give you better search results tailored to you ?
>Er, isn’t the whole point of Google tracking you and knowing your mothers blood type so they can give you better search results tailored to you ?
AFAICT, quality personalized search results isn't the goal for Google here.
I think the point of all that is generating revenue via advertising sales.
And while providing high quality search results might once upon a time have been a goal, both as a goal in itself and a tool to drive user adoption/engagement, that's no longer necessary as they have a (relatively) captive audience and a (relatively) captive customer base (advertisers). As such, quality search results are no longer all that important.
I'm not a Googler, IMHO, YMMV, etc.
Re: The next Google
#319I 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…
All you have to do to improve on Google at this point is to do less, make it less bad, i.e. a process of removals, not additions. Just do the same thing, but without all the shitty extra stuff. But then what's the business model? (Since that is in fact most of the shitty stuff. Oh sure there's still the SEO spam, and you're in that arms-race, like it or not, even if you're not a successful search engine, so you do th…
> just do the same thing as google
i know what you're saying, but this isn't exactly a triviality
Re: The next Google
#320I 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…
> For example: best hotel pool in vegas.
I get what you're saying but, does anyone really need the "best" here? why not "good" or "great"?