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The next Google

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Re: The next Google

#381

Post by nmstoker »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #339
mattcwilson wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wil…

"High barrier to entry" ie, only accessible to an elite class (1337, if you will) "Elitist" feels pejorative. Also a not-inaccurate way to describe a system which presents high barriers to entry.

What were these high barriers to entry?

Not trying to be awkward, but even back in the early days of Netscape, it wasn't like you had to recall any arcane commands to use most search engines.

Sure, they all had limitations then, such as not necessarily knowing similar word senses to create more nuanced searches, but that was a fairly level playing field.

Is it simply that it was initially a bit obscure and not everyone had found out about it? That's not really a barrier in terms of difficulty - as soon as people got into the "in crowd" they could use it just like the rest of them.

Re: The next Google

#382

Post by iab »

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…

Fantastic perspective. The next google won't be a search engine at all, IMO.

Re: The next Google

#383

Post by kovac »

baxtr wrote: post #225
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.

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.

It isn't elitism. It's competence. A system designed by competent users for competent users are going to be different from one made for general masses. There's nothing elitist about that.

Re: The next Google

#384

Post by charcircuit »

nicce wrote: post #189
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…

> That's why TikTok is so successful. More likely, it exploits human's cognitive weaknesses successfully with a simple way. It learns how how people get their dopamine dose. And there is no going back. You need more and more, more extreme content. More polarization. All you need to do is to open app and get that dose. Is it the same for search engine? And people make more crazy stuff to get views. How this ends? Not…

>It learns how how people get their dopamine dose. And there is no going back. You need more and more, more extreme content. More polarization.

What kind of TikToks are you watching? Tiktok sees I like watching Japanese videos that compare American and Japanese culture so it knows to show me more of that. Trying to say that showing me videos I like is them just giving me a done of dopamine is such a weird way to phrase it. Should they be instead just constantly show me videos they think I would dislike?

Re: The next Google

#385

Post by bricemo »

tomatowurst wrote: post #352

The perfect search engine would be powered by humans with a search engine. Google is fantastic but there is no human understanding of the needs and wants that can be conveyed through series of keywords. For example when I type "best humidifiers" I want a suggestion that is ideally based on accurate anecdotes of people who've experienced a brand in a variety of context and edge cases. What google gives me is a cnet ar…

There was a startup called ChaCha that was a real live human answering every query in real time. They would chat with you and find you exactly what you were looking for. In the beginning it was amazing, but then they couldn’t figure out how to scale and quality went down.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChaCha_(search_engine)

Re: The next Google

#386

Post by joneholland »

kovac wrote: post #383
baxtr wrote: post #225

Earlier 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.

It isn't elitism. It's competence. A system designed by competent users for competent users are going to be different from one made for general masses. There's nothing elitist about that.

What defines competence?

Re: The next Google

#387

Post by jupp0r »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #74
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…

> a simple box where you put a question in and it gives you answers Google is very good at this, but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google". I want a _search engine_ for the web, not an answers engine that tries to know what I want better than I do. Search the web. Give me links to websites. This seems obvious to me, but everyone is trying to be like Google. I'm convinced the death of the web and in…

A lot of search results pointing to independent forums are about people asking the same question I have only to be told to use Google to find the answer.

Re: The next Google

#389

Post by luis8 »

istjohn wrote: post #370
luis8 wrote: post #369

I wonder how feasible would it be to index everything locally? I mean how far are we from having the cpu and storage space to allow a search within our computers? Do we really need to store everything ? Maybe a local "ai magic" could select the specific information we regularly search for and sync from an open public index. In the case we need results it could sync and/or request those bits we are not indexing locall…

What problem would that solve?

On top my head i can think of:

    Privacy no need to explain why this is important

    Resilience if google/any other search engine goes down it usually mean chaos

    You have total control of what is shown to you so no one can manipulate 
    what is shown to you(at least not that easily) assuming it is open sourced
    of course
I guess there are cons to this approach too but it looks/sounds really good :)

Re: The next Google

#390

Post by Terry_Roll »

user3939382 wrote: post #332
baxtr wrote: post #225

Earlier 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.

> For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough I'm not sure that's true. Just to pick an example, basically any type of product search now leads to auto-generated spam/borderline-spam websites that scrape reviews from Amazon, which are themselves often fraudulent. I guess you could say that's "good enough" but only in the sense that someone being scammed at some point consents to something that makes them a…

Thats the advantage Facebook has, people trust each other if they know them or a recommendation comes from a friend of a friend, but you cant really see who is recommending something on Amazon, Reddit and other sites.
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