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somebodys9999Jan 2, 2011
Why is Techcrunch becoming so sensational? They've been in a steady state of entropy for over a year, now. This story is asinine, but it has a catchy title so hundreds of thousands will read it.
myztryJan 2, 2011
why_we_desperately_need_a_new_and_better_techcrunch...
nunomaiaJan 2, 2011
"becoming"?
lol
thekid_uJan 3, 2011
Trying to promote change eh..
This is the same damn reason digg is in the mess it's in!!!!!!!!!
trax852Jan 3, 2011
Glad I read your remark first, keeps me from having to read it as serious.
enantiodromiaJan 3, 2011
Because the the average tech blog reader these days is becoming less and less knowledgable about the Tech industry, and responds better to "Company 'A' Tells Company 'B' To Suck It's ePeen!!!!1!!" than actual intelligent commentary.
justatoolJan 2, 2011
Im happy with the one We already have,
moducJan 2, 2011
Good F*ked up by removing the search form at the bottom of the search result. Isn't it obvious that when I can't find something at the end of the page, there is a high chance that I may need to revise my search? Why I have to scroll back up to revise the keywords?
relentl3ssJan 2, 2011
I thought it was only me that was pissed off about that.
diggerrJan 2, 2011
Logged into Digg after a long time, just to digg you up. Removing the search from the bottom of the page was a terrible idea.
justmattJan 3, 2011
ctrl+up but I get your point. They should add it back.
rizzleqJan 3, 2011
Or even shorter, the Home button.
kershekJan 3, 2011
Please let me digg this twice.
awahidJan 2, 2011
new google :) sounds like fun
oboyJan 2, 2011
What a bunch of crap. I was really hoping for insightful information about ways to improve Google. Instead, it was a testament that this "entrepreneur turned academic" doesn't know how to use Google, complaining about sponsored links (OMG, profit is evil!) that you (like most tech-savvy people) simply don't click on.
THEN, I realized what this was. It's an advertorial for the Blekko search engine. "Hey, guess what, my friend who works at Blekko. I can write up a post in Techcrunch. I'll make it seem like Google is such a difficult thing to navigate then somehow make people forget that I'm a moron for not being able to navigate through Google and give them complex instructions on how to use the various features in Blekko that an experienced user can duplicate in Google."
Shame on Techcrunch for publishing this, Digg for highlighting it as a staff pick, and me for reading through the whole thing thinking "surely it gets better."
It didn't.
offwhiteJan 2, 2011
Thanks. Now I know this story is not worth the read. This sort of trash content has to stop.
Closed AccountJan 2, 2011
I don't think the author of the article understands that you can refine your search in Google.
scotty87Jan 2, 2011
Nailed it
pacocrowleyJan 3, 2011
Thanks oboy, now I don't have to read the article. Even before I read it, I was sure of its lack of objectivity.
4rp4n3tJan 3, 2011
So, you were *sure* of a lack of objectivity before reading the article? Irony FTW.
fugeesnfunionsJan 3, 2011
Spot on. It felt like Bing's ad campaign all over again.. No TV ads could take me from calm to seething pissed off like those damn Bing ads.. They know they have nothing to offer to beat Google so they invent problems so they can sell you their own antidote. So annoying.
A couple times when one came on, I performed the exact search on Google that they said was filled with so many irrelevant links and I was met with the EXACT results one would want, all within the top 1-5 results.
julybuzzportalJan 3, 2011
hahhah yeah ! It's really obvious. Trying to caught the attention of the people about Blekko SE...
vtbarreraJan 3, 2011
Well said.
superstreamJan 2, 2011
new everything! the best new feature of everything that's new! renew! new new! :)
smashdiggJan 2, 2011
Why is the need so desperate? Is google that critical to human life? Maybe we oughta look at ourselves and figure out why we humans are so bent out of shape about nothing? There was a time before google. Does anyone remember this?Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
davidtcJan 2, 2011
Let me google about that time and get back to you.
shroomtimeJan 2, 2011
How hypocritical when your the one writing troll comments on a social news site. Go back to your cave.
smashdiggJan 2, 2011
Hold on, I'm all down for outside opinion. But I don't really get this. Hypocritical when I'm writing troll comments on a social news site? Hypocritical is a state of hypocrisy. So how does me being on digg occasionally put me in a state of hypocrisy? Just because I use the net does not mean I use search engines. I just think the whole thing to be called a desperate need was overboard. Troll comments? I don't know your definition of troll commenting. Or what your expectations of a public web site comments are. But your boring lame comment wasn't any better than mine.
KRESHJan 2, 2011
you need to relax, youre getting bent out of shape over nothing.
somedummyJan 2, 2011
Yep, that's when I used to use AltaVista.
If Google disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't be the end of the world.
cryinlionJan 2, 2011
you used to identify yourself with a search engine the way rednecks align themselves with Chevy or Ford.
"I'm a Hotbot man myself."
"Can't beat Lycos."
etc. for Altavista, World Wide Web Worm, Northern Light, Web Crawler, Yahoo, Dogpile, and many more.
4rp4n3tJan 3, 2011
There was also a time before the printing press.
suzillaJan 2, 2011
Judging from the comments so far, I guess I'm the only one who's fed up with having to wade through several pages of advertising sites and spam farms to get to the actual information I'm looking for. This isn't a matter of not knowning how to do a google search; Google, like everything else in America, has become just another slave of the corporatocracy, and another way for them to shove their crap down your gullible throats.
Did any of you actually bother to TRY blekko? A bit slower than google, but it brings up relevant sites on the first page -- just like google USED to do.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
HatfieldDee1Jan 2, 2011
I've tried it. Meh. Google's only competition is Bing (which I use more).
suzillaJan 3, 2011
Bing seems to suffer from the same low signal:noise problem as google, though not quite as badly. Newer, so less advertising detritus, but that'll change with time, I'd bet.
dynamooJan 2, 2011
Google has made some recent changes that suck badly. One of them is that it does not actually look for all the keywords you type in any more - it used to be the case that if I typed PIZZA DEEP DISH CHICAGO it would look for something that matched all those words. Not any more, it might give results that don't mention Chicago, Deep Dish or indeed sometimes even the word Pizza at all. You have to qualify essential words with the "+" sign beforehand to make sure they get counted.
This is not an improvement.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Closed AccountJan 2, 2011
the problem is a bunch of jobless morons who call themselves marketers who game google for a living.
atomic1fireJan 2, 2011
Or you can just click maps.
It will show the closest pizza places and they all show the words deep dish.
Non of the fluff. Google maps is also a listing of closest businesses.
vargvikernesJan 2, 2011
Yep, that's the main problem I have with google right now. The other is the ridiculous amount of spam that gets through. Which I guess isn't google's fault directly, because many people make a living gaming their algorithms, but they should do something about it.
ps
My favorite is when you search for something like "XXX ZZZ YYY" and the first result is some blog spam site than freezes firefox for 4 seconds while loading that crap. Then you click that same result through the 'cached' link and you can see at the very top "the keywords XXX ZZZ only appear in links pointing to this page." Classy.
EadonJan 2, 2011
I agree with this. Google has put too much "intelligence" into its results. Search for hotels (find one, book it), and future searches are filled with "hotels" results. No, I don't want more hotels! Google is also ignoring directives, e.g. I put words in double quotes, but google doesn't bother obeying this any more. Google has become a dinosaur. Bing is another product of an even worse dinosaur.
I'm going to try this blekko engine out. If it obeys me, and stops trying to use AI all the time to overrule me, then I'll use it.
I do like the "seo" and "spam" features it offers.
skidooerJan 2, 2011
I tried your query and all of the primary results featured each of the keywords mentioned. However, Google has always returned better results if you treated it less like a computer and more like a human, e.g. searching for "deep dish pizza in chicago" instead.
stockjonesJan 3, 2011
Do you people realize how difficult it can be to build a search algorithm that can please everybody? You cant. I still favor google for "fast" search without being bombarded with ads and tons of other crap.
jckjns78Jan 2, 2011
Hmmm.. did not think it that way though. :)
agmlauncherJan 2, 2011
The concept of slashtags sounds good, but I could see that very quickly becoming a biased popularity feature that does nothing but protect incumbent websites.
The beauty of Google is that new sites with quality content can dispel older sites that become complacent in their content quality or production. I've seen first hand how good SEO techniques (not blackhat techniques mind you) for quality websites, move those sites to the top of google searches and displace long incumbent sites.
It would seem that once a select few sites have been added under a given set of slashtags, that people will be less likely to accept new sites into those slashtags in order to preserve the "purity" of those tags. That's just how humans operate.
laptopsandpartJan 2, 2011
Off course, we need it, future is for latest technology.
hdrkidJan 2, 2011
This is so true as in a virtual sea of spam. Google keeps letting people scrape copy. Perhaps we can now see.
KRESHJan 2, 2011
So was this an article on how to make Google better or just trying to advertise blekko.com?
confuciussayJan 2, 2011
This limited commercial is brought to you by Blekko . The search engine nobody cares about.
djviperJan 2, 2011
This article (like so many others from stupid self-promoters) has now successfully been dragged through all categories at Digg.com. PLEASE stop doing this, this article has nothing to do with Apple, Programming, Linux/Unix, Security, Software or Entertainment.
butchthevizslaJan 2, 2011
so glad AOL bought techchrunch. /s
jalguideJan 2, 2011
why sir?
thejokkerJan 2, 2011
we always need innovation, and we will always have it. An article from UC-Berkeley isin't going to make it happen. As these tech companies get big, engineers will head off and start their own projects and eventually one of them will prove to be the next big thing.
jason_atchleyJan 2, 2011
I love Google and have my phone, contacts, email, photos, etc with them. I am all for something new and better but I dont see the problem with Google as is.
Jason Atchley, Consultant
markymizzarkJan 2, 2011
Google is the shizznit. Bing and blekka or whatever aren't going to be able to compete with Google. Sorry.
darkshroudJan 3, 2011
I could agree with you on blekka but Bing is doing very well.
markymizzarkJan 4, 2011
So I hear. But do you really ever think that Bing will surpass Google?
darkshroudJan 5, 2011
Eventually, I think the two will come close even. Bing has Facebook integration and Google doesn't. Bing also has all of Yahoo's market share giving it a decent size chuck on the search market.
dwrtzJan 2, 2011
if you cant find something it's most likely operator error.
blekko is for internet hipsters
conarkJan 2, 2011
Techcrunch blows these days. I think ever since they got "big" they lost their original "oomph." It's even worse now that AOL owns them.
LONELYSPACECADETJan 2, 2011
Too many people getting drunk and posting there sh*t online is part of the problem. The other part is that the web is being dummed down (again) because you dont want to inform a muslim terrorist do you? Im sure there is more to it than that and it makes the controllers happy.
4rp4n3tJan 3, 2011
You mean dumbed down, right?
hotchocolateJan 2, 2011
so true - but at least there were some decent sites comparing dishwashers.
Closed AccountJan 2, 2011
Wow....an obvious spam article for Blekko.
Not saying that Google IS still the best for every search anymore (Google themselves admit this, even if their delusionally pathetic fanboys can't) but this was so obviously a paid for article it is absurd.
link580Jan 2, 2011
I've been using google for a long time now, origionally I might go through a few pages, now iusually open the first page of results in tabs and most of the time its great. Recently search spam through seo marketing has been making things a bit worse. work at home and get rich quick has always resulted in a scam of some sort, but through refinment you can find a few good ideas.
Recently I was searching for a white map update dvd for my honda, and lexus. There is a dedicated site I found before that was something like lexus-maps.co.uk and then a link to the us toyota site and then back to lexus. And navtek for the honda, or he honda parts, but that was not even on the first page the first page was full of torrent DL links. However I had already searched the piratebay, demonoid isohunt kickass and btjunkie, and through the comments found the honda has copy protection that's a pain, so if wanted to buy it. The links to the torrent sites were all fake, no file size posted, or the wrong file size (too small even with compression). Some want you to pay for dl access and its not really the file you want, but says it is.
manubvJan 2, 2011
google should add a "report website for spam" option in their search page. what do you say?
retroscifigeekJan 2, 2011
How much did this dude make from Blekko to write this fluff piece. Give me an f'n break. I know an advertising post when I see one.
cryinlionJan 2, 2011
that's hardly a "new" search approach. Northern Light was doing it back in '96.
tandre1286Jan 3, 2011
I am glad there are still people who view the internet as alive and dynamic and realize it's entropy can only be curtailed by new ways of battling bulk.
tandre1286Jan 3, 2011
I am glad there are still people who view the internet as alive and dynamic and realize it's entropy can only be curtailed by new ways of battling bulk.
ParentingCoachLisaJan 3, 2011
It's not only because of spam. Google is undeniably used by many users. There are lots of trashes to burn.
ren1999Jan 3, 2011
Google used to return exact results. But try searching for JavaScript code on it now. And DoubleClick is really slowing down my browser.
meedJan 3, 2011
I will agree, sometimes when I search for something only the top two or three links are relevant to my my search terms. Listing online store pages in their search results is killing me when I try to look up something that is somewhat connected to something being sold.
tylercdavisJan 3, 2011
Even if you take away all the web spam there's still Wikipedia dominance issues(Wikipedia getting deserved authority for TV shows and movies and then transferring that authority to rank undeservedly for science queries).
fadifordiggJan 3, 2011
coz i am sick and tired of 2 O GOOGLE ... now it is time to upgrade and put 3 O's in GOOOGLE :P
and I think every year an O should be added :P
enantiodromiaJan 3, 2011
TechCrunch is the CNN of Tech news, and I mean that in the worst way.
crystalskull555Jan 3, 2011
This guyes are praying for BLEKKO. So i runed a search for my name... failed! So where is the value? Google is full of crap,thats sure but i always find what i need.
timwitcombJan 25, 2011
Great way to get dugg - not dure about these claims though