Everyone knows that Google controls a significant part of the web, but not a lot of people know that Google developers have a real sense of humor.
One example is that if you search for "recursion", Google asks "Did you mean: recursion". This link redirects you to itself, which is of course what recursion is.
Another example is when you search for "the answer to life the universe and everything", it tells you "the answer to life the universe and everything = 42" - a reference to the movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Recently, people have discovered another series of comedic responses from Google. Not long ago, Google added AutoComplete to their homepage, which gives you a dropdown of common search criteria based on what you are typing. Usually the results it gives you are pretty standard, but every once in a while, a ridiculous funny one comes up, such as:
or
There's a website, Autocomplete Me, where people can submit these funny screenshots as they find them. There's an RSS feed so you can keep an eye on them, since there are a few new good ones every day. Some of them are not family-friendly - there are several with adult language or content, but those typically are even funnier. This means that Google itself is providing inappropriate phrases to the general public, which seems pretty unethical to me, but that's a discussion for another time.
Recently Microsoft released a new decision engine (a.k.a. search engine), known as Bing, which is supposed to be the next big competition to the superpower Google. The most recent so-called Google-killer, Cuil, which was hyped like crazy in the media and blogosphere, was an incredible failure in the market. Bing seems to be strong right out of the gate, and looks like it may succeed where others failed.
What makes Bing different from Google is the advanced decisioning engine, that aims to provide usable information rather than just links to external sites. For example, searching for a vehicle make and model (i.e. Ford Mustang) on Google provides an excellent result, first with the official Mustang page on fordvehicles.com, then the Wikipedia entry, news results, enthusiast sites, books, etc. The same search on Bing starts out with vehicle information, including MSRP, fuel economy, user ratings, and links to local listings for sales and service. Then comes the official Mustang page along with the other top search results, then sub-sections for specs, dealers, parts, recalls, videos, images, and additional information. All of this is of course easily available in Google by clicking one of the "related searches", but it's nice to see all of that one one screen.
Some other nice features of Bing are: - A search history on the search results page, so you can see or repeat what you've recently searched for (Google has this on a separate page). - Previews of each result by simply hovering over the preview button. - One-click conversions from normal web searches to images, videos, shopping, news, maps, etc. This is almost identical to Google - not very original, but it's so useful that I wouldn't want to use a search engine that didn't have it. - Search suggestions as you type - again, not original, but I'd expect it to be there on any search engine that competes with Google. - A unique and simple name. In order to be part of the vernacular, you need something that can be used as a noun or a verb, like Google (have you googled it?), something recognizable and fun (bada-bing!). Bing's predecessor, Live Search, just didn't have the creativity, and others like Cuil, Yahoo, and Ask.com really don't roll off the tongue the way Bing does. - Travel deals when searching for hotels, airfare, etc. - Enhanced video search, allowing multiple search options, and providing small previews of videos without loading the whole thing.
However, all the cool features in the world wouldn't mean anything if the search results were no good. Google has been the most popular because it gives better search results than anyone else - it constantly crawls the web with a ridiculous number of servers, doesn't rely on meta tags, and consistently gives exactly the results you're looking for, in a fast and simple interface. From what I've seen the past few days, Bing's search results are as good as Google's, and with the additional features, and promise of continued growth from Microsoft, the only other software company on Earth on Google's level, I'd say Bing is here to stay.
One particular query that hit home for me - Googling "joe enos" has consistently provided my site as its #1 search result. However, some time recently, I've dropped down to #2, with some joker in California getting the top pick with his business's local Yahoo overview. Bing has me at #1, where I should be.
But don't take my word for it - try it for yourself. If you're using Internet Exploder, select Live Search as your search provider, and it will automatically use Bing, or go here for instructions on using Bing directly. If you're using a real browser like Firefox, you can add Bing to your search providers with the following plug-in: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12205. Google Chrome also has the option for Live Search, but you can select Bing directly by following the instructions found here. Safari on a Mac requires something called Glims, and it doesn't look like you can set it at all on a PC. Opera users can right-click on the search box at bing.com and add a search provider from there. Or of course, anyone can search from http://www.bing.com/.
For articles and blog entries about Bing, just Bing it (or Google it), and you'll find hundreds of people talking about it - some good, some bad, some neutral. Here's a few to get you started:
There's a new search engine out there, supposedly a "Google killer", named Cuil (pronounced "cool"). I don't know a lot about it, other than that it was built by a lot of former Google employees, and that it crashed on its first day. You'll find thousands of blogs out there already talking about this search engine, most of them more knowledgeable than I am.
I just wanted to give a few examples of some basic searches I've done to test it out - I tried the same tests on Google, and received much better results.
Searched for: cuil Result: Didn't even provide itself or anything related to it as a search result. Expected Result: #1 should be Cuil.com itself, followed by blogs, news articles, etc., related to the site.
Searched for: cuil search engine Result: Only 3 results, and none of them related to cuil.com Expected Result: Practically identical to just searching for cuil
Searched for: cuil.com Result: Search results contained information regarding the domain, such as the Whois information, but nothing related to the search engine. Expected Result: Practically identical to just searching for cuil
Searched for: joe enos Result: My homepage was not even on the first page of the results Expected Result: My homepage should be the #1 result.
Searched for: "joe enos" Result: My homepage was #10 on the list, behind pages that simply had that name somewhere in the page, and some that didn't even have my name anywhere Expected Result: My homepage should be the #1 result.
Searched for: "joe enos" blog Result: My homepage was the #1 result, but my blog was not in the search results at all. Expected Result: My blog should be the #1 result.
Searched for: microsoft Result: office.microsoft.com was the #1 result. www.microsoft.com was the #2 result, but the title of the result was "QuickBASIC". www.terraserver.com was the #3 result. Expected Result: www.microsoft.com should be #1 result, and it should be named properly. TerraServer should not be anywhere near the first page of the search results.
Searched for: ipod Result: www.apple.com was the #1 result. IPod-related pages started in result #2. Expected Result: IPod specific pages should be the #1 result.
I will say that Cuil has a decent looking user interface, and responds pretty quickly to requests. But before it can even think about competing with Google, Yahoo, or even Live, it will need to significantly improve its search results. In addition, Google, Yahoo, and Live all have additional features that fit nicely into their product, like news, sports, stocks, weather, and hundreds of other things that Cuil doesn't.
Personally, I've found that Google works the best by far for providing search results, and I don't think I'll be switching anytime soon. I use Yahoo for things like news, RSS feeds, and finance. They're the best at what they do, and I think Cuil is in way over their head. In addition, just my opinion, but Cuil is kind of a stupid name. If you do go to that site, make sure you spell cuil correctly - if the i and l are switched, apparently you'll be sent to a site that isn't exactly family friendly - yet another reason to dislike that name.
