Advocate's Studio

Internet search via search engines has been around a long-time. 15 tech years or more, which is like 102 in people years. Apparently, however, search engines are on the wane, as reported by Hitwise (link here). At least in the U.K. For the month of May, anyway. For the first time, it appears that visits to social networks exceeded visits to search engines. Now, it is kind of unfair to consider this an apples to apples comparison, as they both serve different purposes at present and the difference was approximately .5%.  It is fair to say, however,  that improved search capabilities within social networks might tip the scales even further in the direction of the likes of Twitter and Facebook. During the month, Facebook accounted for the most social networking traffic, followed by YouTube and then Twitter. Check out the graphs from Hitwise, reprinted below:

Another point worth noting is that Google UK was still the top site visited overall. Check out the listings in this chart, also from Hitwise:

Regardless of your take on the results, these still represent some interesting numbers.

Google by the image. Pingdom (link here) is a website monitoring company that loves to collect web stats. I reported some of those stats in a post a little while back (link here). Want some goods on Google? Check out this somewhat large infographic showing some Google numbers. And be humbled.

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The New York Times ran an article (link here) discussing “sweeping” changes to the Big Two, Westlaw and Lexis, in the pipeline. Project Cobalt, (previously discussed here), is slated for February 1. Lexis’ drop date has not yet been disclosed.

The Times article is an interesting read on the history of these giants and their motivations for change. You see, people are sick of paying huge amounts for a mediocre, 1980′s interface and functionality. Go figure.

West reps told the Times that it took 5 years to build the new service. Oh no. Does that mean the service is already 5 years out of date?  The article discusses relevancy by algorithm (second-guessing what the lawyer might actually be looking for) and a Google-like search interface. No mention of retaining Boolean search, though. Not 2010 enough, I suppose.

My jury remains out. It will reconvene on February 1.

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I am always looking for interesting ways to access deep web information – documents that are not necessarily html but are still accessible via the Web. Another player in this game is RefSeek, a search engine providing advanced search capability  and an index of over a billion documents including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers. There is more than simply document search, though: RefSeek now offers definitions, math calculations, and a reference directory. Definitions show above regular search results with relevant links. Math calculations are natural language for math equations and conversion. And perhaps the coolest feature is the reference directory, which offers a curated list of hundreds of references sites, so you have NO EXCUSE to fall back on Wikipedia.

Hat tip to Pandia Search Engine News

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Google brings forth yet another interesting way to view and follow news and it is called Google Living Stories. It is a collaboration between Google, The New York Time and The Washington Post. GLS builds on articles found in these papers, providing information related to the stories as it develops on a single web page devoted to the story. If you navigate to the Google Labs GLS page here, you will see links to the included stories. Click on a link and see a very slick page with its own URL that includes an overview of the main article, a time line of developments pertaining to the story, interactive tables showing related information (in the case of health care reform, costs and impact on the deficit), links to related stories and pertinent background information, pictures, video, graphics, opinions, and all sorts of goodies fleshing out the various dimensions of a news article.

Updates are highlighted when you return to the page and older stories are summarized. There is a link for comments, as well as email or RSS subscription to the particular story’s new developments. What a great alternative to other collected resources on newsworthy topics! Do I wish I had a resource like this when I was still a school girl writing current events reports!

Check out the quick vid from Google describing Living Stories:

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