In his essay On Liberty, published in 1859, philosopher John Stuart Mill makes a strong case for the necessity of intellectual freedom in society, outlining four points that would have a profound effect on librarianship. He argued that any and all opinions that are not heard may in fact contain truth; that the “collision of […]
Concerns Over Google’s Social Features and the Loss of Objective Search
Google’s key feature has always been simplicity: a clean, uncluttered search interface that returns the most relevant webpages for any query. The search giant would weigh a variety of factors to measure a page’s authority, most importantly its inbound links, and rank the list of results accordingly. But recently, Google’s quest to increase personalization and […]
Is Siri a Threat to Google and Search Engines?
With Google’s current dominance over search, it’s natural to speculate about possible threats. Microsoft’s Bing, for one, is investing big time resources in hopes of gaining market share, and up-and-coming services such as DuckDuckGo are also intriguing. But the strongest competitor might not be a traditional search engine at all, but rather a fundamental new […]
What’s the Business Model of Spotify?
The mission statement on music company Spotify’s website is exciting but very ambitious: “Millions of tracks, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.” As desirable as that sounds, any company in the music industry faces some significant challenges. […]
What is a Vertical Search Engine?
When we think of search engines, Google typically comes to mind first. And this makes sense, since they own a dominating market share over Yahoo and Bing, the closest competitors. But there are plenty of other search engines that stick to one subject instead of trying to do it all. These are known as vertical […]
Some Thoughts on Google’s Freshness Algorithm Update
Last week, Google announced its most recent algorithm update. And although the search giant regularly makes small tweaks to the way they present search results, this one affects 35% percent of searches.1 While Google’s previous updates have focused on attacking low-quality sites, this one centers on the timeliness of online content. For topics that frequently […]