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 […]
Blog | Information Literacy, Research, Dayton History
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 […]
How Does Google Process Search Queries So Fast?
Google searches have become so ingrained into our everyday lives that it’s easy to take for granted how amazing they really are. No matter what you type in the search box, Google is able to query the billions and billions of webpages it has indexed and present a list of the most relevant results, seemingly […]
Why is the Kindle Fire So Cheap? Thoughts on Amazon’s Strategy
Tablet computing is one of the hottest topics today in technology today, and the major companies are jockeying for position as prices fall and more and more people consider purchasing a tablet for their personal computing needs. But Amazon’s entry into the tablet market comes with a shockingly large drop in price: the Kindle Fire […]