Slashdot Mirror
Domain: vivisimo.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to vivisimo.com.
Comments · 88
-
Re:Meta search engines
I use this.Just replace 'search+term' with whatever you want to find.
-
Re:Meta search engines
I quite like Vivisimo (after I figured out how to make it include Google in it's query by adding 'google' to the 'sources=' part of the query URL).
When I first read that, it made sense. Then I went to Vivisimo's site and realized that was...stupid.
Why would Vivisimo happen to have a Google API ready to be loaded up when 'google' is appended to the query string? Why would they trust the client's query string and go digging through whatever loadable modules they may have for ones specified in by the query string? Why would they use 'google' and not 'Google' since all of the other sources are correctly capitzlized (yes, capitalization does matter; see [L|l]ycos in sources get field)? Who the hell mod'd this parent up? -
Re:Meta search engines
I quite like Vivisimo (after I figured out how to make it include Google in it's query by adding 'google' to the 'sources=' part of the query URL).
When I first read that, it made sense. Then I went to Vivisimo's site and realized that was...stupid.
Why would Vivisimo happen to have a Google API ready to be loaded up when 'google' is appended to the query string? Why would they trust the client's query string and go digging through whatever loadable modules they may have for ones specified in by the query string? Why would they use 'google' and not 'Google' since all of the other sources are correctly capitzlized (yes, capitalization does matter; see [L|l]ycos in sources get field)? Who the hell mod'd this parent up? -
Re:Teoma
Another new search engine I've found to be useful is Vivisimo
Their search results seem almost as good as google but they've managed to catagorize their results into subgroups. They also have a nice little seach tab addition for Mozilla or searchbar addition for IE (similar to google) -
Meta search engines
I quite like Vivisimo (after I figured out how to make it include Google in it's query by adding 'google' to the 'sources=' part of the query URL).
dogpile is also quite good, when you've got it set to display results by relevance rather than by engine.
Remember, Amazon isn't the only online bookstore, ebay isn't the only online auction site and google isn't the only search engine...
-
Re:No Good...
-
Re:Sigh
Then try vivismo, the results will be automatically categorized on the left.
For example, this search for access separates "Microsoft Access" from "Network Access". -
Re:Sigh
Then try vivismo, the results will be automatically categorized on the left.
For example, this search for access separates "Microsoft Access" from "Network Access". -
Re:firefox
It seems to have worked well in your example but try a search for Mustang. There are far too many catagories that represent the same thing. Example
Ads, parts, vehicle, catalog, lights, motor and "other" all reference relatively the same subset of material. Quite honestly, I see those catagories as useless.
Same with a search for Linux, it does nice groupings but once you get into some of the sublevels, it makes no sense, like the Linux --> Running section, the first link is to Freshmeat and the rest are not much better.
Vivisimo seems like a nice concept but I'll stick to searching for what I actually desire to find, not single one word terms. -
Re:firefox
It seems to have worked well in your example but try a search for Mustang. There are far too many catagories that represent the same thing. Example
Ads, parts, vehicle, catalog, lights, motor and "other" all reference relatively the same subset of material. Quite honestly, I see those catagories as useless.
Same with a search for Linux, it does nice groupings but once you get into some of the sublevels, it makes no sense, like the Linux --> Running section, the first link is to Freshmeat and the rest are not much better.
Vivisimo seems like a nice concept but I'll stick to searching for what I actually desire to find, not single one word terms. -
Re:firefox
It seems to have worked well in your example but try a search for Mustang. There are far too many catagories that represent the same thing. Example
Ads, parts, vehicle, catalog, lights, motor and "other" all reference relatively the same subset of material. Quite honestly, I see those catagories as useless.
Same with a search for Linux, it does nice groupings but once you get into some of the sublevels, it makes no sense, like the Linux --> Running section, the first link is to Freshmeat and the rest are not much better.
Vivisimo seems like a nice concept but I'll stick to searching for what I actually desire to find, not single one word terms. -
Re:firefox
The point is, even though you and I know that a database and a web browser are two different things, Google doesn't.
Maybe google doesn't know the difference, but Vivissimo does. It clusters the results into categories like Mozilla, Pontiac, Database, and Paragliding, among others. -
10 Minutes Ago
For the first (and probably last) time I used it to look at gopher://sdf.lonestar.org/. I was mostly curious and found the gopher site through Vivisimo It's pretty cool and works great over dialup. I used Mozilla Firebird 0.7 to access it.
-
Background checks
I like to do simple background checks I on people I meet online (not random people), the first place I check is google (sometimes i use visisimo). Admittedly, I'm no where near as good as those companies you pay (at least I don't think I am, I really wouldn't know though). Generally I only trust people that I can find legit information on (whether it's big or small), otherwise they're just another Alias to me.
-
Re:Like NorthernLight?"Pink" on vivisimo results in 150 hits:
pink (150)
Exactly what IBM wants to achieve, it seems.
Pictures (20)
Pink Floyd (14)
Art, Artist (10)
Features, Yahoo (3)
Updates (2)
News, Bio (2)
Other Topics (3)
Book (7)
Music (9)
Color (9)
Lyrics (6)
CD (6)
Fan Sites (5)
Dot (4) -
Re:Like NorthernLight?Vivisimo is doing sorting searches.
Try it out, works quite often for me - beats Google for many queries, not in actual number of pages found, but in the time it takes me to find out whatever I'm looking for.
-
Re:Might be time to rethink that IPO?I don't know how much this review holds water, but its results are not surprising to me. Google was voted the number one search engine (of '02) by the vast majority (65%) of this popular vote, Yahoo! got 7%. When asked what their second choice would be for searching, Yahoo! again didn't get the most votes, that went to Overture's AllTheWeb with 29% (adjusted).
As a side note, relevant to yesterday's article on Vivivisimo, it was voted number one in meta search.
-
Re:Not quite
Has anyone tried searching Vivisimo for "shite"? The #1 reply returned is a bit, ummm, culturally embarrassing right now.
-
Re:Even if....
Is this what you are talking about?
-
switching
You're in luck because there is new search engine competition popping up all the time.
-
Background
Just a Linkto Vivisimo's background page FYI.
-
Many search results now overly commercialThe problem with Google (and in fact a lot of the internet and in particular search engines) now is that it has almost entirely been taken over by commercial entities. When I was recently shopping for a digital camera, I did the usual internet searches. A few years back, similar searches would have found lots and lots of sites ABOUT the product in question (fan sites, discussion forums, reviews). Now I have to sort through page upon page of sites wanting to sell me said item, most of which aren't even actual store-fronts but instead just referral pages which have manipulated the Google ranking system to get on top. I recenlty hit the same problem when doing vacation planning. It used to be that I could easily find hundreds of pages ABOUT the destination, now I just find sites wanting to sell me airfare, book me into a hotel, and rent me a car. It's become extremely frustrating and has made Google far less useful than it once was. In fact, most of the big search engines are far less useful than they once were. Yahoo! used to be THE place to get organized info on any subject. The directory is almost entirely commercial now. DMOZ is extremely hit and miss and has started to get fairly out of date. I messed around with vivisimo a bit as well and found that to be hit and miss.
Despite the problems with Google, it's still the best place I've found to get good info. The trick is to be very careful about how you search for something by adding in search modifiers such as "-sale" or "-bargain" or "review" to weed out the overtly commercial results. But even then, things have changed and not for the better.
-S
-
Re:Well, DUH!
It's not as bad as you think. Check out Vivisimo
-
Nobody mentions these search engines?
How come nobody mentions Vivisimo and Teoma in this context? They happen to present the results for different meanings of the word "apple", although they cannot read your minder neither, very much like Googe. They only make it easier for laymen and novices to see that there are other "meanings" for the same search term.
However, this discussion is also blatantly Anglo-centric. In the rest of the world, "Apple" is even more strongly connected to the computer manufacturer (or the Beatles!). Try appel, Apfel, manzana, or pomme in Google and see what you'll find then (or take a look here. -
Search enginges with clusteringI agree, searching for only one term often isn't a good solution, and people should use better search terms instead of complaining that the results aren't the ones they wanted. But on the other hand, I also think that search engines with clustering do make sense. Sometimes, when you search for a term you don't know very well, it helps when the search engine does the clustering for you.
Vivisimo is a meta search engine that does clustering.
When you search for apple, the first clusters are mostly computer-specific, too, but that simply corresponds to what is on the web (it is different both with Google and Vivisimo when you use apples instead).
But sometimes, the automatic clustering can speed up the search, you don't have to find out yourself which additional (positive or negative) criteria work best (you can, of course still add them if you want).
A few examples of the first few clusters with a few Vivisimo searches:
- apache: Project, Helicopter, Mod/Module, Apache Software, Resources, Native American, XML, Apache Tribe, New Mexico, Technology
- python: Monty Python, Language/Programming, Snake, Book, Ball Python, Active State, Resources/Tools, Python Scripts,
- palladium: Microsoft, Platinum, Photos, London Palladium, Element, PCPA/FAQ, Hotel Palladium Palace in Rome,
- blair: Tony Blair, Blair Which, Jayson Blair, Blair/Nebraska, Coupons, Clothing, Blair County,
-
Search enginges with clusteringI agree, searching for only one term often isn't a good solution, and people should use better search terms instead of complaining that the results aren't the ones they wanted. But on the other hand, I also think that search engines with clustering do make sense. Sometimes, when you search for a term you don't know very well, it helps when the search engine does the clustering for you.
Vivisimo is a meta search engine that does clustering.
When you search for apple, the first clusters are mostly computer-specific, too, but that simply corresponds to what is on the web (it is different both with Google and Vivisimo when you use apples instead).
But sometimes, the automatic clustering can speed up the search, you don't have to find out yourself which additional (positive or negative) criteria work best (you can, of course still add them if you want).
A few examples of the first few clusters with a few Vivisimo searches:
- apache: Project, Helicopter, Mod/Module, Apache Software, Resources, Native American, XML, Apache Tribe, New Mexico, Technology
- python: Monty Python, Language/Programming, Snake, Book, Ball Python, Active State, Resources/Tools, Python Scripts,
- palladium: Microsoft, Platinum, Photos, London Palladium, Element, PCPA/FAQ, Hotel Palladium Palace in Rome,
- blair: Tony Blair, Blair Which, Jayson Blair, Blair/Nebraska, Coupons, Clothing, Blair County,
-
One Thumb Up, One Thumb DownI just gave them a quick spin. Here's my highly subjective eval based on 2 minutes of use:
Vivisimo Light google-ish interface. "Clustered Results" is neat idea and may be quite useful. Seems a little light in the hits department, but so is every new search engine. Time will tell.
Kartoo Ugly. Requires Flash - bad move - game over.
-
Re:That's because it works
-
Check out this clustering search engine
Not sure exactly what they use but it was fun to see how this new engine Vivisimo grouped both very broad topics and specific ones. Put your name in and see what it brings up and how it classifies it. Might be interesting.
-
for the lazy man, and introduction to the tag.
Same damn post, but I'm not so god damn lazy.
Google may be the most popular geeks' search tool, but it's not my favorite. I much prefer engines like http://www.vivisimo.com/ and http://www.teoma.com/ and even http://www.alltheweb.com/"> http://wisenut.com/ is also a really good engine and gettinng better every week. The best image finder is either http://www.ditto.com/ or http://www.picsearch.com/ If you're after music and videos, then http://www.singingfish.com is for you... -
Viv�simo
Besides Kartoo, the NYT article mentions Vivísimo as a search engine providing an alternative way of viewing results. Vivísimo displays the results in a more classical text-oriented list, but with a tree of hierarchical folders alongside it. These folders provide refinements of your search with additional keywords.
It's definitely worth checking. -
google and vivisimo
With the Google toolbar http://toolbar.google.com/ and Vivisimo http://vivisimo.com/ as my home page, I really don't spend time on anything else.
-
Re:A Subject (not Content) Directory?
I think Vivismo does exactly what you are suggesting.
-
Pay? Oh you *will* Pay!Google is in prime position to be the first major micropayment site. It's the one site people would be willing to pay 1 or 2 cents per page
- Unique No search engine comes close in terms of quality search results.
- Useful Regardless of net trends and fads, searching will always be a popular task, for just about every application (business, technical, entertainment).
- Unbiased Google has a strong reputation for delivering fine results first, rather than sites who've paid for "featured" links.
- Up-to-date As we saw in yesterday's story on Alta-Vista, the old-time search engines aren't keeping up. In contrast, google keeps stuff fresh. Any webmaster knows how frequently the google robot hits their sites.
- Usable No BS portal stuff, no "Search for 'Syntax Error: Cannot create HitException'". Just clean, fast, results.
Some sites are coming close in terms of some of these things (e.g. Teoma, Vivisimo, and Alta-Vista's Raging. Hoppefully, new sites will continue to give google a run for their money. But right now google is way ahead and continues to improve without adding unnecessary complexity. Considering how much people pay for net access, which will consist of frequent google visits, I think many people would pay $5-10/month for google if google started charging for general access.
-
Some google alternatives
alltheweb.com Let's you search the web, ftp files, images, MP3s and Videos. The results are quite good though not as good as in google. It has support for more languages than google and I use it exclusively to search pages written in my native language(which isn't supported in google). Has the best ftp search.
ResearchIndex Nice scientific literature search engine. Lets you search not only documents but also citations. Keeps cached copies of the documents in multiple formats. Can show related documents or other documents viewed by users that viewed the current document.
vivisimo.com Groups the found documents by topics and subtopics. Nice interface and the sudgested topics are quite reasonable.
www.wisenut.com Similar to vivisimo, but vivisimo(IMO) is beter.
www.searchshots.com Lets you see screenshot of the found pages. Too bad has a content filter and the results are not very good.
www.teoma.com Simple interface. Can group the results by their topic.
ditto.com An image search engine.
webshots.com Not exactly an image search engine. But I've had much better luck finding images there than in any image search engine. Requires you to download a program (windows only) that puts the images as a wallpaper. -
How do these belong in the same article?
The two pages of this article don't seem to be well-related. The first page looks at google-like search engines - Wisenut and Teoma, while the links in the second page fall into a different category altogether. Lasoo doesn't look like anything more than a glorified yellow pages, CURE looks like any other research database out there, and Vivisimo is the least creative of them all, being nothing more than another Dogpile. The first two look promising, but the others are just the same ideas churned out again.
-
compare
-
Speaking of rivals...
I've already discovered Vivisimo, which is a nice step up from the meta-search-engine garbage of yesteryear. (Disclaimer: I go to CMU, which developed much of the technology behind Vivisimo, but I personally didn't work with it.) Not only does it sort links by relevance, it also categorizes results. I found it very useful when doing a research project last year -- searching for "Japanese Women" on even the most finely tuned search engine turns up pages of results that can be diplomatically called "non-academic."
I doubt it's a replacement for Google, but I recommend it the next time you're searching for a topic that might have several different meanings.