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Putting Google to the Test
Big Nothing writes "Google has built its reputation on being the fastest and most accurate way to find information. But is the internet really the quickest way to access facts - and get them right? The Guardian puts Google to the test against more old-fashioned methods."
What is this li-brar-ee thing you speak of? That must have been where people accessed the internet before computers...
You're obviously not using your teleporter...
I actually had the same concern.
I bet those who he/she called, immediatly fired up google to find the answer ;)
> "you are in the library, with the book in hand, opened directly to the page you want."
There are exits to the north and west. There is a small cardboard box here.
You are correct, most people don't have the skills needed to get accurate results. It drives me nuts trying to watch others use a search engine, the first mistake is they usually type www.yahoo.com in the address bar.
Teleporters are sooo 2003, MoIP (Matter-over-IP) is the Next Big Thing(tm).
> examine cardboard box
you can't TAKE the BOX
get box
you can't do that right now
pick up the goddamn box
you take the box
Most likley, the only thing that will get you is:
"I can't find any cardboard box here"
Both the tests and the replies miss the most obvious problem: Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
Google is a fantastic way to find web sites. That's both the massive scope and the cramped limitation of it. It's up to you to sift through the web site result for the specific bit of information you want and then determine its accuracy. Google itself makes no claims on providing informationally accurate results, it claims to provide contextually accurate results.
If you want a significantly higher chance of information accuracy, a library is your ideal choice. For comprehensive information on the topic, a library is a better choice. You have experts on hand to steer you towards the most useful/reliable sources, and information pre-catalogued and cross-referenced for you.
If you want a an answer to a question that's particularly obscure, highly specialized, or couched in necessarily vague (or, worse, common) terms, a human expert is your best bet. If you want to find the last time the Milwaukee Brewers were over .500 in June, you talk to your baseball-enthusiast friend (substitute in appropriate football clubs and stats if you happen to be in the 90% of the world that prefers football). If you want to know the name of that one blonde girl your ex-roommate dated sophomore year, you call your ex-roommate.
Somewhat tangentially, the other glaring problem with most of the responses I've seen is they ignore the skill required to use any of these sources. Plenty of people have complained how they wouldn't know what books to reference or what people to call...often the same people who mock the author for not knowing what search terms to use. It's all learned skills. Google-fu is learned, not natural. Just like library research (anyone who's played Call Of Cthulhu should know that), and knowing who to call. Knowing how to differentiate a web site that's probably authoritative from one that's at best shaky is a skill that's really no easier or harder than being able to recognize a publication as reliable or a rag.
Anyhow: my point is that the article is neither right nor wrong. Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
I bet that, before I even click on any of these replies, they all say "African or European Alcatel 8100 series router?"
Us geeks are sooooo predictable.