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Blinkx and You Won't Miss It
WebfishUK writes "The Guardian is running this story about Blinkx a a kind of "search companion" which aims to bring internet searches in closer contact to what you are working on. Its total search approach (including email attachments, blogs and local files) seems to have some parallels to Googles Gmail engine. Could this be the first real technology threat for Google?"
No.
:
Maybe we should update the old UseNet cliche
Imminent Death of Google Predicted : Film at 11
An even quicker way to find porn, music, and movies. If this searches IRC channels too, we'll be set for life!
Moderation Insight
Isn't this just a clone of Dashboard?
Our Commitment To Your Privacy
Your privacy is important to us and blinkx makes every endeavor to ensure that all of our products protect your privacy.
Most importantly, BLINKX NEVER REMOVES, COPIES, FORWARDS, AMENDS OR OTHERWISE MOVES ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION from your COMPUTER (INCLUDING YOUR E-MAILS AND DOCUMENTS). YOUR INFORMATION STAYS ON YOUR COMPUTER.
blinkx works by comparing relevant information to deliver results, but never uses the original documents. The only actual hard information blinkx collects is your e-mail address when you decide to download the blinkx client.
We use the information you directly provide about yourself purely for this blinkx beta program. We do not share this information with outside parties and for no other commercial matters. When we receive email correspondence, we use return email addresses to reply with the information requested. Such addresses are not shared with outside parties.
Should you have other questions or concerns about these privacy policies, please send us an email at feedback@blinkx.com
blinkx's Website
This policy only addresses our activities from our servers. Other websites (including those that we link to and third party websites or services that we co-brand) may have their own policies, which we do not control, and thus are not addressed by this policy.
This site recognizes the home server of visitors, but not their e-mail addresses. This site also uses "cookie" technology so that we can better understand how to improve the experience of visiting our website. Also, blinkx tracks the Internet address of the domains from which visitors are coming and uses this data for statistics and analysis on the levels of success of our web programs, but the name of the visitor remains anonymous.
The names and contact information of persons who request information about blinkx, its subsidiaries, its products and/or its services are added to our data base, so that they may be contacted in the future regarding blinkx's products, services or future opportunities. This contact may occur by e-mail, telephone or mail, as blinkx deems appropriate. We do not sell or rent any information about our visitors, and we have no plans to do so in the future.
We use industry-standard efforts to safeguard the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information, such as firewalls and secure socket layers where appropriate. However, "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet.
You acknowledge that acceptance of this privacy policy, as updated from time to time at this location, is a condition to your use of our website and you agree to be bound by all of its terms and conditions.
If you have any questions regarding our policies please e-mail blinkx's webmaster at feedback@blinkx.com
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Free advertising on The Guardian and Slashdot can't hurt.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Wow, and people made such a fuss over Google reading your e-mail for ads, doesn't look like this is any better:
And you have to do nothing! Whenever you browse a website, read a news story, check your e-mail or write a document, blinkx automatically delivers suggestions from the Web, news or your local files; which you can view by simply clicking the links or rolling over to get a summary of the information found.
Not only email, it does everything!
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
For some reason the words "search companion" always make me cringe.
On one hand this is obviously potentionally spyware. I mean, it logs everything you do, and advises you to check out such and such. However:
Did anyone check out that graphical linking system? It was genious. You go to a seed link, and it spiders from there. Graphically representing the links each time. So you search for "frogs" and it starts a "frogs" seed. Then a few branches come out, such as "frog legs", "cromwell's frog" and "horned frog". Then those branch new links as well. And it just keeps going. At first I said "this is stupid, I searched for a broad term, and only get 3 links?" but then I watched as it added sublinks to main links, and was very impressed.
So search engines have gone from searching a dedicated database to searching the text on the internet. Then it was searching images on the 'net. Now they can extend that to searching your email and local drives, all with one interface.
Cool.
But if you really want to impress me, make one that can search my house, my pockets, and my kids' rooms for my keys and wallet....
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Usenet? That posse of Luddite introverts stopped being relevant five years ago.
The BBC is also running a story on this.
The important point is *what happens to that data*. Spyware collates it and sends it to its master. Blinkx says that theres doesn't do this.
So its not spyware.
Mind the strap on that tinfoil hat.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...it is "Optimized for IE & Broadband Users". Google is not so.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
A good review of Blinkx with some discussion. I've also got a post about Blinkx that includes links to discussions of Linux version of something similar (Dashboard) and Microsoft's attempt (Implicit Query).
Maybe this is a threat to Google, but I don't think the competitors are far behind. Nat Friedmans Dashboard and Sideboard have been mentioned elsewhere, and it seems like Microsoft is planning a similar application themselves.
Apparently Google is planning local hard drive searches as well, in a pre-emptive move against improved search techologies that will be a part of Windows/Longhorn.
So I guess Blinx won't be left alone for long. However, when it comes to search, the more players the better. Google is well on its way to become the new Microsoft, and I don't think it's in anybodys best interest to get a search monopolist.
This can easily be wiped out by companies like Microsoft and Apple anyway. In Apple's case, all they would need to do is link Spotlight with Sherlock with some simple plugin.
The reason Google can compete is that it isn't an application that you have to download. Anything that is a downloadable application will be easily snuffed by major software companies like those that make instant messaging apps like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, and Apple.
This harkens back to the good ole Haystack doo-ma-jiggy that came out of MIT sometime ago (slashdot Here and MIT HERE)
The concept is a simple one. Don't keep things in order in your folders in email or on your machine anymore. Just dump it all in one big place and have a meta engine of some sort index it all for you and then build queries for what you need. Realistically this is a great idea for those folks that had problems using the analog file cabinet for so many years (ala Jimmy James and the file of banana under "bright curved yellow things" for instance). The potential for abuse is really no greater than if M$ were to upload all of your "explorer find" searches back to Redmond. Those of you that us XP when you have to will notice that there is even an option to save a search query now for quick use within the XP shell. All this new company has done is just made it a little easier for the typical end user to create their search meta engine. The MIT one was brutal for a learning curve and more importantly it didnt have a decent place to put advertisements!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"search information from your desktop"
...
This one feature is enough to know that Blinks is not going any where.
I don't know why people are still tied to the Desktop. One of the great success of Google is that its not tied to the desktop (yeah, I know they are working on desktop tools too).
People travel and move, change computers, change system, reformat...blah..blah. All that learning over your desktop is of no good use.
Beauty of google (web interface search) is i get the same great results no matter where I acces it from, which machin I access from
Desktop search sucks...but the concept of desktop itself sucks in the first place.
Hmm, now that Slashdot is accepting submissions for spyware, I think they should create a new category. They didn't accept my submission for Bonzi Buddy!!!
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Though, it can help you find Slashdot http://us-search.blinkx.com/BlinkxBroadband/?q=lit igious+bastards&x=10&y=6
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
Well I'm pretty sure they're just referring to the back end of Google searching that powers Gmail. And speaking of my own use, it's one damn quick and easy search engine for email. I have like 500 emails in just one of my "labels" and I can search and fly through them with no problems. It's my "ebay" label, so I look for specific items or that "one thing" that I bought a while ago and forgot to leave feedback or something like that... but it's quick, efficient, and well... it's Google.
The key is more than that Blinkx doesn't use it for spying... The USP is that it uses the local information as a context for the search (and potentially the ads as well). Google cannot know what you're working on, so it guesses from the keywords. Spyware doesn't care, it mostly only feeds you ads. Blinkx (claims to) use the information to improve the quality of your search results.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco