Youtube's search scope is "videos uploaded to it's site"
How you define what 'is' a search engine or what 'has' a search engine is moot if you talk about the 'scope' in which a search is performed and then it's 'method'.
If I created a search "engine" thats scope was the internet and it used the same 'method' as google then it would give me the same results as google. Same argument goes for Youtube.
Youtube just happens to be a special case in that it is a search on a scope of video files which are a subset of it's own website. IE it searches specific conent uploaded to it's site which allows it to get added meta information from an otherwise visual medium, IE how does Google know what's in a video.. Youtube know because it asks you to tag it.
Same with Slashdot's search, It is a search on it's own content, submissions, comments etc.
Just because Google can search "outside of it's internal scope" (however that may be defined) doesn't make it any different or doesn't make Youtube any less of a search engine.
The point thus stands that this is pretty damn spectacular that Youtube which is only searching a small subset of data is being used more than Yahoo which is used to access in theory the same or a similar scope to Google, ie the internet.
How accurate the method on counting how you rate Youtube higher than Yahoo is, is open for debate. However assuming they are using the same metric they always did, according to that metric- Yahoo was above Youtube, and now it isn't. I would therefore say this is significant even if it is (without knowing exact details on how the ranking works) potentially somewhat crude.
This may not be the end of the line for the Playstation Legacy, but cast your minds back to the Sega V Nintendo days. Sega's Genesis (Megadrive) had enough fanboys to make the Saturn a partial(?) success. However, the Saturn was certainly a stepping stone in the right direction to the demise of Sega's muscle in the console scene. The failure of the Dreamcast (which was arguably an amazing console - much better thought out than the Saturn) was predictable after the mess up with the Saturn. I'm not condemning the PS3 to failure, but just because one would assume that Sony couldn't possibly mess things up, at the rate they are going it's certainly a question on everybody's mind. Past success does not equate to future success. I know Sony are a much broader company and have fingers in practically every area of electronics, but this doesn't mean that they can not manufacture something that isn't going to be popular. Complacency in the market place is perhaps what opened up a gap for Microsoft in the first place.
But seriously, you can't chose to use Linux as your primary OS and then complain about the lack of support Apple are giving it. That's like me inventing a new OS and then going man I can't believe Apple won't write iTunes for my platform.
If you choose to use an operating system like Linux as your main desktop OS then you do so knowing full well that it isn't always given top priority by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, nVidia, ATI etc (to name but a few) for desktop applications.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft advocate - I run Windows as my Primary OS on my desktop (for gaming and main stream applications), I run OS X on my Powerbook for being trendy on the go (and mainly to change things up from using Windows all day every day) and I run FreeBSD and Linux boxes for things that they are good for, like running my network services and such (Apache, Bind, Sendmail, and so on).
Forgive me for saying this, as my understanding of the X Windows model is limited, but aren't rich web applications like this moving towards a server client model similar to how X works. Except in this instance we have the web server serving the applications' content and the browser acting as the client.
It's quite ironic that all this talk of the OS becoming insignificant is just yet us piling another layer on top of our systems. Shouldn't more effort be focused on making a standard and open windowing system so that developers have one windowing GUI to think about when making their apps (instead of the current big three, namely MS Windows, X Windows and Mac OS X). Yes web apps address this, but in my opinion the way they are approaching the solution is completely backwards.
Fair enough these web apps allow you to access your program on the move, allowing you to only worry about whether the terminal you are sat at has a nice browser that supports JavaScript, but think about Exchange server when coupled with Outlook Web Access - we suddenly see that these rich AJAX apps are nothing new and are in fact a step in the wrong direction. We should be focused on bringing everything down a level - not piling everything inside a web browser.
Imagine an OS model where you have a server running at a nice secure location with all your applications running 24/7 then you have a standard windowing desktop client OS that connects to your server to bring up your apps and data where ever you are, be it at work, home or sat on a train on your PDA. I think having a windowing system that would allow this would be far more advantageous than using either remote desktop (VNC etc) or rich web apps (Java, AJAX etc).
Slashdot Mirror
The real deal is this:
Google's search scope is "the internet"
Youtube's search scope is "videos uploaded to it's site"
How you define what 'is' a search engine or what 'has' a search engine is moot if you talk about the 'scope' in which a search is performed and then it's 'method'.
If I created a search "engine" thats scope was the internet and it used the same 'method' as google then it would give me the same results as google. Same argument goes for Youtube.
Youtube just happens to be a special case in that it is a search on a scope of video files which are a subset of it's own website. IE it searches specific conent uploaded to it's site which allows it to get added meta information from an otherwise visual medium, IE how does Google know what's in a video.. Youtube know because it asks you to tag it.
Same with Slashdot's search, It is a search on it's own content, submissions, comments etc.
Just because Google can search "outside of it's internal scope" (however that may be defined) doesn't make it any different or doesn't make Youtube any less of a search engine.
The point thus stands that this is pretty damn spectacular that Youtube which is only searching a small subset of data is being used more than Yahoo which is used to access in theory the same or a similar scope to Google, ie the internet.
How accurate the method on counting how you rate Youtube higher than Yahoo is, is open for debate. However assuming they are using the same metric they always did, according to that metric- Yahoo was above Youtube, and now it isn't. I would therefore say this is significant even if it is (without knowing exact details on how the ranking works) potentially somewhat crude.
This may not be the end of the line for the Playstation Legacy, but cast your minds back to the Sega V Nintendo days. Sega's Genesis (Megadrive) had enough fanboys to make the Saturn a partial(?) success. However, the Saturn was certainly a stepping stone in the right direction to the demise of Sega's muscle in the console scene. The failure of the Dreamcast (which was arguably an amazing console - much better thought out than the Saturn) was predictable after the mess up with the Saturn. I'm not condemning the PS3 to failure, but just because one would assume that Sony couldn't possibly mess things up, at the rate they are going it's certainly a question on everybody's mind. Past success does not equate to future success. I know Sony are a much broader company and have fingers in practically every area of electronics, but this doesn't mean that they can not manufacture something that isn't going to be popular. Complacency in the market place is perhaps what opened up a gap for Microsoft in the first place.
FYI. BoingBoing have compiled a comprehensive timeline of events surrounding this: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticust omer_te.html
sPearPC me the WINEing
But seriously, you can't chose to use Linux as your primary OS and then complain about the lack of support Apple are giving it. That's like me inventing a new OS and then going man I can't believe Apple won't write iTunes for my platform.
If you choose to use an operating system like Linux as your main desktop OS then you do so knowing full well that it isn't always given top priority by companies such as Apple, Microsoft, nVidia, ATI etc (to name but a few) for desktop applications.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft advocate - I run Windows as my Primary OS on my desktop (for gaming and main stream applications), I run OS X on my Powerbook for being trendy on the go (and mainly to change things up from using Windows all day every day) and I run FreeBSD and Linux boxes for things that they are good for, like running my network services and such (Apache, Bind, Sendmail, and so on).
Forgive me for saying this, as my understanding of the X Windows model is limited, but aren't rich web applications like this moving towards a server client model similar to how X works. Except in this instance we have the web server serving the applications' content and the browser acting as the client.
It's quite ironic that all this talk of the OS becoming insignificant is just yet us piling another layer on top of our systems. Shouldn't more effort be focused on making a standard and open windowing system so that developers have one windowing GUI to think about when making their apps (instead of the current big three, namely MS Windows, X Windows and Mac OS X). Yes web apps address this, but in my opinion the way they are approaching the solution is completely backwards.
Fair enough these web apps allow you to access your program on the move, allowing you to only worry about whether the terminal you are sat at has a nice browser that supports JavaScript, but think about Exchange server when coupled with Outlook Web Access - we suddenly see that these rich AJAX apps are nothing new and are in fact a step in the wrong direction. We should be focused on bringing everything down a level - not piling everything inside a web browser.
Imagine an OS model where you have a server running at a nice secure location with all your applications running 24/7 then you have a standard windowing desktop client OS that connects to your server to bring up your apps and data where ever you are, be it at work, home or sat on a train on your PDA. I think having a windowing system that would allow this would be far more advantageous than using either remote desktop (VNC etc) or rich web apps (Java, AJAX etc).