Changes, when they come, happen fairly fast around here it appears.
The BigskyBot is being retired, and the LoneStarBot will be taking it’s place.
Our Tech Search Index will be greatly expanded and for now, will exist in DC (data center) at Houston.
The new LoneStarBot has been parsing and indexing (under stealth conditions) for well over a year now and it’s rather large index is due to launch in just a few short weeks. The index will “only” include listings from Texas. LoneStarBot will run directly from here under it’s own named dedicated solutions in Vidor, Texas.
You can say that Google is better than Bing all day long … But … is it really better? .. or is it all of those free techy toys that Google has that keeps you going back for more?
You see? .. It’s this way .. Google, as a search engine, has been an epic fail for at least the last 3 years .. as an ad server and a place for free internet toys and apps, it’s a smashing success.
Do you really think people go to Google to “just search”? .. I mean .. How many application developers are there using Google’s “free” server space to produce their own internet based products .. without so much as even conducting a single search?
How many are there that that use the Gmail and the Widgets, that never use the index to search? .. or how many are there that only go to Google Webmaster Tools to see how “their” site is doing?
Sure .. Google might be the most visited .. but is it the most searched? .. I don’t think it is.
There are reasons why the big search engines are courting the social networks .. their traffic is dropping, and has been for a period of time now.
Google, like all of the other search engines out there, is struggling to keep it’s numbers higher than anyone else .. the recent Buzz launch is just the latest, and most desperate, attempt to recapture some of it’s dwindling traffic numbers. And Google didn’t just launch Buzz, they launched it in a hurry .. closer to a panic, I’ll say .. and it wasn’t even ready for use in the wild.
If Google didn’t have all of those *free toys, Facebook and Twitter would have passed it in traffic numbers long ago.
The internet hasn’t seen “relevant” search results since 2005 .. Google would have to completely scrap all of what it’s doing now, and go back to 2004, in order to be “the best search engine” … As it stands now, Google isn’t anything more than the best ad server on the planet, bar none.
With social media being just all of the current rage these days, URL shortening utilities are just popping up all over the place. URL shortening services are basically pretty generic, what with bit.ly, a2n, beam.to, and b65. (See the list over on Mashable for more) ..
In the list of generic URL shortening services, there’s one that stands out, for very obvious reasons, above the rest.
Step aside bit.ly .. Enter iTEX.as .. Texas’ very own URL shortener has arrived, both for Texans (of course) and anyone else around the world that feels a certain spirited independence.
“Are you really that surprised? Now, even your URLs can smell of independent-minded Texas swagger. iTex.as is a simple link shortening tool that tracks how many times your links are clicked.” ~ iTEX.as
So what are Y’All waitin’ for? .. Go ahead .. give iTEX.as a whirl .. you know you want to.
Astoundingly shortsighted, is how I’ll choose to describe the development team over at Google when discussing their latest Google Buzz facade.
It appears that now, even 9 year olds are found to be in the crosshairs of the Google Buzz, by this posting over on the Altimeter Group.
Here are a few excerpts;
… “But what was most disturbing was looking at her friends’ conversations and realizing that some of them were chatting with complete strangers, and in some cases, sharing personal information like emails. Absolutely terrifying as these are 4th graders who have no clue” …
… “Without an overhaul and the addition of true parental controls in Gmail, this will remain a problem for Google, and a potential PR nightmare. Imagine parents (and kids) checking out their Buzz accounts to find that “iorgyinbathrooms” is following them, which is exactly what happened with my child’s account!” …
H/T Charlene Li
