Tag: search

Tumblr Search is Badly Broken

This is something that has been bugging me for ages. Despite having a search capability in both the dashboard and the blog page, it’s practically impossible to search for anything in your own Tumblr blog.

While the search drop down in the dashboard offers multiple options including searching through your own posts, it would almost always return zero results. Sometimes it would return posts that have been tagged accordingly but even then it’s never a complete set of results, many posts with relevant results would go missing.

Searching for a word or sentence that clearly is there within a particular post would never return that post in the results page.

If search is so difficult to implement for Tumblr, why not hand it over to Bing or Google? Tumblr should have a properly working content search ability. Categorization is one thing but often search is the best method to find content. If a search query for a particular text cannot find the relevant results even though they are actually there, then either don’t have it at all or outsource it to someone else.

Thoughts on Siri

Tim Bajarin for Time:

Indeed, it’s pretty clear to me that Apple has just scratched the surface of the role Siri will play for them in driving future revenue. At the moment, we are enamored with its ability to enhance the man-machine interface. But that’s just the start. Siri is actually on track to become the first point of entrance to “search” engines of all types tied to major databases throughout the world. It will become the gatekeeper to all types of searches, and in the end control which search engine it goes to for its answers.

Apple may not have to compete directly with Google and Microsoft on the search engine front to be a force in search. With Siri, Apple gets to be the gatekeeper to the hundreds of specialist search engines if it manages to pull off deals with databases such as Craigslist, OpenTable, Apartment Finder, AirBnB, Edmunds, IMDB, and the like.

The key to this is being able to pull off the deals. Right now, Siri works with Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. Many (but not all) of those database or search sites make money off display advertising, which will be completely bypassed by Siri users. To have Siri scour their databases and deliver the results directly to users would undermine the very lifeline of their existence.

Not all of those sites will agree to what Apple may propose but Apple could do two things; buy out enough range of specialist search sites to further legitimize Siri, or convince them that Siri will eventually be the preferred way for millions and millions of people around the world to look for information that they will bypass websites and search apps anyway, thereby depriving the sites of visitors. Apple could say that turning down Siri would mean turning away customers.

If Apple were any other company, it might tack on iAds on Siri but at the moment, it doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps one could think of Siri as iTunes, a unified place to seek out relevant bits of information from many different sources. Of course, the business model would be different. People wouldn’t pay for premium search options, or would they?

Ever thought of Siri operating in a similar way to a cable TV service offering a multitude of subscription packages of search databases with a free basic set? Might have crossed the minds of people in Cupertino but given how iTunes is there to disrupt that very business model, it might seem unlikely for Apple to adopt it, not to mention putting people off.

Siri might not be fully working around the world at the moment and whether Apple will earn revenue out of it remains to be seen, after all, Siri is still in public beta and it might take Apple a while before it’s ready for a proper roll out.

It’s a bit difficult to imagine Apple allowing the next iPhone to be released while still carrying a beta version of Siri. 

[update] Or Apple could add ability to purchase things online from Siri.

Thoughts on Siri

Was searching on Google when it spewed that first notice and upon posting the screenshot to Tumblr, this happened.

Mozilla may lose $100 million in revenue as Google deal remains unrenewed

Google has been Mozilla’s primary financial supporter for the most part of its existence and in the past year has supplied around 84% of the browser company’s $123 million revenue through its search engine deal. That deal is said to have ended in November.

Mozilla is adamant that search partnerships will remain the core of its financial backbone. However, while Mozilla certainly does have arrangements with other parties, without Google’s support, its future becomes uncertain unless it manages to extend that deal or secure equal amount of funding or thereabouts from other sources.

Mozilla may lose $100 million in revenue as Google deal remains unrenewed

Eric Schmidt: Google is not dominant in search

In answering questions from the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt had this to say about its search business:

I am confident that Google competes vigorously with a broad range of companies that go well beyond just Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo, and that Google has none of the characteristics that I associate with market power.

Creepy guy indeed

Eric Schmidt: Google is not dominant in search