Competition means better variety? Or poor comparisions?
It seems like everyone seems to be cranking up the competition stakes online recently. With Google now the search engine of preference, competitors have their work cut out to produce something which users would convert to. I have to admit, I never use any other search engine, especially considering my homepage is my iGoogle page. So it surprised me to hear that some ex-Google engineers have launched a new search engine which boasts indexing 120 billion websites. Cuil (pronouned cool) seems to have missed off some crucial sites though. When searching for the Scrambled eggs and mashed bananas blog, it came up with absolutely nothing. Google on the other hand brought up my blog as the first search result! No surprises which search engine I'll be sticking to then... haha. Obviously there's some development needed on Cuil.... whilst writing this post it seems to have actually gone down and won't load. Not a good start! I'll be keeping an eye on it though to see how it progresses over time. You never know... us techies are a fickle bunch!
Google have been doing some rivalling of their own it seems, launching Knol. The website aims to rival Wikipedia, with users writing knols (a unit of knowledge... see what they did there? very clever...ha ha) on any topic they wish. The difference with Google's attempt at an online user-generated encyclopedia is that the authors retain editorial ownership and can approve suggested edits to their submissions. However, people can also write about topics other users have already submitted, which means there will be a large amount of duplication and potentially several entries on one subject. Browsing the website it seems to mostly be based on medical knowledge so far, but I have to say I think I prefer Wikipedia and Wiki-how.
Finally, Sky seems to be taking on music giant iTunes in a deal with Universal. With the pending crack down on illegal downloads, Sky's approach of downloads and unlimited streaming for a monthly subscription may be the way to go, especially for those who either detest the iTunes software (as I do) or do not own an iPod (yes, contrary to popular belief, there are people out there who don't!). Nothing's been launched yet so watch this space!
Google have been doing some rivalling of their own it seems, launching Knol. The website aims to rival Wikipedia, with users writing knols (a unit of knowledge... see what they did there? very clever...ha ha) on any topic they wish. The difference with Google's attempt at an online user-generated encyclopedia is that the authors retain editorial ownership and can approve suggested edits to their submissions. However, people can also write about topics other users have already submitted, which means there will be a large amount of duplication and potentially several entries on one subject. Browsing the website it seems to mostly be based on medical knowledge so far, but I have to say I think I prefer Wikipedia and Wiki-how.
Finally, Sky seems to be taking on music giant iTunes in a deal with Universal. With the pending crack down on illegal downloads, Sky's approach of downloads and unlimited streaming for a monthly subscription may be the way to go, especially for those who either detest the iTunes software (as I do) or do not own an iPod (yes, contrary to popular belief, there are people out there who don't!). Nothing's been launched yet so watch this space!
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