I’ve been looking at another of what seems to be an endless flow of new search engines. The newer ones seems to be taking more of an aim at the Ask market - encouraging direct questions rather than the traditional search that link off to other websites.

Hunch seems to be an interesting one that claims to learn from your searches and asks a few questions up front to get to know you. As it’s supposed to help you make decisions I thought I’d test it out on a highly important subject - what type of beer should I drink? Hunch asked me a few questions to refine my search and returned exactly the right result for my taste Stout (or to be more precise Guinness). Not a new technology maybe but quite a nice implementation.

When am I ever going to use this? Probably never again I just don’t use this type of engine, same opinion I had for Wolfram Alpha. Another touted “Google-killer” which wasn’t quite on the right lines. I just don’t seem to search for a question I need a direct answer for - is it just my search style?

It never ceases to amaze me that lack of insight companies put into their “social media strategy”. Why do companies think that just putting up something on the Internet means they are going to generate business as if the World owes them a favour.

The fact is putting up a Facebook page or creating a Twitter account for your company doesn’t mean you’ve gone all Web 2.0. The “social” part of social media means engaging and interacting with people - this isn’t simply a broadcast medium.

I was very impressed to read WordPress’s accessibility out of the box. There are a few issues to iron out before AAA is reached but that’s pretty good going I think you’ll agree! So if you are looking for a blogging engine or a simple CMS go for WordPress.

No this isn’t in reference to my recent lack of posts for which I can only apologise - most of my spare time (of which there isn’t enough of) is spent with my 12 week old son. A pretty good excuse I think you’ll agree so don’t be too hard on me.

An article in Wired says Blogs are so 2004 says blogs are overcome with a “tsunami of paid bilge” so “Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.”

Hmm a little overreaction methinks. The Internet as a whole is full of paid and unpaid bilge so maybe that should be shut down?

Really it’s all a case of quality control which is also going to be the case of the other technologies mentioned in the article such as Twitter.

How do I find blogs? Well it isn’t a conscious decision on my part; I simply find them on my travels around the web. If I happen to surf onto a post of interest I will look at other posts in the blog and if they’re really lucky and I like what I see I’ll subscribe to the RSS feed. I’m the quality control and my quality control is tight - I subscribe to about 50 feeds in total which I don’t consider a lot as I’m a pretty heavy Internet user. This list is constantly reviewed if I don’t like the way a blog is going I hit the delete button - not really that difficult. Recommendations I like too as that web is a rather large place.

It’s just the age old web spam issue which the search engines are constantly fighting anyway - blog or webpages alike it makes no difference.