Search engine (computing)
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload.
The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.
How search engines work
Search engines provide an interface to a group of items that enables users to specify criteria about an item of interest and have the engine find the matching items. The criteria are referred to as a search query. In the case of text search engines, the search query is typically expressed as a set of words that identify the desired concept that one or more documents may contain. There are several styles of search query syntax that vary in strictness. It can also switch names within the search engines from previous sites. Whereas some text search engines require users to enter two or three words separated by white space, other search engines may enable users to specify entire documents, pictures, sounds, and various forms of natural language. Some search engines apply improvements to search queries to increase the likelihood of providing a quality set of items through a process known as query expansion.
index-based search engine
index-based search engine
The list of items that meet the criteria specified by the query is typically sorted, or ranked. Ranking items by relevance (from highest to lowest) reduces the time required to find the desired information. Probabilistic search engines rank items based on measures of similarity (between each item and the query, typically on a scale of 1 to 0, 1 being most similar) and sometimes popularity or authority (see Bibliometrics) or use relevance feedback. Boolean search engines typically only return items which match exactly without regard to order, although the term boolean search engine may simply refer to the use of boolean-style syntax (the use of operators AND, OR, NOT, and XOR) in a probabilistic context.
To provide a set of matching items that are sorted according to some criteria quickly, a search engine will typically collect metadata about the group of items under consideration beforehand through a process referred to as indexing. The index typically requires a smaller amount of computer storage, which is why some search engines only store the indexed information and not the full content of each item, and instead provide a method of navigating to the items in the search engine result page. Alternatively, the search engine may store a copy of each item in a cache so that users can see the state of the item at the time it was indexed or for archive purposes or to make repetitive processes work more efficiently and quickly.
Other types of search engines do not store an index. Crawler, or spider type search engines (a.k.a. real-time search engines) may collect and assess items at the time of the search query, dynamically considering additional items based on the contents of a starting item (known as a seed, or seed URL in the case of an Internet crawler). Meta search engines do not store an index nor a cache and instead simply reuse the index or results of one or more other search engines to provide an aggregated, final set of results.
Search Engine (radio show)
Search Engine is a weekly Canadian radio show that airs on CBC Radio One and is then available later in podcast form. It is hosted by Jesse Brown, who also co-produces the show with Geoff Siskind and Andrew Parker. Cory Doctorow, novelist and editor of Boing Boing, is also a regular contributor. The program explores the effects of the Internet on politics and culture. The show has focused on stories involving copyright, video games, and China, as well as the social impact and technology surrounding them.
The program airs on Thursdays at 11:30 a.m.(12:00 NT), and is repeated on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m.(4:00 NT, select markets) on stations which do not air extended CBC Radio One local programs. It is also available for download as a podcast.
As of June 2008, Jesse Brown announced that Search Engine would no longer continue as a separate program. He will continue to contribute Search Engine material as a feature supplement through the current CBC programming. The website and podcast features will also be maintained.
Overview
Search Engine first aired on September 6, 2007. It discusses Internet phenomena. Unlike other shows, however, Search Engine concentrates on ways in which the Internet influences other aspects of life and culture. Though much of the subject matter he deals with is serious, Brown generally takes a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek approach to his material.
Every episode begins with a set of keywords - teaser phrases that summarize the major stories for that episode. The term "keyword" ties into the name of the show as something a search engine uses to categorize things of importance. Other Internet terms are regularly invoked and adapted to the purpose of attempting to describe unusual or unprecedented technology-related cultural phenomena.
The program runs for one half hour. Usually there are three in-depth stories, each of which is separated by a clip of Creative Commons licensed music. Other, smaller topics may be interspersed. Often these consist of updates on past stories, or addresses to the listeners about the show itself.
In keeping with an open-source theme, the creators of Search Engine utilize the show's online blog to communicate and collaborate with listeners. The radio stories feed off of opinions or information gleaned from listener commentary. Follow-up pieces are at times justified by direct listener response. Additionally, listeners are often openly encouraged on the air to contribute to the betterment of specific aspects of the show.
The show has several occasional features that are periodically played:
* The Best of Craigslist: Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster reads selected outlandish posts from his company's site.
* Copyfight: Digital rights columnist Cory Doctorow comments on controversies springing from issues with Internet copyright law.
* Flipback: A segment that showcases recordings resurrected from the Internet Archive.
* Another recurring topic investigated on Search Engine is the Internet Bill of Rights, a set of universal standards concerning online liberties drafted and spearheaded by the Internet Governance Forum.
Original Search Engine Logo
Original Search Engine Logo
This logo, created by Nick Csernack, was used by Search Engine
This logo, created by Nick Csernack, was used by Search Engine
Canadian Copyright
As well as in regular contributions from Cory Doctorow, Jesse Brown has focused on the issues surrounding Canadian copyright. Originally mentioning it on one show, he soon realized that many listeners were interested in the issue. He discussed Bill C-60, which would supposedly bring down more draconian laws than the DMCA did in the United States. He has also spoken about the lack of a Fair Use law in Canada and controversy surrounding the issue.
China
Since its inception, Search Engine has broadcast stories pertaining to government control of the Internet in China, commented on the citizen journalism efforts in that nation, and criticized the Chinese government for the ways in which its policies restrict access to many Internet venues.
In early 2008, it was reported by a number of Search Engine listeners in China that the CBC had been rendered unavailable. The show's crew kept in contact with these listeners through message boards and its Facebook page, and confirmed that the blockage was limited to China and was therefore not a technical problem. Brown broke the story on the air, which prompted the president of the CBC to make an appeal to the Chinese Ambassador, calling for an end to the blockage. Soon after, the site was made available again in China.
The Internet and Identity
In January 2008, Search Engine began reporting on the controversy between the Internet group "Anonymous" and the Church of Scientology. Brown called Anonymous "clowns," and invited them to call his bluff. He later had two members of the group on the show. After Anonymous held a protest in front of Scientology compounds around the world on February 10, 2008, Brown admitted that they had "proved me wrong."
The nature of the protest was unprecedented - picketers wore masks and refused to divulge names - and sparked a discussion on the show about the meaning of identity. Brown brought the issue to his own workplace, interviewing CBC's president Hubert Lacroix in reaction to a conflict between him and an anonymous critic who went by the handle "Ouimet."
Producers / Contributors
Jesse Brown is the host and one of the producers of Search Engine. He has worked in multiple forms of media, including print, television, and radio. He has primarily categorized himself as a humorist. Brown's first formal recognition as a producer of media came at the age of 18, when he received the Udo award from Ryerson University School of Journalism in Toronto, Canada for starting a successful underground student newspaper at the school. He has since written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post and Vice Magazine.
In 2003, Brown launched a magazine called Stu under the pseudonym Stuart Neihardt. The magazine was billed as a reaction to the banality of "lad" magazines like Maxim and FHM; something geared toward the "regular guy" (which Neihardt claimed to be).
During 2003 and 2004, Brown wrote a humor column called "The Experiment" for Saturday Night Magazine. Several of his articles won Honorable Mentions in the National Magazine Awards during those years."Stu Magazine" won the Silver spot in 2003.
In the summer of 2006, Brown hosted another CBC Radio show called The Contrarians that investigated the potential virtues of unpopular ideas.
Brown is currently listed as part of the editorial staff on the website FordPoweredByYou.ca, a site created by Ford of Canada for bloggers to post their thoughts on the ways in which the automotive realm intersects with technology, the environment, and everyday life. However, Brown says that he "was going to contribute, but we didn't see eye to eye on editorial stuff and I've never contributed anything to the site." He adds that he's been trying to get them to take his face off the site ever since.
Geoff Siskind is one of the producers of Search Engine. He has produced a number of documentaries - some of which have aired on various programs on the CBC. His work has been featured on Outfront, Sounds Like Canada, The Omnivore, and CBC Radio 3.
Andrew Parker is one of the producers of Search Engine. He has worked as an editor and producer for the CBC since 1998. He has also freelanced for Deutsche Welle radio while living in Dusseldorf, Germany.
On May 7, 2008, Hannah Classen joined the team at Search Engine as the show's blog poster/moderator.
The audience also contributes to the makeup of the show. Collaborative efforts have been used in the past to rewrite the show's sign-off for grammar concerns and to redesign its logo. Story pitches are accepted through Search Engine's website.
Search Engine's theme song is called "Ethiopia Hagere." It was written and performed in a collaborative effort between Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria and punk band The Ex. It first appeared on the 2007 album Moa Anbessa.
Awards
Search Engine was listed in iTunes "Best of 2007" podcast list, under both Canadian and U.S. categories.
The show has been nominated for two awards by the New York Festival Radio Awards. The finalist entries are Brown's essay on Zeitgeist the Movie nominated in the editorial/viewpoint category and documentary on Shannen Rossmiller, the housewife turned online terrorist hunter nominated in the community/portrait category.
Web search engine
A Web search engine is a search engine designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Information may consist of web pages, images and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in newsgroups, databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input.
History
Before there were search engines there was a complete list of all webservers. The list was edited by Tim Berners-Lee and hosted on the CERN webserver. One historical snapshot from 1992 remains. As more and more webservers went online the central list could not keep up. On the NCSA Site new servers were announced under the title "What's New!", but no complete listing existed any more.
The very first tool used for searching on the Internet was Archie. The name stands for "archive" without the "v". It was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. The program downloaded the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creating a searchable database of file names; however, Archie did not index the contents of these sites.
The rise of Gopher (created in 1991 by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota) led to two new search programs, Veronica and Jughead. Like Archie, they searched the file names and titles stored in Gopher index systems. Veronica (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) provided a keyword search of most Gopher menu titles in the entire Gopher listings. Jughead (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display) was a tool for obtaining menu information from specific Gopher servers. While the name of the search engine "Archie" was not a reference to the Archie comic book series, "Veronica" and "Jughead" are characters in the series, thus referencing their predecessor.
The first Web search engine was Wandex, a now-defunct index collected by the World Wide Web Wanderer, a web crawler developed by Matthew Gray at MIT in 1993. Another very early search engine, Aliweb, also appeared in 1993, and still runs today. JumpStation (released in early 1994) used a crawler to find web pages for searching, but search was limited to the title of web pages only. One of the first "full text" crawler-based search engines was WebCrawler, which came out in 1994. Unlike its predecessors, it let users search for any word in any webpage, which became the standard for all major search engines since. It was also the first one to be widely known by the public. Also in 1994 Lycos (which started at Carnegie Mellon University) was launched, and became a major commercial endeavor.
Soon after, many search engines appeared and vied for popularity. These included Magellan, Excite, Infoseek, Inktomi, Northern Light, and AltaVista. Yahoo! was among the most popular ways for people to find web pages of interest, but its search function operated on its web directory, rather than full-text copies of web pages. Information seekers could also browse the directory instead of doing a keyword-based search.
In 1996, Netscape was looking to give a single search engine an exclusive deal to be their featured search engine. There was so much interest that instead a deal was struck with Netscape by 5 of the major search engines, where for $5Million per year each search engine would be in a rotation on the Netscape search engine page. These five engines were: Yahoo!, Magellan, Lycos, Infoseek and Excite.
Search engines were also known as some of the brightest stars in the Internet investing frenzy that occurred in the late 1990s. Several companies entered the market spectacularly, receiving record gains during their initial public offerings. Some have taken down their public search engine, and are marketing enterprise-only editions, such as Northern Light. Many search engine companies were caught up in the dot-com bubble, a speculation-driven market boom that peaked in 1999 and ended in 2001.
Around 2000, the Google search engine rose to prominence. The company achieved better results for many searches with an innovation called PageRank. This iterative algorithm ranks web pages based on the number and PageRank of other web sites and pages that link there, on the premise that good or desirable pages are linked to more than others. Google also maintained a minimalist interface to its search engine. In contrast, many of its competitors embedded a search engine in a web portal.
By 2000, Yahoo was providing search services based on Inktomi's search engine. Yahoo! acquired Inktomi in 2002, and Overture (which owned AlltheWeb and AltaVista) in 2003. Yahoo! switched to Google's search engine until 2004, when it launched its own search engine based on the combined technologies of its acquisitions.
Microsoft first launched MSN Search (since re-branded Live Search) in the fall of 1998 using search results from Inktomi. In early 1999 the site began to display listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. In 2004, Microsoft began a transition to its own search technology, powered by its own web crawler (called msnbot).
As of late 2007, Google was by far the most popular Web search engine worldwide. A number of country-specific search engine companies have become prominent; for example Baidu is the most popular search engine in the People's Republic of China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/search_engine
