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Bashing Bing, whacking Wave

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 13 comments
ComputerWorld; By Mike Elgan 		Mail this story
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Industry titans Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. are getting rave reviews this week about innovative new approaches to Internet search and communications, respectively. Even Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak told a reporter that Microsoft's new Bing search engine looks "astounding" and that he's "a big fan, now." There's much to like. In a nutshell, Bing does more to surface information you're probably looking for than Google does. For example, if you search for a company, one of the top results will present links to customer service, store locator -- that kind of information.

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Comments (13)

caitlyn ·
There are some really good points in this article. The idea that Microsoft replaces popularity with their corporate best judgment about what I should see when I do a search is really worrisome. I don't want to view the world through the filter that Microsoft chooses for me.

I'm using a gmail account now and I agree with his point about "shuffled" threads. If Wave is going to make that even worse I probably will have to replace my Google mail account with something that works in a more conventional way.

Why am I not excited about either of these new services?
tuxchick ·
Quoting: Why am I not excited about either of these new services?


Because you are bothered that they are primarily about collecting and mining as much user data as possible, identifying who it is associated with, and selling us to advertisers more intensively than ever.
azerthoth ·
Well that an I'm not so hot on the 'Social Networking' thing. Yes there are a few of you I have looked up in farcebook, but honestly, are you seeing an overabundance of junk coming from me. I'll log in an look maybe once a month ... and my account is probably turned off by now since it is so obviously a fake name.
caitlyn ·
Well... you didn't succeed in looking me up in Facebook because I don't have an account. I do have a MySpace account with absolutely zero information about me on it. I've started doing the business equivalent of social networking (LinkedIn) but I'm just not into the social networking scene otherwise.

Oh, and yeah, tuxchick, that pretty much goes without saying with the two companies involved :(
tracyanne ·
You won't have looked me up in facebook either
azerthoth ·
I got dragged kicking and screaming in myself, needlessly it turns out. Now that I have looked at it, it's exactly what I thought it was before hand. "Hey lookit me I'm special and an individual ... ooh shiny *click* ... an iLemming merit badge ... woohooo"
techiem2 ·
Hehe. The only "social networking" site I've made an account on is LinkedIn, which isn't filled with number-of-friends-addicted teens...
Sander_Marechal ·
Yeah, I got LinkedIn as well. That's the only thing I got. Nothing else. Not even IM (at the moment, until I change my DNS provider so that I can run my own Jabber server). Like techiem says, it seems to be only social networking thingy not invaded by moronicness.
techiem2 ·
Well, I am on pretty much every IM network and several IRC networks, so I'm pretty easy to find if someone wants me. I have a jabber server running on my home server at the moment. It doesn't really get used for anything though other than me being logged into it. :P My in-house IRC server gets used by a couple friends that drop in now and then to chat. hehe.

Bob_Robertson ·
Been on LinkedIn for several years, found it quite useful as long as it is "business" oriented. There have been a couple of people using it as a "friends" thing, I generally ignored it and it went away.

I won't touch Facebook either.
vainrveenr ·
Quoting:Been on LinkedIn for several years, found it quite useful as long as it is "business" oriented. There have been a couple of people using it as a "friends" thing, I generally ignored it and it went away.
Perhaps then, it may suffice to again reflect upon Rick Moen's insights on this at his piece 'INOLJ-OOW2.0C (Is Not On LiveJournal Or Other Web 2.0 Cults)', http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/winolj.html
Quoting:No, I'm really not interested in your Web-based "social network". And my data aren't going onto your Web-hosted "service".

I've been spammed by ArtBoom, Bebo, CardScan.Net, Congoo, Ecademy, Eventbee, Eventful, everyonesconnected.com, evite, Flixster, Friendster, GreatestJournal, hi5.com, LINKEDIN, LiveJournal, Living Directory, MeetUp, Memetika, MySpace, openBC, Orkut, Plaxo, Quechup, Ringo, Ryze, Shortcut, Siliconindia.org, Spoke Software, Tagworld, Tickle (previously Emode), Tribe.net, Upcoming.org, Xanga, Yaari, Yafro, and Zvents — all telling me over and over how they're going to "build my social network", even though I'm absolutely not interested.
Further on, and related to "collecting and mining as much user data as possible, identifying who it is associated with, and selling us to advertisers more intensively than ever"
Quoting:The fact that you can host my data, and avert for me the headache of having to administer my own computers, profoundly fails to interest me. Yes, I know how AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) works. No, I don't want your dynamic-content RSS feed. And thank you, but I can "build my reputation" and "extend my sphere of associates" equally well — no, fundamentally better — on my own. Please keep your useless account; I don't want it.

You might be reading this essay because you were coaxed into soliciting my business on behalf of one of those firms (e.g., where LinkedIn sends mail with forged headers professing to be from one of its customers to you as one of that customer's friends, claiming to be a note from your friend inviting you to join him/her on LinkedIn, and talking up its advantages).
and...
Quoting:That includes, but certainly isn't limited to, our keeping custody of our own data. Many of these new "Web 2.0" businesses tout the "convenience" of doing the opposite: entrusting our personal and business data to their specialised Web-based servers, and then manipulating that data remotely via AJAX-driven messaging from our Web browsers, so that all that confidential material lives on the service's data store.
Not so good after all. Moen's sections 'The Data Problem' and 'The Identity Problem' delve right into such dangers of Web 2.0 (a.k.a., Moen's "Bubble 2.0") Finally, Moen's one-line conclusion
Quoting:Did I mention that we're serious about [FOSS solutions] instead [of Bing/Wave/Facebook/LinkedIn/...] ? When Bubble 2.0 is dead and gone, we'll still be here.


RIGHT ON !!

Read the whole comment
hkwint ·
Quoting:When Bubble 2.0 is dead and gone, we'll still be here.


Living in Bubble 3.0 I assume.

[url=http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?query=web 3.0&cat=web&pl=ff&language=english]http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?query=web 3.0&cat=web&pl...[/url]

(No, when clicking that search-engine link, your data won't end up on any server: Ixquick doesn't even log your IP!)
Bob_Robertson ·
> Living in Bubble 3.0 I assume. I like Bubble 1.414 so much that I'm sticking with it. I archived the entire Debian repository when they dropped Bubble 1.414 security backports, so I'll never be "forced" to upgrade, ever!

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