Deep Web

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How many HE readers have used kosmix.com as a search engine? A 2.22 N.Y. Times story about deep web search engines led me to it. Kosmix.com co-founder Anand Rajaraman was quoted saying that "the crawlable Web" -- i.e., Google world -- "is the tip of the iceberg." Kosmix, the story said, "has developed software that matches searches with the databases most likely to yield relevant information, then returns an overview of the topic drawn from multiple sources."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on February 25, 2009 at 4:47 PM

comment #1

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Hmmm. Not too many, I guess.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at February 25, 2009 5:47 PM

comment #2

gradystiles says ...

Maybe now you can search the "deep web" to find those Vinessa Shaw pics...

Posted by gradystiles at February 25, 2009 6:02 PM

comment #3

Sabina E says ...

I've never even heard of it, but now I'm visiting it to see what's the hoopla.

Posted by Sabina E at February 25, 2009 6:40 PM

comment #4

CleftClips says ...

Wasn't aware of this but it seems to have a lot of potential. Thanks for the tip, Jeff.

Posted by CleftClips at February 25, 2009 7:01 PM

comment #5

renorambler says ...

This looks interesting. I tried a couple of "obscurish" searches and yielded some interesting hits.

If you haven't tried:
http://www.diigo.com/
I would suggest that you do. Play the demo video to get a sense of how useful/powerful it could be.

Posted by renorambler at February 25, 2009 7:13 PM

comment #6

D.Z. says ...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i205e36d6d97550538e93ff0ac9df2d88
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iaeb1c24de37000acd5075b632ba318d1

Posted by D.Z. at February 25, 2009 10:05 PM

comment #7

Bob Violence says ...

Tried a few searches with it and haven't turn up anything useful I couldn't find using other, less bloated search engines (not surprising, since it's basically just a search engine collator). The seemingly complete lack of customization -- is there really no way to turn off searches I don't want ("FAQs from Snappyfingers," what the fuck?) or to search for stuff in non-English languages? -- was the straw that broke the camel's back. If this is the future of web searching, god help us.

Posted by Bob Violence at February 25, 2009 11:25 PM

comment #8

Richard, Leeds Web Designer says ...

I think it's probably more or less impossible to launch a successful new search engine now.

Google succeeded by having a much improved algorithm over the competition.

Unless Google's results start throwing up as many errors as Altavista used to (and with their technical team and finance, that is unlikely), I don't think people will change allegiance, no matter how good the new one.

Posted by Richard, Leeds Web Designer at November 20, 2010 5:28 AM

comment #9