Task based search – using the right tool for finding the right information.
There are multiple ways today to find information on the web. There are different kind of information to search for. The search task experienced could be overwhelming, frustrating, long and tiring or fun, efficient and successful. It is helpful to think through the search keywords, the search objectives, the type of information and the source of the information beforehand. I listed in this post my most frequently used searching tools. I also added a table mapping some of the possible search tasks to the tool that I think is the best for accomplishing it.
My top 9 search engines:
- Google – what did you expect?
- Del.icio.us – the social bookmarking web site
- Twitter search (formerly Summize)- dipping into Twitter’s archives
- Twingly – spam free information stored in blogs
- Technorati – blogs, tags, rank
- Delver – social graph and search engine
- Xoost – social search engines
- Stumpedia- social search engines
- LinkedIn – yes, the networking tool
Mapping search tasks to proper search tool
| Task | Search tool | Notes |
| Terms and buzz words (Google is my Wikipedia index), maps and directions, images, stock tickers, businesses near me, product, spelling and idioms check, time (around the world), and more | I usually start my searches here. | |
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Del.icio.us | Google just fail when you type the word “free”. You get too many results promoting non-free stuff. I found out multiple times that I can find the best results using this web site. The wisdom of the crowd works for me in this case. |
|
Twitter search | Don’t leave the first page too quickly. By Examining the Trending Topics I just know what’s on people’s minds today. It is sometime requires to drill down to the conversationitself to understand the listed term (by clicking the link). |
|
Twingly | Twingly’s “Hot right now” list is a little biased towards Europe – and that’s a good thing. It is early but they recently added Blog profile so in the future I will use it looking for blog information. |
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Technorati | I rarely use the tags searching capability for content. Maybe I should use it more – not sure. |
| Who’s connected with whom through whom? | Delver | It is just the beginning so it is not as rich as other more matured search engines but in the multiple times that I used it to actually search for information (not connections) I got excellent and very clean results. I tried using it for searching information about individuals too and I got LinkedIn bio info. |
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Xoost and Stumpedia | These two covers the “I don’t know what that I don’t know” problem.I can also look at what other people are searching and like about other peoples search results. |
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One of the first thing that I do once I get a new resume is to check this candidate’s profile page in LinkedIn. I can also check to see if we are somehow connected. |
I hope that by writing this post I can help people to become aware of their search activity and the available options today on the web. I will be happy to hear about more search tasks, objectives and tools.
Categories: Method, Observations
delicious, delver, google, LinkedIn, social search engine, Stumpedia, summize, Technorati, Trending Topics, twingly, Twitter Search, What's hot now?, Xoost
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