8 ms·

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hind

by selmnoo 13y ago

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). One interesting observation about the ad: the search results that the girl deems to be good and informative are almost all Wikipedia hits. It's actually pretty similar to my situation: Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides.

kulkarnic 13y ago
Maybe that is to ensure that the results remain stable after people start trying out those searches for themselves (and so Google doesn't endorse another company's services). Wikipedia for results is definitely not the norm for Google searches in India---I just spent a month there and results can be anything from JustDial directory services (for phone numbers, since many local businesses don't have websites) to local newspapers (for reviews etc). The utility of Google in India is that it provides you the best link across different websites. This is really important because India has a growing population of new Internet users (who don't have "go to" sites like Wikipedia and Yelp), and because it still doesn't have clear winners in many verticals (e.g. real estate)
signa11 13y ago
> Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides. isn't that true for most sites all around ? i, fwiw, normally just use site specific searches on almost all sites...
staunch 13y ago
Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Not at all. If you're filtering based on multiple categories, a search that understands them, even barebones, is better than a brilliant generic-text-search.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  I didn't want to go to far on an off-topic tangent, but basically what I was getting at was that I increasingly seem to be interested in a very limited number of sites -- that is, mostly, sites that I already know of and recognize. I use Reddit search more when I'm doing exploratory searching hoping to land on a site I've never been before, because it serves me already vetted/reviewed sites. In this way, Google is no longer a tool for me to do search, where I'm not sure where I'll end up, it's now a tool to get me where I know I want to go (which happens to be some wikipedia page most of the times).
  - mikeash 13y ago
    It is an interesting point. Google has become as much a substitute for the address bar as a way to find new things.
    - Wingman4l7 13y ago
      (If you don't have bookmarks or don't keep a browsing history / don't know how to use URL autocompletion).
      - mikeash 13y ago
        I use autocomplete for commonly-visited sites, but Google plus vague memories of basic search terms have almost completely supplanted my use of bookmarks these days.
        Wingman4l7 13y ago
        Especially since you can't bookmark everything, not knowing what you're going to want to refer to in the future.
        mikeash 13y ago
        Or rather you can bookmark everything, but the resulting list is nearly useless. I used to have a massive collection of bookmarks that I never referred to because it was far too large to actually use. Plus half the links had gone stale.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- hiby007 13y ago
  many salutes to you sir. for speaking truth.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
JPKab 13y ago
Hindi or Urdu? Haha... I always find the "language vs dialect" thing very interesting. The distinction when it comes to Hindi and Urdu is totally political. Two of my old buddies, one an Indian, the other a Pakistani, could completely understand each other, yet both insisted that they spoke different languages (Punjabi/Hindi and Urdu respectively) Another friend of mind, who left Pakistan as a 10 year old, always just shook his head with a smile and said "Dude, that's like a guy from Alabama saying someone from England speaks a different language."
- nl 13y ago
  Hindi or Urdu? Haha... I always find the "language vs dialect" thing very interesting. The distinction when it comes to Hindi and Urdu is totally political Try Serbo-Croatian[1]. But OTOH, most Slavic languages are fairly similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian
  - levosmetalo 13y ago
    Well, I would beg to disagree. While the standard Serbian and standard Croatian are very similar, it's more of an artificial. Even when that was one language official, one part of ex country called it Serbo-Croatian, and other one Croato-Serbian, and the versions taught at school were similar, but not the same. There were some language constructs that were in this common language just because they were present in one, and not the other, so that Serbo-Croatian was a strange mix. Not to mention dialects. Being a native south Serbian speaker, I had much better understanding of Macedonian and Bulgarian than those Croato-Serbian dialects spoken in the western or south Croatia. I guess if it weren't for that political push to make Serbian and Croatian language the one language, those language would be much more different today than they are. Not to mention that simply choosing another Serbian dialect as standard Serbian, and another Croatian dialect dialect as standard Croatian would make those two languages unintelligible. Instead, it was a political choice to choose two most similar Serbian and Croatian dialect to be official standard language, and then enforce that at schools. I know that for example in southern Croatia people were forced to use standard Croato-Serbian at schools, and people in southern Serbia were, and still are forced to use Serbo-Croatian at schools, TV and all official institution. Yes, language is a politics, and politics frequently molds languages in the direction it chooses. Orwell was not that far away with reality.
Benferhat 13y ago
add &yt:cc=on to the YouTube URL [0] to enable subtitles. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE&yt:cc=on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE&yt:cc=on
sharjeel 13y ago
Ironically, Youtube is banned in Pakistan
mtgx 13y ago
Really? I counted exactly one wikipedia result that she used. The others were either websites, Google Maps, or Google Now results.
carlesfe 13y ago
Also, unless I noticed wrong, there are no ads on the search results.
tcgv 13y ago
A bit off-topic here, but I would say the same thing applies to stackoverflow. Everytime I want to search something within stackoverflow I use google and specify the "site" operator[1]. Something like: fast string search algorithm site:stackoverflow.com [2] The results are much better than SO's custom search. [1] https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en [2] https://www.google.com.br/search?q=string+search+algorithm+stie%3Astackoverflow.com&oq=string+search+algorithm+stie%3Astackoverflow.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.40034j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=fast+string+search+algorithm+site:stackoverflow.com https://www.google.com.br/search?q=string+search+algorithm+s...
- nahname 13y ago
  I believe you get the same effect by doing the following, stackoverflow: fast string search algorithm
- dublinben 13y ago
  DuckDuckGo also has the !so shortcut.
- lallysingh 13y ago
  Consider setting up a new "search engine" in chrome. You could alias https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%s+site%3Astackoverflow.com https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%s+site%3Astackoverflow.c... to 'so', and type: so<tab>fast string search algorithm And chrome would do the right thing.
ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
Doesn't Google absorb much of the cost of hosting Wikipedia for free?
deltriggah 13y ago
This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). Played the clip to some people in the house, they got teary eyed. Don't need a translation to get the message across which just proves it's a very well made ad.

by selmnoo 13y ago

kulkarnic 13y ago

Maybe that is to ensure that the results remain stable after people start trying out those searches for themselves (and so Google doesn't endorse another company's services). Wikipedia for results is definitely not the norm for Google searches in India---I just spent a month there and results can be anything from JustDial directory services (for phone numbers, since many local businesses don't have websites) to local newspapers (for reviews etc). The utility of Google in India is that it provides you the best link across different websites. This is really important because India has a growing population of new Internet users (who don't have "go to" sites like Wikipedia and Yelp), and because it still doesn't have clear winners in many verticals (e.g. real estate)

signa11 13y ago

> Google is basically a better Wikipedia searching tool than what Wikipedia provides. isn't that true for most sites all around ? i, fwiw, normally just use site specific searches on almost all sites...

staunch 13y ago

Yes, Google is basically just a better X searching tool than X provides, where X is most every web site on earth.

Dylan16807 13y ago
Not at all. If you're filtering based on multiple categories, a search that understands them, even barebones, is better than a brilliant generic-text-search.
selmnoo 13y ago
I didn't want to go to far on an off-topic tangent, but basically what I was getting at was that I increasingly seem to be interested in a very limited number of sites -- that is, mostly, sites that I already know of and recognize. I use Reddit search more when I'm doing exploratory searching hoping to land on a site I've never been before, because it serves me already vetted/reviewed sites. In this way, Google is no longer a tool for me to do search, where I'm not sure where I'll end up, it's now a tool to get me where I know I want to go (which happens to be some wikipedia page most of the times).
- mikeash 13y ago
  It is an interesting point. Google has become as much a substitute for the address bar as a way to find new things.
  - Wingman4l7 13y ago
    (If you don't have bookmarks or don't keep a browsing history / don't know how to use URL autocompletion).
    - mikeash 13y ago
      I use autocomplete for commonly-visited sites, but Google plus vague memories of basic search terms have almost completely supplanted my use of bookmarks these days.
      - Wingman4l7 13y ago
        Especially since you can't bookmark everything, not knowing what you're going to want to refer to in the future.
        mikeash 13y ago
        Or rather you can bookmark everything, but the resulting list is nearly useless. I used to have a massive collection of bookmarks that I never referred to because it was far too large to actually use. Plus half the links had gone stale.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hiby007 13y ago
many salutes to you sir. for speaking truth.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

JPKab 13y ago

Hindi or Urdu? Haha... I always find the "language vs dialect" thing very interesting. The distinction when it comes to Hindi and Urdu is totally political. Two of my old buddies, one an Indian, the other a Pakistani, could completely understand each other, yet both insisted that they spoke different languages (Punjabi/Hindi and Urdu respectively) Another friend of mind, who left Pakistan as a 10 year old, always just shook his head with a smile and said "Dude, that's like a guy from Alabama saying someone from England speaks a different language."

nl 13y ago
Hindi or Urdu? Haha... I always find the "language vs dialect" thing very interesting. The distinction when it comes to Hindi and Urdu is totally political Try Serbo-Croatian[1]. But OTOH, most Slavic languages are fairly similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  Well, I would beg to disagree. While the standard Serbian and standard Croatian are very similar, it's more of an artificial. Even when that was one language official, one part of ex country called it Serbo-Croatian, and other one Croato-Serbian, and the versions taught at school were similar, but not the same. There were some language constructs that were in this common language just because they were present in one, and not the other, so that Serbo-Croatian was a strange mix. Not to mention dialects. Being a native south Serbian speaker, I had much better understanding of Macedonian and Bulgarian than those Croato-Serbian dialects spoken in the western or south Croatia. I guess if it weren't for that political push to make Serbian and Croatian language the one language, those language would be much more different today than they are. Not to mention that simply choosing another Serbian dialect as standard Serbian, and another Croatian dialect dialect as standard Croatian would make those two languages unintelligible. Instead, it was a political choice to choose two most similar Serbian and Croatian dialect to be official standard language, and then enforce that at schools. I know that for example in southern Croatia people were forced to use standard Croato-Serbian at schools, and people in southern Serbia were, and still are forced to use Serbo-Croatian at schools, TV and all official institution. Yes, language is a politics, and politics frequently molds languages in the direction it chooses. Orwell was not that far away with reality.

Benferhat 13y ago

add &yt:cc=on to the YouTube URL [0] to enable subtitles. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE&yt:cc=on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE&yt:cc=on

sharjeel 13y ago

Ironically, Youtube is banned in Pakistan

mtgx 13y ago

Really? I counted exactly one wikipedia result that she used. The others were either websites, Google Maps, or Google Now results.

carlesfe 13y ago

Also, unless I noticed wrong, there are no ads on the search results.

tcgv 13y ago

A bit off-topic here, but I would say the same thing applies to stackoverflow. Everytime I want to search something within stackoverflow I use google and specify the "site" operator[1]. Something like: fast string search algorithm site:stackoverflow.com [2] The results are much better than SO's custom search. [1] https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en [2] https://www.google.com.br/search?q=string+search+algorithm+stie%3Astackoverflow.com&oq=string+search+algorithm+stie%3Astackoverflow.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.40034j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=fast+string+search+algorithm+site:stackoverflow.com https://www.google.com.br/search?q=string+search+algorithm+s...

nahname 13y ago
I believe you get the same effect by doing the following, stackoverflow: fast string search algorithm
dublinben 13y ago
DuckDuckGo also has the !so shortcut.
lallysingh 13y ago
Consider setting up a new "search engine" in chrome. You could alias https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%s+site%3Astackoverflow.com https://www.google.com.br/search?q=%s+site%3Astackoverflow.c... to 'so', and type: so<tab>fast string search algorithm And chrome would do the right thing.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago

Doesn't Google absorb much of the cost of hosting Wikipedia for free?

deltriggah 13y ago

This is the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE - be sure to have subtitles on (unless you understand Hindi). Played the clip to some people in the house, they got teary eyed. Don't need a translation to get the message across which just proves it's a very well made ad.