Oogling Google, 3rd Q Explo

This isn’t exactly according to Questions A, B, C but FWIW:

I rarely use the Boolean-type operators in Google searches. Matt skillfully demonstrated their usefulness, as well as that of advanced search (which inexplicably Google now makes much harder to get to…)

Shockingly, I never noticed the left-rail search tools on Google (they’re in a drop-down menu). What a great way to narrow the results! It even sorts by reading level, and will pull up archived pay-per-view news stories. Much quicker to find results in Google and then go to the newspaper archive database with the specific date and paper to find a story.

Years and years ago, I used AltaVista, Yahoo and other search engines. Google trumped them all for digging deeper into websites, often besting a site’s own internal search function. Now, I’m not so sure; aside from privacy concerns and feeling like those oo’s in Google are spying on me, Google results often are junked up. It also spends more space promoting its other products like + and gmail. If I can break the Google habit, I’ll try Bing and some of the others.

On Explorer, the drop-down by the search window at the top takes you to a scrollable page of search engine suggestions, with ratings. Some are specialized, searching only for videos, for example.

All this reminds me of a great bit in Alan Jacobs’ new book “The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.” He quotes Clay Shirky as saying that we don’t suffer from “information overload” but from “filter failure.”

Back to searching: For directions, I prefer Mapquest. I was using it before Google Maps existed and got comfortable with it. I also find its directions easier to follow and more accurate. Google has sometimes gotten me turned 180 degrees around. Mapquest more often goes the backroad way I would: Google seems to like the beaten path.
I’d been having trouble with the little Google streetview man; Matt’s demonstration made it clear how to get him to go where you want to go and not spend so much time looking at his toes.

In talking to high school classes, I’ve mentioned Google Scholar and Google Books. The teachers as well as the students didn’t know about them and were happy to see they could use Scholar to get rid of some of the spinach in search results and could read their forgotten homework assignment at Google Books.

Speaking of privacy, Google’s been running a series of advertisements in the paper-paper for its “Good to Know” pages. This one on managing your online data looks informative. And for the narcissistic or paranoid, look at Me on the Web.
Finally, thanks to Matt for an awesome set of videos and terrific narration. He could go work for www.teachparentstech.org, which (surprise) is a Google site.