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technology: The future and what to do about it.

FrankenGoogleHow to mash together the ultimate search engine.

By Christopher Beam
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007, at 4:16 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Some sites are social in a different sense—less search engine than informational message board. In Korea, for example, Google is much less popular than Naver, a site that lets you throw out questions to the chattering masses. (Sorry, it's only in Korean.) But Naver's success may have less to do with a preference for humans over machines than the lack of searchable Korean text in cyberspace. A new English-language site, Fluther, takes a similar approach. Questions range from the practical ("Wart removal tips?") to the social ("How do you talk to women when you're shy?") to the existential ("What is the key to the universe?"). I guess Fluther could be useful (or at least entertaining) for general, non-pressing queries. But if you need a concrete answer instantaneously, stay away. Some questions languish for hours without a single response. So, Fluther runs into the same problem as iRazoo: There just aren't enough users right now to make it worthwhile.

The best alternative search engine I've stumbled across, YubNub, isn't a search engine at all. It calls itself a "command line"—a term familiar to DOS and Unix junkies—and serves as more of a Google-enhancer than a Google-replacer. YubNub gives you the tools to make searching with Google or Yahoo more efficient. Say you want to look for pictures of Paris Hilton in Google Images. You type "gim"—the site's shorthand for Google Images—and "paris hilton," and it takes you right to the page. Same goes for Google News ("gnews"), Wikipedia ("wp"), IMDB ("imdb"), Slashdot ("/"), Digg ("digg"), Dictionary.com ("d"), and a gajillion others.

What's fascinating about YubNub is that anyone can program these commands. Unfortunately, YubNub's interface isn't intuitive for people who don't use the verb "p3wn" in everyday speech. But its open-source approach to search should set an example for every site that wants to out-Google Google. Just browsing YubNub's thousands of commands gives you a taste of the possibilities. Typing "esv" before a search term peruses Bible passages in the English Standard Version. Write "fooplot" before an equation and it will graph it for you. Perhaps the coolest feature is the "mash" function, which lets you search for multiple terms at once on a split screen. If you want photos of birds from Google Images, Yahoo! Images, and Flickr, type "mash birds gim yim flk" and the screen splits into thirds, with search results in each panel. You can also split the screen to display multiple sites at once.

If I could Frankenstein together the ultimate search engine, it would have the classy interface of Ask.com, the slang capabilities of YubNub, the page-preview functions of iRazoo, ChaCha's "video wall," and a Digg-like promote/demote feature. (It would also find me a cure for myopia, an affordable health-care plan, and a date for Friday night.) I could do without ChaCha's "live guides," but I plan to recommend the service to my grandmother.

Of course, most people would trade all these features for one simple, reliable, do-everything search box. That's why none of these sites is likely to conquer Google anytime soon. (It's also why people are so excited about nascent "natural language" search technology, which lets you ask questions in plain English.) But as we become more adept at navigating the Web, more people are going to want more control over their search settings. Google has already made forays into customized search with, well, the Google Custom Search Engine, which allows users to specify exactly which sites they want to search. But how cool would it be to self-tailor everything from interface to command shortcuts to info on whether other people found a certain page useful? Enough with Universal Search. It's time for Yougle.

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Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker.
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