Yahoo's Y!Q Contextual Search Beta 129
skeptic1 writes "Just days after Microsoft unvieled its new MSN search, Yahoo released a new search tool called Y!Q that allows users to search within the context of the web pages they are currently viewing. It's not the typical textbox input search, and you don't even have to leave the current page you're on to use it. The current release is only the beta version."
Is that useful? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is that useful? (Score:2)
Re:Is that useful? (Score:1)
Countless people did search before Google did, but that doesn't reverse the fact that Google kicked their ass.
Re:Is that useful? (Score:1)
Re:Is that useful? (Score:2, Insightful)
Certainly not something that would make me switch to using Yahoo! instead of Google, but.....I can definitely see it being useful to a lot of users.
Re:Is that useful? (Score:2, Informative)
Secondly, I can see alot of blogs using this - I already added it to mine. I discuss alot of technical topics that not everyone who visits might know about - but they might want to learn more about. I don't go into any great detail on most of the topics so the inline search might help my
Re:Is that useful? (Score:2)
You don't understand what this is, this isn't google's "site:blahblah.com" feature, but Google's "related links" feature. This differs from Google's in that Yahoo is offering a plugin for websites.
Mod Parent up. (Score:1)
Firefox support (Score:4, Interesting)
But the idea isn't very original. The functionality belongs to Firefox and has been around for quite some time. The default search engine is Google on Firefox.
So yes, by default you get G!Q installed, Yahoo wants you to "upgrade" to Y!Q.
Re:Firefox support (Score:2)
Y!Q is more like Google's site-specific search than Firefox's find-as-you-type: from the article, 'For instance, a reader looking at a news story about the State of the Union address might highlight the phrase "Social Security" to get a listing of pages that deal with that topic.'. You're absolutely correct that this isn't very original, however: it's just Yahoo playing catch-up with Google and - dammit! - it's MSN's turn to play catch-up!
Re:Firefox support (Score:5, Informative)
It searches Google.
Re:Firefox support (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
It searches whatever you put there (Score:2)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Either you don't understand what Y!Q does, or you know something about Google that I don't. Can you explain to me how I can do the equivalent of Y!Q with Google?
Re:Firefox support (Score:2)
Either you don't understand what Y!Q does, or you know something about Google that I don't. Can you explain to me how I can do the equivalent of Y!Q with Google?
Like this [google.co.uk]. Look for "Only return results from the site or domain", about 4-5 lines down.
Granted, you need to copy-and-paste a bit to do what Y!Q does a little more easily, but the fundamental tech has been there for a while.
Re:Firefox support (Score:2)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Firefox support (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Firefox support (Score:2)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Firefox support (Score:2)
And only Google is searched via "Search Web." I tried to change this but had no luck (and had to download an extension to add Yahoo to the context menu). With Firefox having a special google page as the default homepage, google as the only engine possible to use in "Search Web" and google as the default in the search bar in the menu, all of which was done BEFORE google
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Firefox support (Score:1)
Re:Extension? (Score:3, Informative)
Googlebar. You can highlight words, right click, Googlebar items, Search for selected text.
I'm running the Googlebar extension version 0.9.0.30 if it makes a difference.
I didn't read the article, so I'm hoping that's the sort of thing you were referring to.
Re:Extension? (Score:2)
Re:Extension? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, highlight the word, Ctrl-C,K,V, Enter does it, even more efective.
Just kidding, but the real issue is that Firefox already has all the searching functionality I can use right now.
Re:Extension? (Score:2)
"search web for..."
son of a...
Re:Extension? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Extension? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Extension? (Score:1)
Firefox (Score:1)
You also dont have to leave the current page to use firefox's search 'engine'
Re:Firefox (Score:1)
That's great for those who are using Firefox, but the reality is that ~90% of people aren't.
sounds like GuruNet (Score:1)
Re:sounds like GuruNet (Score:2, Informative)
Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yahoo! collects personal information when you register with Yahoo!, when you use Yahoo! products or services, when you visit Yahoo! pages or the pages of certain Yahoo! partners, and when you enter promotions or sweepstakes. Yahoo! may combine information about you that we have with information we obtain f
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2, Insightful)
remember the controversy that stired up when google came out with gmail?
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:1)
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2)
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:3, Informative)
Dan East
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2)
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:1)
Tinfoil hat time indeed (Score:2)
Oh, and that they buy information from third parties and in the future they will form a master database about you and your habits. But they don't say they will sell them and that they are basically doing the same thing most web sites do already.
I look at my logs daily, I like to know about the people who visit.
Re:Tinfoil hat time... (Score:2)
Firefox (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Firefox (Score:1)
Re:Firefox (Score:2)
Damn. Had I only read this page I could have saved myself the hassle of downloading another extension *sigh* I might as well compare them.
Let's see, State of the Union speech was used in the article, I'll just search for a news article on it. Aaah, here's one [advocate.com]. I think the MPA would be an interesting thing to search.
I'll highlight that first page and use the "Search Web fo
You search in context (Score:2, Insightful)
this guy searches site frequently for Tex Ritter, Cool Whip and Kazoos, I guess we could sell that to goatse.cx guy...
I can't wait until the next party and people..... (Score:2, Funny)
or maybe I'll just skip that party.
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:1)
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:1)
Omnipotent? I thought he died [klast.net]?
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:1)
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:4, Funny)
>
>or maybe I'll just skip that party.
You think you've got trouble. I was at this party, and the guy was telling me about Y!Q.
Fortunately, I was raised by a !Kung [uconn.edu] tribe, so I was able to understand it when this guy started talking about Y!Q.
Unfortunately, DNS (which was not invented by the !Kung), I couldn't even guess what the domain name for the Y!Q search engine was supposed to be.
So I thought I'd just google for it. Heh.
I really shoulda skipped that party.
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:2, Funny)
"Why Bank?"
I didn't read the article, and will continue to use Ctrl-F to search within the context of my current web page. No Yahoo required.
Re:I can't wait until the next party and people... (Score:2)
Why exclamation mark Q? It's a mouthful, but certainly nothing naughty....
No wonder they lost the search engine wars (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:No wonder they lost the search engine wars (Score:1)
http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=slashdot&sm
Well, mod me down! (Score:2)
Re:No wonder they lost the search engine wars (Score:2)
Google is much more recent. Google Cache [64.233.167.104]
Re:No wonder they lost the search engine wars (Score:1)
You'll also notice, if you compare the two, that Yahoo cache handles frame sites, which Google does not.
Not a killer search app (Score:1)
Don't we already have this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't we already have this? (Score:2)
Ctrl+F in your browser scans the current page for keywords that are important to search engines, then runs them all through a search to try and spit back relevant and related information? Nifty.
Re:Don't we already have this? (Score:1)
Same as Google's 'Similar Pages'? (Score:1)
Re:Same as Google's 'Similar Pages'? (Score:2)
Let's fine out. I did a google for "George W Bush" and found www.georgewbush.com/ so I clicked related. here are the results [google.com]. Interesting. This came back with quite different results. [yahoo.com]
How about search for "state of the union" speech and click on a "related links" to one of the results?
Here [google.com] is google's page.
. Certainly very different results. Which is more useful then the other? Depends why you're using it. Google gave me results concerning Bu [yahoo.com]
uhhh... in safari: (Score:1)
is that hard?
Re:uhhh... in safari: (Score:2)
Re:uhhh... in safari: (Score:2)
Not that Y!Q is anything NEW... I do believe "find related pages" is the same thing... but CMD+F (or the Windows CTRL+F) is definately not the same thing.
Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:1)
If it is the former of the two, I've got that covered with a nifty Firefox extension that doesn't crowd my view with a search box window, but rather places a the search box down o
Re:Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:1)
Re:Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:1)
unified experience (Score:2)
The advent of taskbar thises and thats and Firefox plugins means you can never really be sure what the user is seeing. What's worse, the web developer probably doesn't even have a way to tell. If we're lucky, these programs will identify themselves through HTTP headers.
Even though we're mostly there with HTM
Re:unified experience (Score:2)
Why does this matter to you?
Re:unified experience (Score:1)
Dear Bill, the idea behind the World Wide Web has always been to span between browser software, operating systems and hardware - whether it's a cell phone, PDA, laptop, desktop, touchscreen kiosk, TV, or a large overhead projector screen you are looking at. It has never been intended that all web surfers have the "unified experience" that is deemed by a single, or however many entities to b
Read the back story... (Score:5, Informative)
Has anyone actually tried it? (Score:5, Informative)
After playing with it, I can see some how Y!Q is different - I went to a random article on Google news, highlighted an entire paragraph of text, and sent it to Y!Q. It returned a bunch of pages related to that original news article. When you do the same thing with Google search, not surprisingly, it only returns one page.
So, yes, Y!Q does something different. I don't know if it's entirely useful, but it's not entirely redundant, either.
wiki (Score:1)
Obligatory Bookmarklet (Score:5, Interesting)
Stick this on your Mozilla/Firefox toolbar (all on one line of course), highlight a word or words, and click it.
It also works if you click it without highlighting text. It will pop up a dialog where you can enter terms you want to search.
Simple!
del.icio.us integration? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) contain the terms you selected and
2) are related to the metadata of the original website.
I wonder what the results could be if this technology were merged with masive metadata with distributed generation [del.icio.us].
I want to add it.... (Score:2)
automagically generated results? (Score:1)
2. Select outdated, annoying IT colloquialism to describe technical step #3.
3. ?
4. Profit!
The key is the search-side (Score:2)
How does it do all this?
Magic.
I really can't think of the last time I wanted.... (Score:1)
Y!Q.... (Score:1)
Y!Q? (Score:2)
A Real Winner! (Score:2)
Yes, but... (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:1)
YQ
Use it, Then Comment. (Score:1)
I notice the following patterns on the negative comments here on slashdot.
I recommend that all of the people spouting these types of comments check out [yahoo.com] all the flavors and implementations of Y!Q. To summarize, the first three of these four have not really been talked about in this forum (or just barely scratched). You're missing a