Searching For People? Search Spock
Posted on December 12, 2007
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Sometimes you’re just looking for information. At those times a general purpose search engine is perfect. But sometimes you’re looking for people and that’s where the “big boys” of search all fall apart. What we need is a completely searchable online Who’s Who for whatever it is that interests us. Luckily, we already have one in Spock. I’ve written about Spock before, and have used it a few dozen times since then. Spock’s not only helped me learn more about historic anarchists, but also helped connect me with California homeschoolers. That’s the beauty of searching the web, as opposed to a traditional Who’s Who - not only can you find the famous (or infamous) but also everyday people that share your interests and concerns. Here’s my latest example…
I’ve been doing a lot of research into roller coasters as part of my personal goal to ride every coaster in California. As a history and biography buff I’ve been looking to learn more about the people that helped design and build the rides that have captured my imagination. A Google search for “roller coaster” brings up 567,000 results for me to sift through. While many are relevant to roller coastes in general, not deal with the actual people behind the machines. Yahoo! brings up 18,000,000 results, but they all have the same problem. However, a Spock search on roller coaster brings me the following-
Now that’s what I’m looking for! One hundred eleven results of not only current and past designers, but also coaster enthusiasts that I can reach out to for companionship and further education. Chris Sawyer is the programmer behind the famous computer simulation/game Roller Coaster Tycoon; John Miller was called “the most innovative and influential figure in the history of amusement parks” by Robert Cartmell, the author of The Incredible Scream Machine: A History of the Roller Coaster, and Charles I.D. Loof is not only the world’s most famous carousel designer, but also the lead designer of my favorite coaster of all time, the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.Spock’s also got a wiki-type feel to it in that it encourages users to add to the search results to further flesh them out and aid future searchers. Clicking on a result brings you to a page with not only related web pages, but also news about the person, tags that describe them, and links to other people that relate to them. The latter isn’t strictly limited to blood or marital relatives, but is more of a “similar” persons search. All of these results are user editable in the same way that a wiki is. Spock truly is the melding of powerful search technlogy and “the wisdom of the crowd” that is social networking.
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Hi! You have made a nice post, and I hope you get paid for it by Creamaid. This is the third time they have not paid me for posts they have approved and added to the conversation widget. I didn’t get paid $15 for this post, nor a single cent at all. I don’t know why sometimes they pay and yet they have missed to pay 3 out of 6 posts I have written for them which have been syndicated already.
leslie’s last blog post..On Crock Pots and Slow Cookers
CREAMaid can be a bit unpredictable when it comes to payment, but I find it’s more a matter of which advertiser you’re dealing with. I have a simple policy: no payment in 48 hours, the post gets deleted. Sure I’m giving some free advertising out, still, but overall I’ve had a pretty decent track record with them.