Search space becomes more crowded

>> Sumi Das: Hello. I'm Sumi Das for ZDNet. Joining me now, our senior editor, Sam Diaz. Sam, thank you for being with us.

>> Sam Diaz: Sure. Thank you for having me.

>> Sumi Das: Today we're gonna be talking about search. For most people, Google is the de facto search engine. But there are efforts being made to sort of be more targeted in the search results provided. And one such service is going to be debuting this month. Tell us about that.

>> Sam Diaz: That's right. It's called Wolfram/Alpha. It's a little bit of mouthful to say --

>> Sumi Das: It is.

>> Sam Diaz: But it's -- you know, it's not necessarily the Google killer that it's sort of been hyped up to. It's a different sort of search. It's really digging deep into trusted sources. So sort of think of, like, searching the encyclopedia. If you're going searching for a scientific fact or something like that, you want it from a credible, reliable source. Wolfram/Alpha, which is sort of stemming out of the academic world, is really trying to fill that need. With Google, you can get a lot of results, and they're sort of pointing to where you might find the information. Wolfram/Alpha is really seeking to dig through that very sort of detailed information and bring it directly to you. A little bit different, but definitely some sort of disrupter.

>> Sumi Das: Okay. So, if Wolfram/Alpha is going to provide the definitive answer, there's one option. But if you want sort of more of the public wisdom, the popular opinion, the conversation that people are having about a particular topic, you might try the search feature available on Twitter.

>> Sam Diaz: That's right. Twitter -- right now, it's had a search engine out for a while now, and it's pretty good. You can go in, and you can sort of catch a buzz on what's happening and the latest news. Maybe it's the NBA play-offs. Maybe it's some chatter about the swine flu. But Twitter's about to make some changes to its search engine, and it's gonna enhance the features so that it offers a little bit more. Now, you know, as someone who Tweets regularly, my relevance ranking may not be as high as, say, oh, CNN, the New York Times, that sort of thing.

>> Sumi Das: You'll get there.

>> Sam Diaz: Absolutely, some day. But, you know, for right now what they're trying to do is they're really trying to put a ranking there so that we can filter through some of the noise. Do you really want to know what your neighbors and your friends and everyone are saying about a topic? Or do you want to go to a trusted source? And that's what they're gonna do. They're also going to include the ability to search an index through the links that people put up on their Tweets. So it's not just me telling you something --you know, some sort of cool story about, you know, the latest in politics from Washington, but it's also telling you where I found that information and giving you that information as well.

>> Sumi Das: Are there any other companies that are putting their own spin on search?

>> Sam Diaz: You know, I've actually been following a company called "Splunk." Now, Splunk is doing some pretty cool things in IT search. Now, IT can be very, very detailed and in the weeds.

>> Sumi Das: Yeah.

>> Sam Diaz: I mean, we're talking logs and code and configurations and that sort of thing.

>> Sumi Das: Not for everybody.

>> Sam Diaz: Not for everyone, but for an IT department that's really trying to sift through a troubleshooting problem, trying to get at whatever's making the network hiccup or causing pages to slow, they need to get through that code quickly. And there's got to be a better way that just sort of sifting through page after page after page of code and looking for the problem spot. This search engine allows them to dig in very deep, very fast and get to the root of the problem. It's different. It's not a Google killer, by any means, but it's really taking search and doing something different with it. And for that, I think it's interesting.

>> Sumi Das: That's definitely for a particular niche, isn't it?

>> Sam Diaz: Absolutely.

>> Sumi Das: All right, Sam, thank you so much for breaking this all down for us.

>> Sam Diaz: Sure.

>> Sumi Das: For more on the search battle, you can head to blogs.zdnet.com.

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