Walt Mossberg’s review of Answers.com caught my attention in the Wall Street Journal, especially when he noted that Answers is a product from GuruNet.
I purchased GuruNet when it first came out and really liked it, but the computer I was using at work was RAM challenged. It took forever to boot up, and I pulled GuruNet out of the startup menu to speed things up. It lost a lot of its value then, since it really needs to be running all the time to be valuable.
I’m already impressed with Answers.com. Just bunking around, I searched for “Jerry Garcia.” It brought up several bios, ranging from very short to a Wikipedia entry. It also offered several worthwhile links, including a link to a 1972 Rolling Stone article that I spent about an hour reading.
Then I decided to try something a little more obscure, typing in the Irish bluesman “Rory Gallagher.” Information was more sparse this time. All it had was a Wikipedia entry.
And finally, I picked out a name in the Gallagher Wikipedia entry, Richard McCracken, highlighted it and hit the hot key combo (comand-option-g is the default). A message came up saying:
“Richard McCracken is not one of the 1 million AnswerPages at Answers.com. Answers.com has AnswerPages for most words, phrases, places, famous people, companies, and more.
We suggest that you:
• Check the spelling of your term.
• Try a similar or related word or name.
• Click here to use Google to search for web pages containing the word(s) Richard McCracken.
Click here to view our directory of over a million topics.”
That’s where Answers.com’s weakness is exposed. Its strength is that its not Google and doesn’t flood you with links that may or may not be relevant. The info is presented quickly and in an easily digestible form. It’s weakness is that it’s not Google and doesn’t flood you with links that can lead you to obscure info.
What I really like, though is that there’s a Mac version, and when I downloaded it to try on my Mac, it appears to have all the same functionality as GuruNet — without the fee. Basically, you underline a word in any document or web page, hit a hot key and get a definition, bio, etc.
Definitely worth trying …
Now Playing: Nobody’s Spoonful Jam from the album “Aoxomoxoa” by Grateful Dead
3 replies on “Getting answers …”
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll definitely check that out, and Mossberg is God. Well, ok, maybe not, but he’s one o’ the best, and I’ve had my head so far up MySQL’s hindquarters for the past 4 months I haven’t been reading him like I usually do. Haven’t been doing anything else, really.
Is it still 2004? Who turned out the lights?
Actually, Mossberg is pretty damn cool. I saw him speak at an industry conference a few years ago and he was really amusing. Interesting guy, and he writes about tech from a non-geek perspective.
I’m also a pretty big fan of David Pogue from the New York Times. If you haven’t already, it’s worth subscribing to his weekly Circuits newsletter. He always offers an inside perspective on something he’s covering. It’s above and beyond the stuff that gets in the paper, and it’s my idea of what a newsletter really should be — more than just a regurgitation of what’s in the paper.
Thanks…I’ll check him out.
BTW…if you’re interested, I know of this really far out blog that features big photographs of questionable acts featuring Lyndon’s Johnson…I mean Lyndon Johnson…