Ethnic and Racial Images in the Media

2005-05-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Stacey, Tori and Rob...

2005-03-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

Rob

Comparison of Visual Search Engines/ Open Directory vs. Google

2005-03-15T18:05:00.001-08:00

After checking out all the innovative types of web pages I am fairly intrigued in the possibilities internet database searching has. When you think about it our structure of search engine is very primitive. I though out of all the search engines that http://news.stamen.com was a very good web site to gain general knowledge because you can scroll across the color chart and find an infant number of names and topics on which to read. However, there were no strict distinctions or guidelines to the chart. The visual thesaurus was also very useful and visually stimulating. Kartoo was probably the easiest to understand at first because the visual layout is pretty straightforward yet at the same time represented very well visually. The Touchgraph Google Search was by far the most visually intense but it was also the most complicated to use. I like the news stamen site the best because it offered unlimited resources on unlimited topics all displayed in a visually engaging way. I think I liked Mooter the least because it was most like the standard search engine.

The open Directory is a very useful idea, however it has troubles all its own. Google is far easier to find effective web pages for what you are searching for because you can search for information directly related to your topic where in the Open Directory it is not as guaranteed. However, the open Directory offered many alternative web sites that perhaps you would not be prone to search had you used Google.

Comparison of Visual Search

2005-03-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

visulization searching, google, and open directory comparissons

2005-03-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

What I Liked Best...

The best one was probably the straight forward and easy to use Mooter.com. I typed in a search (coldplay) and got a list of categories like BAND, or LYRICS, or POSTERS, etc. And all I had to do was search through those, and get a whole list of sites directly related to my precise search. No sorting through piles of Google pages. They were categorized and that makes me happy.

What I Liked Least...

Anything BUT Mooter.com because they just seemed like they were flashy designs that were good for nothing but giving my synonyms and alternate searching terms, which, while that is a plus, doesn't give websites to click on quick and easy like. They just seem like tools where graphic designers and librarians show off. And new.stamen seemed to me to be a popularity contest, which is interesting but doesn't give solid information. just data.

Google vs. Open directory...

Google is, as always, fast and easy to use. I typed in the band Coldplay for google and got the typical results (ie. the bands official home page, amazon.com's listings of the band, a few major fansites, and the other music publications of the band's work like interviews, reviews, pictures, etc). Open Directory, on the other hand, separated my results into categories like: Arts, Music, Shopping, etc

The results were organized, easier to sort through, but for some reason, in different languages. For a more organized search on a topic that a user might not know lots about, Open directory would be the way to go. Butfor something like Coldplay, which I'm pretty well versed on, I like google because it's fast, easy, and i can explore and pick through a lot of sites in a pretty efficient manner.

Amy Orfanakos

2005-03-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is Amy and I am 19 years old and in my first year at Western. I am originally from Richmondhill, On where i live with my parents, my older brother who goes to school in Guelph and my dog Kelsey. I live in Saugeen and eventhough it was my last choice, I LOVE IT...

Visualization Tools and Open Directory vs. Google

2005-03-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

1) The visualization tool I liked the best was the site http://kartoo.com. The search results were broken down into clusters that linked to each other in different ways. This allows the searcher to pick and choose from the visual concept map which sites are relevant. There is also a synopsis that appears to the left of the screen when choosing different combinations, therefore the searching process is made faster and more efficient. There are also suggested words that can be used to make the search more specific. This site is visually stimulating, which makes conducting an effective search easier. I liked this site because the pages retrieved were useful and because the links between the ideas helped me to clarify the topic of my search.

The visualization tool I liked the least was the site http://news.stamen.com. Although I think this is an interesting idea for a news search engine, the visuals on the opening page were much too jumbled and convoluted. There is a lack of organization as the coloured blocks that the searcher can click on for information on different people and topics made the site difficult to orientate. I found that this opening page hindered my ability to use the site to its full potential as I didn't really understand how it worked. This site was unorganized and the visual aspect was frustrating as too many possible examples are provided on the first page, which only discourages the searcher.

2) The advantages of using the Open Directory search engine are numerous. First of all, the Open Directory is more organized and provides specific categories, sub-categories, and languages in which to conduct searches. This allows for more relevant matches. Also, once you have entered your search there are numerous suggested categories that can be linked to in order to guide your search. However, an advantage of using Google instead of the Open Directory is that the advanced search option is offered, which seems to narrow the search more efficiently than the categories provided on the Open Directory. It is also important to take into account the topic of research. For instance, if searching for broad information on a favourite television show, Google would be the better choice. However, if you have a focused topic for an essay you are researching, the Open Directory may be more beneficial as you will know which category to search within. Therefore, when conducting certain searches the Open Directory will suggest that you use Google. In conclusion, both search engines are useful for different types of searches. The Open Directory is beneficial for searches involving certain categories and broader topics whereas Google searches are helpful in retrieving specific word searches.

Open Directory vs. Google

2005-03-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

The Open Directory searching tool is very useful when examining specifics and potential web pages to be used in researching. The overall interface for both search engines are extremely simple and user friendly. I prefer Google because you can search direct information and not just web pages as in the Open directory. In the directory searching requires a little more patience than in Google but in many cases patience yields results. The Google searching tool can be used in all instaces for research and has many more advanced features then that of the Open Directory. When searching through categories much of the web pages were somewhat underground and tended to steer clear of the mainstream. For example searching for golf putters none of the big name golf makers web pages popped up and the ones that were exhibited were no name un advertised companies. Personally I find it much easier to use Google simply for the time factor and relevance but the idea of having a fully edited Directory of potentially helpful web pages recommended by others is a great idea and concept which I beleive can be pushed futher by the capability of the world wide web.

Comparison of Visual Search Engines

2005-03-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

The Open Directory vs. Google

2005-03-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Open Directory vs. Google

As far as results were concerned, both Google and The Open Directory seem to return similar amounts. The Google results have more returned results that are directly related to the topic, but through using the directory to specific topics and subtopics, The Open Directory provides many specifically related results. Although not all these results that are found in the directory of The Open Directory are specifically related to the originally searched topic, many of the websites themselves are full of other useful content. I also found Google to be much more comprehensive with keyword searches. The Open directory returned no results for “ethnicity media” and suggested searching on Google. Therefore, for conducting simple keyword searches I find Google to be much easier, but with using directories to search, the Open Directory provides a more effective list of topics and subtopics.

Web Visual navigation tools

2005-03-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

Visualization Tool sites

The visualization tool that I liked the most was the site http://news.stamen.com. It was very easy and fun to use. It is an easy way to become up to date with current events as people in the news are directly linked with online news stories related to them. It is very useful because it provides a large list of results specifically relating to a person. People often recognize news stories by the names of people, businesses, etc. that are involved and not necessarily the exact content of the stories, making it an easy tool to use for searching current events. The fun aspect is the colour coding that determines who is a winner and a loser in the news recently. It makes it seem like a tabloid, but the difference is that all the stories are true. The colour coding is also very easy to read and recognize, as opposed to some of the visual representations of the other visualization tools sites.

The site which I liked the least was http://visualthesaurus.com. I found this site to be of very limited use. When searching Media Theory, I was provided with other search terms that had for the most part nothing to do with media theory. The site was also very bland and unappealing visually. Perhaps this site would be useful for somebody who would like to start searching for an extremely general topic. However, in university studies, this is very rarely the case.

Beyond search engines lab for tuesday march 8th, 3:00pm

2005-03-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

2. New visual tools
a. Of the new visual tools used today the one i liked the best was Kartoo. i liked it because it uses a concept map for words searched, some results seemed pointless but others seemed useful. connected links in the concept map together if the shared common themes. there was also a list of related topics at the side to assist in further searching . could be confusing to make the connections between ideas on the concept map. Still did offer up lots of good initail information as well as links to site that could provide usefull info. This one is more visually apealing using cartoons and other animations to try to grab your attention.

b. the visual tool that i liked the least was TouchGraph Google Browser. I did not like this because it work right now. I will try again later to see if it works, how easy it is to use and the caliber of results offered. The loading never finished after correct entry feilds were submitted. this leads me to believe that this tool is unreliable.

3. Using the Open Directory Project
Advantages:
Provides you with specified categories(google does not)
Gives good results (Better then that of Google)
The results are ordered in terms of what you searched for (google only counts the number of times characters are used, content is irrelavent)
More search results are displayed per page so load time is decreased

Disadvantages
S
Still contains links to irrelavent information(not as many as google)
Gives irrelavent categories(at leaste it gives categories

this blog was posted by Spencer Vermue

lab:tuesday March 8, #3 The open Directory

2005-03-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

Disadvantage it has compared to Google - it frequently says that it's on a heavy load.
Its advanced option is not as diverse as Google

Advantage it has over Google - I could narrow the sites into Kids sites or Teens sites

by Ho-Yul Lee

Open Directory vs. Google

2005-03-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

When exploring Open Directory I found it to be both advantageous and disadvantageous in comparison to a Google search. For starters, the first attempt of searching on Open Directory was denied because it was “temporarily unavailable”. I retyped the search and thankfully, it worked this time. After looking at the different sites that it provided me I found that a lot of them did not have to do with what I was looking for (there were a lot of sites on actual races [ex. Running] rather than the race I had in mind. So, I decided to search ethnicity and media instead, but again, the site was temporarily unavailable. This made me a little frustrated and felt that this consumed too much time. The writing seemed smaller to me than Google. The one thing I liked about Open Directory was that it did not provide thousands of sites, but only the ones that seemed to be of my best interest. Also, Open Directory allows searches in several languages; the option of changing the language is very easy and noticeable. All in all, I still prefer Google (despite the thousands of useless sites it provides) but this may just be my bias kicking in.

New Visualization Tools

2005-03-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

My favourite search engine was Touchgraph Google browser. The website was organized and easy to use. Once you searched something, Touchgraph would open up a spider web of topics which have to do with your requested search. This allows for unlimited searching opportunities and learning about all areas of a search that you had no initially requested the website to find. All of the various topics Touchgraph found were useful and applicable to the requested search and it made it easy to find what exactly you were looking for and created new ideas of what you wanted to find. As well, once you select one of the many topics, you may click info which will provide with a summary, a snippet, a website and a Google directory on the requested search for further searching.

My least favourite search engine was kartoo.com. This is because when I requested “race in the media”, it completely disregarded the four words I had requested and only found topics pertaining to the word race, in the sense of racing (cars, bikes, etc) and not race as I had intended. I value a search engine that searches for all the words I request so I can be assured cohesive and inclusive search results, rather than limited and unfulfilling results that I obtained from kartoo.com. Although the website was well designed, it was also hard to look at visually and hard to follow because of the many spider webs which emerged from the various topics.

Advantages of open directory:
-Stimulates results in an organized manner. You are given a list of articles, as well as various other categories that the search engine believes pertain to your search. You may click on any of these categories which include how many matches there are. Google just gives you a list of articles.
-Every article that is stimulated explains what the article is about so you know what you are clicking on. In Google, every article title is followed by the first few lines of the article, and not an explanation of the overall article so you know what it is you are selecting.
It allows you to search on various other websites (Altavista, HotBot, Netscape, etc) whereas Google only allows you to search on its own site.
-It searches in many languages (Catalan, German, Spanish, etc.)
-Allows opportunities to become an editor, or to submit a site.
Introduces the website and allows for further information about the site with various URLs that pertain to the site.
-It is a volunteer based search engine which gives the opportunity for everyone to contribute.

Disadvantages of The Open directory:
-The Open directory does not stimulate as many searches as Google does. It filters out many articles which may have perhaps been useful.
-Is it very word specific. When I typed in “Race in the media” it said nothing could be found, whereas when I typed in “Race and the media”, it found results. Google would have found the same results, despite “in” or “and”.

beyond seach tools

2005-03-08T13:04:00.001-08:00

The search tool I liked the best was kartoo.com because when I searched for kiss of the panopticon all of the relevant sites appeared on the page and everything was grouped on the side panel. when u search for something initially an icon appeared which indicated that it was searching the database although its something that wont really change the outcome of a search I found it welcomed because most sites are bland and boring .Another feature which I liked was the ability to save your search, mapes

The site I found least helpful was http://news.stamen.com/ first of all I was very confused as to what or wear to go they have all these color bars which meant nothing to me. For a first time user it might be a little too confusing. Also compared to cnn where most articles are on the front page and ready to be viewed. On this page I had to sort though And figure out what to do and where to look in for example I was looking for Lebanon and needed to sear thought many of those blocks of color before I found anything while on cnn it was displayed on the front page confusing for someone who has never used it for sure.

The open directory

Well what I really like about this search tool is that if nothings available it asks if u want to try another search engine mainly Google. It also allows anyone to edit url links and stuff to help add to its database IT also separates subjects into categories which is useful for anyone that has an idea for a specific heading like videogames. It looks the same as Google appearance wise, everything is in front of you easy to see, with little confusion.

Just as gouge can expand so can this search engine thought editors summiting articles. So it’s just as powerful as Google allowing for future expansions.

The biggest problem found with this site is it took me many tires to finally search for “race and the media” due to large server loads it seems its not as versatile as goggle which works regardless of how many people are using it . Since everything is sorted into categories it sometimes could take a while to find what you’re looking for sometimes directly typing in a search term might not yield any results. This search tool grows by allowing anyone to edit its contents or add to it this maybe hinder it as peoples own laziness could allow it to stop growing as fast as Google and its search bots

SIMAR HAMID

Diane's post for March 8 - beyond search engines

2005-03-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

The search engine I liked best was Kartoo. I simply typed in Futurama, then about 8 websites came up with the properties of each. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to know, but when I saw the word ‘wallpaper’ I thought – hey! – I should get some Futurama wallpaper for my desktop. Then I could see which Futurama websites had wallpaper. If I clicked on ‘wallpaper’, then it showed popular wallpaper sites. The site is very cool for browsing.

The one I liked the least was Mooter. When I searched for Futurama, I could choose from ‘movie’, ‘movies’, ‘cartoon’, ‘series’, ‘fox’, ‘television’ and ‘groening’. After choosing a few of these clusters, I found that the websites found were repeated under the categories. The categories were too much alike to really have much purpose.

The Open Directory is better than Google in a lot of ways. At Google, a number of sites come up that when you look at them, you have to sort them and decide if it is relevant. At the Open Directory, the categories are given first, then you can click on a relevant category and relevant sites are displayed. The site is sorted by experts in the field who do the deciding for you. This leads to more precise searching.

The Open Directory is not perfect, however. The site is organized by volunteers; it even asked me if I would like to help edit this category. The site has no way of knowing whether the person editing is actually an expert or not. I, a person who knows nothing about cooking, could help edit and sort recipes. This takes away from the trustworthiness of the site. Also, when I searched for “media AND ethnicity” some fabulous cultural studies categories appeared. Unfortunately, many of them had nothing to do with media.

Diane Jansen

Beyond Search Engines

2005-03-08T13:03:00.000-08:00

1. I liked the Mooter search engine the best. It provided me with the easy access to everything I needed with complete ease. The lay out of the search results was very interesting and it also provided other results, which were closely related to my search and were also very helpful. One downside to it though, was the fact that you could only search in Australia or the rest of the world. All in all I think that Mooter is a very good search engine and I plan to use it in the future.

2. My least favorite search engine would have to News Stamen. Although it did give some good information, I didn’t like the fact that you could only search as far back as 6 days ago. The fact that you couldn’t search for anything was very restricting and I didn’t like that. When you type in something that you are searching for all you get is something that may closely relate to it but not exactly what you are looking for. If you need something which is from only a few days ago and you know that it was important and made headlines than it is a good search engine but other wise I will stay clear of it.

Open Directory: Advantages and Disadvantages

The open directory being a directory which is maintained and edited by volunteers is restricted to what they can find searching the web or watching the news. It has a few different advanced search options which are very helpful for both kids and adults who know exactly what they are looking for or are trying to narrow down their search. As a result of being volunteer operated, the results which are provided are very limited ins some situations. Search engines such as Google always provide many more results for each search. On the search for race and the media I only retrieved 44 results in the open directory as opposed to Google where I found over 14,000,000. After all this I say that the open directory is nothing special and I would rather stick to Google and other search engines which I am more familiar with.

By: Josh Steinberg

New Dimensions to Web Info Retrieval

2005-03-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

Visualization Tools
I liked the Stamen tool the best. It is a great way of catching up on current events in a very visual and intricate way.

The visualization tool I liked least was the Visual Thesaurus. Although it was visually appealing, I found it to be quite impractical and would personally prefer looking up synonyms on a regular online dictionary/thesaurus website.

The Open Directory Compared to Google
The advantages of searching on the Open Directory includes the fact that the results generated are more narrowed and has higher relevancy, since it is maintained by a vast community of editors. In addition, the service is offered in nine different languages (from Catalan to Portuguese) whereas Google.ca is only offered in one other language (French). Disadvantages include the fact that it is not always accessible, particularly in situations when it is under “heavy load”. Furthermore, since it produces significantly less results than Google, it may be weeding out information that could be potentially useful.

Daisy Tsang

Lab March 8

2005-03-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

The TouchGraph Google Browser
This graph was full of information and various sites, but it was way too large and detailed and confusing.

Mooter
I liked Mooter because the layout is very simple. When I searched “the kiss of the panopticon”, instead of getting a mess of zigzags and spindly bursts of colour every time I passed over a site on the map, each aspect of the searched query was simply labeled as what it entailed: the actual term “kiss”, when clicked on came up with various sites of relating to “kiss”, whatever that may be. Same with author, resource, etc. Very simple and quick.

Kartoo
Kartoo wasn’t as simply laid out as Mooter was, but I liked the style of it too. Kartoo’s neat function was that each site that you pass your mouse over on the graph connects with little curved lines what other sites it is related to, and what major sub-topics it’s connected to as well.

Stamen
I hated Stamen. Its way too difficult to understand what is going on, and there are no instructions that will explain anything to you. When I typed in “the kiss of the panopticon”, all I got was a whole bunch of names of people that have been in the news recently, and when I clicked on one of those topics or names, I got dates that I could click on to see what was going on there. Interesting layout, but too difficult to use.

The Visual Thesaurus
Very cool. I like the spidery layout, which is a lot like the Mooter, but obviously has a completely different purpose. I typed in Media as my word to look up, and got hundreds of other words.

The Open DirectoryI found that when searching on the Open Directory, it was much more accurate with precision when recalling. I liked the categories listed at the top, which Google doesn’t have on its search site. The Open Directory doesn’t give close to as many search results as Google does, however, but the value of the information is much greater than half the stuff that comes up on Google.

Open Directory

2005-03-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

Advantages and Disadvantages of searching the Open Directory Vs Google Search Engine:

Advantages:
-because the Open Directory is constructed and maintained by human editors, you have the advantage of more comprehensive and recent information available
-more organized, improves ease of searching on web
-provides list of categories in which your query fits
-provides advanced search option, as does Google

Disadvantages:
-less search results compared to those retrieved when searching for same topic in Google
-may not be able to find exactly what you are interested in
-advanced search option isn’t as comprehensive less as Google’s

Overall I see more advantages than disadvantages of the open directory. I can definitely see myself using it as a search resource in the future.

visualization tools- fav and least fav

2005-03-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

When looking up different visualization tools on the Web, I found that they all had their pros and cons. However, the first one I looked at (TouchGraph Google Browser) was my favorite. At first, it seemed a little intimidating and confusing but it was very easy to understand once I started to explore it. It provided a lot of links that are divided into several different subjects, allowing for precise and easy research. Once you click the info box it provides a summary of the site that it provides for you, so you can determine whether or not it is worth looking at. It also allows you to change the colors, the number of lines that are displayed and a scroll bar allows a zoom in/out of the graph.
My least favorite was news.stamen.com. It was visually interesting but unfortunately, I think this did not work in their favor. Each square represents a person that news stories have been made on in a certain time frame. However, you can only see who occupies which square by placing your mouse over the square and a pop up appears. This makes it hard to remember who belongs to which square and is also more time consuming to have to look at each square individually in order to see who are being represented. I think it would have been more beneficial if the names were displayed or put in a list that is easy to read and easier to access. Once you choose a person it provides several links like a google search would have done. All in all, I did not find this visualization tool to be that great.

Visualization Tools

2005-03-08T12:53:00.002-08:00

I was a fan of the Kartoo visualization tool because it has a very user friendly interface that is easy to use and visually appealing as well. The results were easy to navigate and tended to be fairly relevant when examining a broad range of topics.
The visualization tool I liked least was the mooter search engine...it was fairly easy to navigate but it exhibited many irrelevant search results and yielded poor precision rates on a variety of topics. Once the creators have a chance to fully execute its capabilities and work the bugs out of the engine it should increase relevance and increase it's user friendliness improving it's popularity vastly.

Lab: Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Beyond Search Engine - #2

2005-03-08T12:53:00.001-08:00

I like the Stamen the best because as I typed in Sony about which I was interested in finding news it gave me all the possibilities. For example when I typed 'S' it gave me all the things that start with S.

On the other hand, I like the Touch Graph Google browser the list, simply because I just didn't know how to use it.

posted by Ho-Yul Lee

Open Directory vs Google

2005-03-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

The Open Directory webpage was created as an attempt to organize and simplify the frenzied nature of the internet. It was designed to ensure that searchers find only relevant search results based on the fact that there is so much useless and mediocre information on the internet today making searching for specified topics more and more difficult. This site would be advantageous to anyone doing a very specified search with a very specific research mode in mind. Because the objective of the Open Directory site is to filter out ineffective information, the number of hits on a specified topic will be very limited yet precise. Depending on the type of study being preformed and the area of research, this site or Google could be of benefit. Google would be useful when the specified method or area of search is not yet known and a degree of flexibility and freedom is involved. Google does not subscribe to any filtering methods and as such, would result in a great number of hits on a specified topic, regardless of relevance. This tool would allow you to expand areas of research and explore possible topics and ideas. Overall, both tools could be useful depending on the search being preformed and the characteristics of it.