Googlefasting: Day 1

is that some of my favorite websites loaded faster,” he wrote. That’s good, right? Yes, but perhaps not enough to make up for Thomas’s next statement. “I’m not going to lie,” he added, “life without Google has been hell online.” Chris Pirillo made some similar comments when he “Googlefasted” in 2006. “I’m frustrated,” he wrote. “Utterly frustrated. I don’t think I’ll be able to make the seven days, seriously. I thought that Yahoo! would be a great substitute, but that

Hi, Chris. I had many of the same feelings and concerns until I ran across Yahoo's open Search APIs, which return results wrapped in handy JSON callbacks. One possible solution is SpiffY!Search, which returns proxy-free inline search results to the page of your choice, or even your desktop from a static file.

Any chance you can be a bit more specific? What are you trying to find that's difficult on Yahoo? And is it hard because Yahoo is “broken” or because it is “different” than Google?
Several of us are wondering what we can learn from this, but you're leaving out the stuff we need! :-)

I uses Google search dozens of times every day. A neato Greasemonkey script would be to count how many times I use it today/this week/this month/ever and put it at the top of results pages.

Chris, you said:
> I know where I sit for certain terms in Google, and
> I know how well Google works with headlines
can you please be more specific, what are sample terms that gave you result you needed right away in Google but did not work in yahoo ?
– amr

Is this guy nut?
I have been using both Google and Yahoo to search, having both search boxes/toolbars on my browser. And for the life of me, I think I can live with either. In almost all cases, either has seemed to serve me well. So I would love to hear more about how “painful” it is without Google.
Nut!

Stay strong Chris. No pain, no gain. Morrie.

Chris, I think your using the wrong search engine. Try msn search. I switched from google to msn a few months ago and haven't missed google at all. Sometimes I'll go back to google, thinking they'll have something msn doesn't. I find myself staring at the same page of top ten links. About the only place google tends to do better sometimes is in very technical searches. Geek stuff basically. But it's rare I don't find what I'm looking for from msn.

Is this a BS “lack of substance” post or what? Repeating several times that you cannot do search without the mighty Google, but not giving any specifics. Like some of the other posters I found MSN and Yahoo to give better results in some cases and worse in others. Care to explain:” I know where I sit for certain terms in Google, and I know how well Google works with headlines - so I know what I'm looking for”???

Go Chris!! You can do it man!!
We're all rooting for you at alt.internet.search-engines Usenet
Fred

You're probably feeling the draw of habit rather than the compulsion of addiction. Early days. I use the local supermarket a lot even though I know the food's bad for me there. It's quick and easy and to a degree it satisfies.
BB

You've heard the saying that he who has a hammer tends to see everything as a nail. Your hammer has been Google for so long, that your “nail” of information finding has repeatedly been hit the same way over and over and over again.
When you switch from Google, I think you'll find that you can't “hit” the same way as before, because other services are not hammers/nails. They may be screwdrivers/screws. Or wrenches/nuts/bolts.
Take vivisimo for example. The topic clustering it does yields itself to a very different approach to the way you search for things. If you go in expecting to hammer in the exact same queries, in the exact same ways, as you would to Google, you will no doubt be disappointed.
A good searcher learns to use all different kinds of tools.. hammers, wrenches, saws, etc. No one tool, not even Google, is always better than another. Doing this googlefast is going to help you learn which tools are good in which situations. Remember, your goal is to find the information you seek.. not to use Google to find the information you seek.

“but avoiding its search is like research suicide.”
Given the current plethora of efficient search tools available on the net, I don't think so ….

Google fasting…

Reading one of the posts made by Chris Pirillo (@ Lockergnome and famous personality of the now-defunct TechTV) made me realize that, Holy Guacamole Batman, Google really has my virtual life wrapped around its fingers. I spend at least 50% of my time o…

interesting class at Seattle University that includes in its coursework a potentially interesting experiment. It’s an experiment in “media deprivation” for a class called “Restorative Solitude.” Ninety six hours, no media. Awesome. It reminds us of Chris Pirillo’s Google Fast. In the teeny bopper world in which the article is set “media” are things like cell phone, email, internet, iPod, TV, at least those are the options in their “what could you live without” poll (we voted internet). Hat tip to the Times for realizing the

m linking to his story since the original NYT post requires registration, which is absolutely l4m3… Related Content:Copernic Desktop Search FeedbackDesktop SearchSearching for SearchNew MSN Search Beta URLsFast FAX FactsGooglefasting: Day 1Desktop Search ToolsGooglefasting: Day 2MSN Toolbar HacksGoogle Does Blog Search!

to find me directories with results above 600MB, as many which do not have anything above that are useless? Related Content: Chris DiBona on Google Code at Where 2.0 Searching for Search Matt Cutts of Google on Search Engine SpamGooglefasting: Day 1Tagging Your Posts for Gnomedex Google Desktop Search vs Windows Vista Search Barbara Manning of GenieKnows.com Google Does Blog Search! The New Google Toolbar: Wow Desktop Search read more