Three former engineers from the popular search engine Google are launching their own internet search tool which is to be called Cuil.com. They boast that their search engine will be able to scour 120 billion web sites to find whatever it is that you are looking for. Three years ago, Google had a search index of 8.2 billion web pages, but can it compete with Cuil.com? (more…)

There is no doubt about the success of the Wikipedia, the user generated online encyclopedia. It has the largest number of articles, now close to ten million, and what is more, they are generally reliable. No other encyclopedia can match that.

However that very success is creating problems, or at least perceived to be creating problems.

Should Wikipedia try to include articles on every thing? Even on trivial matters, of interest to handful of people? For example, do we really need a detailed “biography” of obscure cartoon character? Especially when wikipedia biographies of people who had real influence on world such as certain historical personages are so spare? Some people argue that this “trivialization” lowers the Wikipedia’s overall reputation.

On the other hand, reducing the number of trivial articles as an editorial policy will not necessarily increase the number of substantive articles. A question we should ask is whether having trivial articles do any real harm? Maybe not, in fact contrary may be the truth. When people are allowed to create articles on subjects that interest them, including “trivial” ones, they are likely to create articles with substance as well. After all it is the users who generate the content and their interests should be catered to.

Another objection to deletion of so called trivial articles concerns the value judgment implied. Who will decide what is trivial and what is not? At present an “elite” group of most active users are given that power and they follow a complicated procedure when deciding to delete articles. This seems to be leading to lot of bureaucratic wrangling. As with any bureaucracy, all these procedures and rules increase the power of people who know how to play the system.

That Wikipedia of all things, has started going in that road is regrettable, in my personal opinion. Please let users in general decide.

When is the media going to stop? Before Obama had won the Democratic slot, the media was announcing that he was definitely the winner. What? They can’t decide that? But, they did. No matter what would or could have happened pat the point of all the major news papers have decided who would run for the Democratic party. IO wonder if they are going to decide for Obama who his running VP will be?

The media has too tight of a hold on the US. We shoudl count ourseleves lucky since we do have media access from other places and the goverment does not control everything we see, read, and hear. However, this does not give the media the right to say certain decisions have been made when they have not. The media needs to report the truth - it is their duty - and not jump the gun.

What do you think:

Does the media really control us? Do they push decisions to be final before they really are? Do you think the media needs to have more rules and regulations?