Summary
To try and mimic the success of Google and its many beta products at GoogleLabs, Yahoo has a similar skunkworks outpost called YahooNext. Here, web surfers can find all sorts of neat Yahoo-related programs, the neatest of which, according to PC Word's Harry McCracken, is Yahoo Mindset. The search engine has a sliding scale which allows users to tailor their search-engine responses to more shopping-oriented or research-oriented items (which Yahoo calls "Intent-Driven Search"), or to make an adjustment somewhere in between. McCracken found some discrepancies in his slider settings (such as a shopping search of Dell Computers which called up Dell tech support), but notes the site has a plethora of disclaimers saying this is simply an experimental product.
Original source:
http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/000698.html
Details
OK, enough about Google and the beta products on its Google Labs page.
Yahoo has an uncannily similar skunkworks outpost called Yahoo Next--imitation is the sincerest form of search-engine competition--and it, too, is fun to rummage around in.
At the moment, Yahoo Next is playing host to everything from a beta of a new version of Yahoo Messenger to a travel search engine called Yahoo Travel FareChase.
Mindset is a search engine of two minds--it's designed to be used for both shopping searches and less commerce-oriented research.
Shove the slider all the way to "researching," and you're likely to find pages from the Wikipedia near the top of your results; move it over to "shopping," and the first few sites may be places that sell whatever it was you were searching for.
We are a site for folks who buy technology stuff; we're not, however, an online store.
But Mindset's most obvious weakness in my trial run was this: The sites that show up near the top may fit the bill as either "shopping" or "research" as appropriate, but they often didn't seem to be the most logical, big-name contenders.
For instance, when I searched for "Dell Computer" with the slider set to "shopping," I kind of expected to get the site of...well, Dell Computer.
Instead, a pricing page (at Yahoo itself) for Dell-compatible RAM was up top.
Link #2 was to Dell's tech support site (which sounds more like "researching" to me), and link #3 was the first one that pointed to Dell's e-commerce area.
But hey, Mindset is accompanied by a page with lots of disclaimers that it's merely an experimental demo, along with other interesting information about the technology behind the service.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he is well known as the creator of popular downloadable preparedness programs on financial collapse, emergency food storage, wilderness survival and home defense skills. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.
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