Searching for meaning

This is the search bar on the New York Times webiste. Today for the first time I noticed the filters that help you to refine your search to more recent articles only. The default is 'Since 1851'. I love it. Says so much with just two words...

And this is the homepage of new search engine http://cuil.com (pronounced 'cool' apparently). They're the new hot thing in the tech market and their USP is the size of their index - it's been a long time since we've seen a 'Search 100,000,000 web pages' tagline - takes me right back to the days of AltaVista, seriously.

It'll be interesting to see how cuil develops, but for now, despite that whopping index it seems to be somewhat lacking. Everyone does a vanity search on their first visit to a new search engine right? Well in this case Alex Gawley brought up lots of interesting stuff (link to follow when they are back up) from Friendfeed and Twitter and MyBlogLog, but not a single page from dear old aBlog. By comparison on Google we're right up there - what gives?

The other thing I'm not sure about on cuil is the UI. True, they're breaking the mold of the 10 blue links, but I can't tell if the I should read from left to right or down the columns in order to go from least to most relevant. Maybe I am just being old fashioned, but that really threw me.

This one is going to be a good one to watch (if they can get their servers back up...)

Back to music (for your listening pleasure)

I love this picture.  It was created using a cool service called Wordle and it shows the most popular words from the aBlog RSS feed.  If you have a blog you should have a go with, not just because it produces lovely pictures, but it tells you a lot about what you blog.



And this Wordle picture showed me that a friend of mine was right recently when he said I'd let the balance get a bit too techy (or 'silver' as he puts it).



So to redress the balance I thought I'd get back to my roots and post a bit of music. You can play the MP3s right here using the little del.icio.us playtagger. My iPod's 'Recently Added' playlist is giving me a lot of joy right now so here are a few samplers:



The Rip - Portishead

Third is such an amazing album.  Ambitious, fragile, beautiful.  While we are at it, the Radiohead cover of this track is pretty amazing too.





Like a Lion - The Decemberists (boo, only have DRM AAC so go listen to it at last.fm)

Just discovered the Decemberists. Liking their album, The Crane Wife, but this track from the compilation Preserve, Volume One is a world apart. It's got this dissonant harmony running through it.



Extra - Ken Ishii

This is why I love emusic. When I was 17 I loved this album. Ken Iishi makes precise, angular, unmistakeably Japanese techno and, boy, has it stood the test of time. Jelly Tones is a glorious album. If your into electronic music (and even if you're not) listen to this album.





Chemtrails - Beck

Beck has flashes of genius on each of his albums and on Modern Guilt, this is it. It reminds me of Primal Scream at their drug-induced Screamadelica best. I love it.



AM 180 - Grandaddy

From the pong-on-acid intro to the thrashing guitars this is full of life.  Makes me want to jump around, quit my job, start a band and jump around a bit more...

Something is technically wrong...

Is Twitter worth $1bn or nothing at all?

I read those two articles yesterday and to be honest I'm still a bit of a fence sitter on this debate.

On the one hand Twitter have built a hugely compelling user and developer proposition. Simple interaction with your friends, audience and web services via IM and SMS is a killer app. Because of that they are amassing a significant user and developer base. If the both of these continue to grow and they figure out a way to monetize all of that traffic then $1bn might be achievable.



On the other hand there are the service issues and downtime. Twitter's downtime is legendary. What started off as something users could forgive the playful little startup has become a genuine threat to user happiness and retention. If all those wonderful tweets migrate to some new platform then that valuation comes down a whole lot.



For me the value created by web services is all underpinned by the technology. There's no doubt that building a user base and traffic is valuable, but the long term defendable advantage on the web is in solving a technical problem better than anyone else. Have Twitter done this? Partly, but the downtime is a real worry - not just because it pisses off their users, but because it points to a real weakness in their technology.



Let's hope that they are using their recent infusion of cash to re-architect the service from the ground up.   If they are then a big payday is surely somewhere in their future. If not, then...well the field will be wide open for someone else to come storming in.