PubSub- Again
I couldn’t really help it. For those of you just tuning in, my fascination with one of the better-marketed and better-looking blog search engines (PubSub) has turned to frustration over the past month. So, when I saw this Stephen Baker post on Blogspotting, I had to comment. Especially because I found it telling that Baker had to get help to use their interface.
Again, the power of blogs. First of all, hats off to Baker for quickly posting this addendum. Especially if that was all the help he really received - a pointer to their Boolean Syntax Help page. The comment from Bob Wyman, PubSub’s CTO was also appreciated: it seems they’re aware that the site isn’t all that usable. That doesn’t necessarily eliminate my problem (changing my boolean syntax so that I am sourcing a search to this blog’s URL somehow still doesn’t turn up any of our recent entries), but it does reduce my irritation somewhat.
And, of course, Mr. Wyman’s post raises a very interesting point. Retrospective search did become easier - in part by doing things to eliminate some of the more basic boolean search requirements that databases like Lexis Nexis and Factiva still require. One thing PubSub could do is make the Boolean Syntax Page even easier to find - and also make it clearer, sooner, that beyond standard boolean tricks like “and” and adding quotes, they delve into some fairly advanced modifiers that really adjust how the search is targeted, vs. just parsing keywords.
JF
June 6th, 2005 at 11:40 am
JF, thanks for your suggestions. We are well aware that we need to figure out how to make prospective searching much easier than it already is. Developing new technologies is great fun in part because it presents us with tough problems — like usability issues — that need to be solved. Please bear with us while we figure this out.
Also, please note that on inspection of our logs, we’ve discovered that one reason we’re having trouble getting new entries from your specific site is that our fetchers tend to frequently time-out when pulling your feeds. We are currently considering a number of technical solutions to the problems we’re having with your site and few others. One solution might be to allow us to carry some meta-data in our database that allows us to lengthen the time-out period when fetching from sites that are known to be slower in delivering results. In any case, we are aware of the issues and we’re attempting to resolve them. Thanks for keeping us on our toes!
bob wyman