17 Nov
2012
17 Nov
'12
2:53 p.m.
On 17/11/12 2:23 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
Toby Thain wrote:
Yes, you are quite right, but you need the endlessly scalable and
fault-tolerant architecture as well. So you could say two paradigm
shifts were involved. No wonder Google won. :)
On 17/11/12 6:27 AM, Jochen Kunz wrote:
For me it was PageRank that made all the difference. I remember when Interesting question: Would google have happened
if Altavista wherent
ruined?
Yes, because Google made the paradigmatic leap (MapReduce) that all its
competitors [almost inexplicably] failed to make. searching on the Internet meant using Archie or
Veronica to find
interesting files on public FTP servers. When I created my first web
site ("Mosaic page") in 1994, you were supposed to send an email to UIUC
so they could update their page listing all the home pages in the world.
By the time Altavista came along, the web had grown enough that indexing
it all on a single workstation was a great demo of what the Alpha could
do and it was what DEC did to impress many pontential buyers. It soon
evolved into a separate business. But as the web continued to grow, it
became less and less useful as it became common for the link you were
looking for to be on page 8 or later of the results.
In 1998 I switched to Google because PageRank meant I rarely had to look
beyond the top half of the first page of the results to see what I was
Yes, you and millions of others :D
Once you got used to the idea of the page you want being #1 most of the
time (as is still the case IME), then one quickly forgot about the other
engines...
--Toby
looking for. The "I'm feeling lucky"
button was meant to show off this
feature.
-- Jecel