confused.
Image credit: renjith krishnan,
freedigitalphotos.net
Disclaimer: This is not google bashing, Google is still the popular search engine. As a company, google provides tons of tools and services and most of them are free. Also, we are not the scientists at Google/Microsoft and other research institutions, so we welcome your feedback if it is appropriate and constructive.
Even after 15 years of service, googling does not provide the right answer for average non tech population, which is the majority of us.
Why can’t search be simple?
I agree google has the simple interface (Bing has it too now).
If you search for a ‘cellphone’, google shows over 20 million results. Bing beats there with over 68 million results. I’m just curious if anyone has ever gone through this whole result set! Other than boasting that they have indexed so much, what is the purpose of these results?
OK, I hear from the geeks that by now everyone knows that you can narrow the results or like an average user just go through the links in the first few pages.
Let’s try narrowing, “OK, Google”, search for ‘best cellphone’… Google shows now 53 million, while Bing gives 46 million results. So, google is actually adding the results of best and cellphone, while Bing is narrowing from 68 to 46 million. Irrespective of it, it is still in millions!
Also, I notice that Google says “about” 53 million, so is it not sure of the calculation?! Who knows? Who cares?
If you know Google, we can filter/narrow by using “” (double quotes) for exact phrase match, that gives 108K results for “best cellphone”, while Bing is still in millions (3 million)
OK, OK, I hear you, “try shopping link”, you say… Now we got lots of cellphones and advertisements from sponsors, and on the left there are all kinds of filters by price, feature, technology, operating system, brands, stores, carriers, etc. Choice is good, but this is overwhelming. How are you going to know if you want Tri band or UTMS cellular technology?
So now, what do we do?
We can go through the search results and read reviews from Engadget/CNet and others and spend hours researching on several phones. Then, you can go to YouTube to watch videos of reviews, unboxing, comparisons and crazy information to drop test cellphones, etc. for hours. Then, you can go to Amazon and other stores to read user reviews to cross check if reviews by media are not biased. By now, you have spent days or a weekend on this research.
I don’t want to even talk about who do you trust on internet or elsewhere. Finding the best deal on the internet is same as waiting in the line outside some store for a few items on some advertised deal during Black Friday. Instead of enjoying the holiday with friends and family, we will be wasting time in the cold for potential deal! When it comes to online, you are still wasting the time to find and grab the best deal, atleast you are in the comforts of your home or some place.
Finally it will be confusing even for tech savvy / gadget lovers to agree on what is the best phone to buy.
There are semantic search engines and others like Blekko, duckduckgo. Lot of search engines have come and gone in the last 20 years.
http://www.wordstream.com/articles/internet-search-engines-history
May be, it is just that the average user has unrealistic expectations from Search engines. Google’s mission states that it is an organizer of world’s information. It organizes the information very well. The complexity of this issue is the information available online has boomed and grown exponentially in the last decade. On top of it, social media has opened the flood gates and caused more noise and has overwhelmed the organizer. If you treat search engines as organizers of websites, then it is on the users to interpret the data from the various websites, blogs, media like youtube and make an intelligent choice based on your needs or situation.
Coming back to the technology, that is a beast that gets complex every second. There were no cell phone users 20 years ago. Now the smart phones have overtaken the home desktops as the ubiquitous device. At the same time, the complexity of the features, hardware, applications has skyrocketed.
Internet and the social collaboration has produced and documented human knowledge in sites like Wikipedia. There are also good sites on technology products reviews like CNet, Engadget,etc. Online stores like Amazon, Bestbuy, Walmart, NewEgg and others have started to provide more information on products than the generic and some times outdated product brochures.
So why is this even necessary, why can’t we do the same thing we did for ever as in go to a store and buy? Circuit city went out of business a few years ago. Best buy is still working to stay float with online business makeover. For all we know, Amazon may start sending drone deliveries anytime!
With cellphones, it is not only the phones alone, you also need to look for a good service provider for talk, text and data plan.
So, how do you search find a cellphone that you will like?
You can keep doing what you used to do: Ask a friend, or a sales guy at a store, watch a TV ad, or buy what everyone you know has so you can fit in the group and at the same time compatible with the apps and exchange any useful tips.
If you want to use the vast knowledge spread on the internet, that’s where vilaku.com wants to simplify this ordeal by doing the heavy lifting / laborious work and find simple solutions that most of us can find it useful.
By the way, we don’t have anything right now for cellphones 
You can take a look at the new Fire from Amazon:
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