Mashpedia – more real-time information plus…

 

So many ideas for taking what is out there in cyberspace and mashing them together to create something new. Mashpedia is not a search engine, nor is it wikipedia but something completely new. I found this tool thanks to a post on the excellent Free Technology for Teachers Blog.

Mashpedia aggregates data from multiple feeds from sources such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, news sources, blogs, book search engines and web pages in general and then puts it all neatly together in one spot. The layout is quite clean and easy to scan through and/or read more closely. I would love to shift some of the different fields/modules around to suit my idea f importance but this is a minor matter.

The tool works best when you can clearly define what you’re looking for. This is a skill I am trying to teach our students and this tool may help me illustrate my point.

I searched for Jessica Watson and found a great deal of information. There was a lead article that provided a basic data about her, along with the most relevant videos available, a stream of current Twitter messages, latest news, images, blog posts and links.

Search Grand prix gives you a definition and you are informed it could be connected to 12 different items and then goes on to list 4 other headings with more listings under them. Assorted images and videos come up that indicated that this is a search that needs to be more specific.

A search on Iceland retrieved images from the recent stunning volcanic explosion, along with Twitter chatter that indicate renewed concern, a Wikipedia entry, various news items and blog posts. Mashpedia also offers semantic connections between the articles, in form of links.

When working with students on current issues I have been using Silobreaker (discussed in an earlier post) and IceRocket (earlier post) for real-time information but I can see that Mashpedia with it extra information also offers students and teachers an extra dimension to their search for information.

I also tried the World War II search suggested on the Free technology 4 teachers blog. Mashpedia did well at collating the more constant (and evergreen) material along with the newest additions to information on the Web. This type of search would help students find the many varied types information now available to them via the web and see the thumbnails to decide whether or not it might be useful for them.

Worth noting is that there has been a comment about some less than appropriate ads that pop up on some of the results pages but, due to our school filter, I have not seen them so this is not an issue here.

Searching the internet – in real-time

Real-times searches are becoming another important part of internet searching. Searchers are looking for what people are sharing across real-time services whether they be social networks such as Twitter or Flickr or social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, etc.

People are looking for the most up-to-date information available to them from news, blogs and Twitter and there are a number of search tools being created to do specifically that. Facebook  has a live news feed, twitter has a real-timer news feed but what’s more useful are the real-time, all-in-one search engines.

• Scoopler

Scoopler is a search engine that allows you to search Delicious, Digg, Flickr and Twitter simultaneously. The look of the site is sparse but the functionality is quite good. It constantly indexes live updates from services such  Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and includes images, video, news and blog articles. Search for any topic, you will get results from the various live feeds of the web 2.0 environments. You can to choose “all results or image, video, links or the tweets you want to see from the topic you are interested. You can also choose a subject area first. Twitter feeds run down a column on the right of the screen. Alt-search engines has a post about Scoopler that discusses all its attributes. 

The “about” page says:

Scoopler’s mission is to make it easy to know what’s happening right now. Scoopler a is real-time search engine that gives you access to new information on the web faster than ever before. Give it a try and see for yourself. It works by listening in on everything that people are sharing across real-time services like Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Flickr and more. … to deliver the most up-to-date results available on the web.

• OneRiot

OneRiot is a search engine tht pulls search results from Twitter, Dig and other social sharing services. The results are based on what issues are currently the most shared and discussed not based on “historical” data. You can choose to search the web or “video”. It also has a very “pared down” look to the site.

From the  about page:

OneRiot crawls the links people share on Twitter, Digg and other social sharing services, then indexes the content on those pages in seconds. The end result is a search experience that allows users to find the freshest, most socially-relevant content from across the realtime web.

There is again a good description about OneRiot and how it works on the Alt Search Engines site.

These two real-time search engines can be a good place for students (or staff) to easily find and track developments in current issues. Both allow to to attach an RSS feed to the search. I like showing students the history of a topic. To use tools such as wikipedia and twitter etc to show how information/news grows and developes and to discuss what is in official broadcasts and what may be cut out for all sorts of reasons. I like studnets to always see beyond headlines.

•  Twitter Search

It is worth noting that Twitter Search is the other real-time searching tool that many people search  when they are looking for information. You can use this to have a look at what people are talking about  and sharing even if you do not have a Twitter account. Below are the reults when I searched “naplan”.  

Google also now offers real-time results as well and last early last year I have wrote a post about using search engine Icerocket.

• IceRocket:

is a much more complex site and it offers a lot more analysis of the data.When you visit this site the search tab option is, by default, set to ‘Blogs’ rather than ‘Web’, which is the second tab. They also have a ‘Twitter‘ search option as a tab. MySpace and News and images round out the tabs available to the searcher. You can also subscribe to the RSS option of your search.

Icerocket – searching blogs and other media

On Phil Bradley’s  blog I saw a post about Icerocket, a search engine with a few differences.

 The search tab options are the first difference.

1.  When you visit the site the search tab option is by default set to ‘Blogs’ rather than ‘Web’, which is the second tab. As web users are increasingly looking for news, sharing ideas, views, etc., the development of the whole social media area, this makes more and more sense.
2. They also have added a ‘Twitter‘ search option as a tab. Is this the first search engine that has done that? I’m not sure that I would use this option a lot at school but for breaking news, it would be interesting.
3. MySpace and News and images round out the tabs.
4. You can subscribe to an RSS option for searches, which is also a strength for the search engine.  

I thought that I would give it a try. I was interested to see what was picked up in a search about the Public Transport in Melbourne, especially after the problems of the last few days. It is a controversial topic at the moment.

You have the option of simple or adv. search, which offers phrase searching, domain searches, etc.

Big buzz

The search engine also has a tool that they have named ‘The Big Buzz’. This is the part I found the most interesting.  If you use this tab and run a search Icerocket returns recent (less than 1 hour) results that it plucks from all the search options (weblogs, Twitter, Video, News, and Images). All results are arranged chronologically, with options for an auto refresh of 1, 3 or 5 minutes and, of course, an RSS option.

I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

Trends

There is also a trends option in the left-hand column. I like looking at statistics and numbers so I always like these options.

Although it is not the one of the more visual search engines, that I favour, I can see potential in what it offers. I will be using it on other topics when I need some guidance/help with tools, ideas, etc. that may be of use in the education field.  You have the option to download the Icerocket tool bar, follow blog trends, have a blog tracker, etc as well from the homepage. Well worth having a look and doing some searching using this tool. I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

 If I was in government or working for Connex, I would certainly be watching this.