In week three of my Living and Working class we discuss search engines. Starting from a historical perspective we touch on how it became necessary to create means to find the vast amount of information that was exploding in number and size across the Internet and then the Web. Archie (and Veronica and Jughead) from McGill University and the University of Nevada respectively, Gopher from the University of Minnesota (go Golden Gophers), are mentioned. Then we discuss the generation of many different search engines which grow to prominence, are merged or replaced up to the present day.
At this point we talk about types of searches, specialty searches, vanity searches and those third party stalker search engines that keep an eye on you.
Some of this is done through my own personal experiences: (I went to see Pulp Fiction as a break from an Internet conference with this great kid, Brian Pinkerton, a grad student at the UW) Who knew that Webcrawler would become so popular that it wasn't allowed to operate during the day and that the engine (and Brian) would get picked up by AOL. My feeble attempt to hire him for Free Range was dwarfed by what AOL could do.
Some is done through going online and some is done through a Powerpoint Presentation.
However, I have stumbled across a web site that does an excellent job of summarizing the history of search. It is www.searchenginehistory.com. Search Engine History is published by Aaron Wall and references several academic sources for its compilation of information and links. Another excellent resource found through search.
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