Google is boring

Google is boring. Quintura is not.

I enter "self-organizing map". Along with the usual result set, I get a cloud. In the cloud I see my keyword along with other ones sized according to their frequency.




If I want to add a keyword to the cloud that is not already there, I just double click:




Now my result set is the product of the two keywords. Pretty cool! It gets better. I hover on "cluster analysis" and preview its keywords:



Finally, I select "cluster analysis". And I get a new cloud and a new result set. They are the products of "self-organizing map" and "cluster analysis":




Not bad. Better than not bad. Not boring...

In a recent post at Read/WriteWeb Alex Iskold wrote otherwise at The Race to Beat Google. He was somewhat dismissive of the clustering solutions saying they were too complex to make it in the mainstream. I don't think we want to underestimate clustering when it is wedded with clouds. Indeed clouds informed by clustering like the ones above can rain on Google's parade. I hear from kids that they always wanted clouds to do the walking. Imagine a swim in clouds that have three dimensions. Instead of "googling", the euphemism will be "I need to check the weather." The rejoinder from Will Smith's wife in Enemy of the State would be: "And just whose weather are you checking?"