Project #15

1. Wolfram Alpha is a very useful search engine and the best feature of it is that it can compute virtually any math problem via the Problem Generator. While trying to learn how to maneuver through this search engine, I found a feature that allows you to upload pictures and see them through the eyes of a color blind person as well as being able to see it through the eyes of a dog! Overall, it's used best for people who are trying to figure out a complicated math problem or looking up certain statistics because it's a computational search engine.

2. DuckDuckGo is a search engine with the tagline, "the search engine that doesn't track you." That's a unique characteristic because it protects the person's privacy who is using the website to search what they're looking for. It's mostly comparable to Google and Bing because when you search for an item, lists of articles and pictures pop up that are related to the item that was searched for. A feature that I found useful was that if an app for a smartphone was available, that was shown at the top before anything else was listed. This search engine would be most useful for a person who doesn't want to be tracked by a third party, but not much different from your average search engine.

3. Dogpile uses a catchphrase, "go fetch," as if you're throwing a bone for the search engine to look for! It is reminiscent of Google as when you search for a topic, it lists articles relevant to what you're searching for. While many search engines display duplicate results, this website does not and that's useful because clicking on the same link many times can be frustrating. The site's mascot, Arfie, is the one who "fetches" the information for you and that's appealing to younger audiences who are learning how to use a search engine. This search engine is most useful for people who are looking for images or news articles.

4.Ask is a question and answer based search engine. When you type in a question in the search box, you immediately receive an answer to your question and where that information was derived from. Like Google, you can type in anything you want to know and it will bring you the best information from their database. The databases range from art to literature to math to history and almost everything in between. This search engine would be most useful for young audiences who just need help on a question that they're "stuck on." Although, this search engine could promote laziness as all a student would need to do is type a question and they wouldn't put forth any effort to get the answer.

5. Bing is seemingly the little brother to Google as Google is the world's number one search engine. Although Google accounts for 67% (according to http://mwpartners.com/bing), Bing accounts for nearly 16% of all internet searches. It's mostly comparable to Google in that when you search for an item or topic, you receive millions of links for feedback. This search engine would be best used by nearly everyone because of all of the feedback you can receive from it. A pretty cool feature by Bing is that it links your Facebook account to your Bing account and you've got the ability to search for trends among your Facebook friends!

6. WebMD is a search engine geared toward medical advice. The best feature about this engine is that you can try to figure out what's wrong with someone by simply typing in the symptoms in the symptom checker and they give you advice on whether you need to go see a doctor or not. It also lists doctors and pharmacies that are closest to where you may be (which is useful because you shouldn't have to drive a long way to find a doctor). This search engine is best used for persons who may be seeking out medical advice or they're just trying to attain a better lifestyle by the advice of doctors and people who currently live the lifestyle. This website could also shock people into thinking that they're worse off than they really are but if they do complete research and think straight, they'll make the best decision for themselves.

7. Topix is a search engine best used for people who are looking up things about their town/city and surrounding areas. However, there are many complaints about this website in that it provides false information and it slanders peoples' characters by anonymous users. It displays information about local businesses and it goes so far as to display their financial status which could harm a business's reputation.

8. eHow is an online "how to" guide in that it displays results for videos for people who are learning how to do/construct something. This search engine would be best used for people who want to know how something's done before they being the process of doing the task themselves. This is also useful for students who are interested in seeing how experiments work. I would make this search engine a prominent one in my future classroom because of the fact that I will be teaching science!