Today I explored another types of internet search facilities- Meta-search Engine and Subject Directory.

Unlike usual search engine, meta-search engine conduct search on other search engines and generate results based on result found in other search engines. It consolidates the search results from different search engines and generate results that are more effective and focused. An example of meta-search engine is metacrawler.

Subject directory the terms itself tells us that the search facility offers subject categorisation. You can either conduct a normal search which will generate results with classified subject stated or search under a particular subject which is more focused. The difference about meta-search engine and subject directory is the first operates by crawler whereas a subject directory is categorised by human. Hence, subject directory is expected to be more accurate in terms of categorisation. An example of subject directory is yahoo! directory.

I am a very insecure person. I like to browse through as many sources as possible, fearing that I will miss out any useful source. Hence subject directory doesn't work for me. Meta-search engine is definitely more effective as it provides me with results from different search engines. This allows me to evaluate the results base on the origin of the results. For example if one result is found in a few search engines, it shows that it is highly relevant to the topic I am researching on. Hence I don't need to click every single results without having to fear that I will miss out any important sources.

However to a certain extent subject directory is also useful. It benefits me when I want to search something very specific (e.g. stories of HIV/AIDS carrier). By selecting the personal experience under the category of HIV/AIDS, it filters all the results that are not relevant, leaving behind only stories on HIV/AIDS.

The second activity of the day is the usage of site feed in blog. I tried putting site feed on my blog but I don't really understand the purpose of site feed. The only thing about site feed is that it standardises the layout of the webpage and makes it easier for reading without all the distractions. Personally I still prefer linking to other web pages instead of using site feed. Nevertheless I learnt something new.