Executive Summary
Yahoo, Google, and AltaVista were all evaluated and compared by the categories of; ease of use, content scope, customer service, exclusiveness, and usefulness. After the evaluation it was found that Google was the best overall search engine. It ranked as high or higher than Yahoo and AltaVista in all categories of the evaluation.
Predictions
were made on the effects of Internet services on businesses and personal lives
in the future. Internet services will continue to facilitate businesses and
personal lives as they become more widely available and used.
Comparison of Search Engines
#1 Comparing www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, and www.altavista.com
|
|
|||
|
Ease of use |
4 |
4 |
3 |
|
Content Scope |
3 |
4 |
2 |
|
Customer service |
4 |
4 |
5 |
|
Exclusiveness |
4 |
4 |
2 |
|
Usefulness |
3 |
5 |
3 |
|
Totals |
18 |
21 |
15 |
*5 is best*
The search engine www.google.com was really easy to use and had a ton of sites to choose from. The sites were pretty informative and the content was easy to follow. Not only can you get information on subjects, but also you can just type in questions on how to do things, such as how to bake cookies, and it will give you a lot of information on that subject as well. I thought the customer service was really good it gave search tips, references, and you could even choose what language you wanted it in. I thought that google was pretty exclusive because it had a lot of sites but they all had different information on the topic so it made it easy to find what I needed. I think that it was very useful because I found every thing that I was looking for. I think that google is one of the better search engines out there and I would use it again.
The search engine www.altavista.com was a little harder to get in to and to use. It had a lot of listings so it took me a long time to find the right sites and information compared to yahoo and google. The content of the sites was not very clear so it was hard to find the information that I needed. One thing that I thought altavista had better than yahoo and google was the customer service it gave search tips, pictures, audio, video, directory, and news of what your looking if you can find it. I don’t think altavista was very exclusive because there were a ton of sites and a lot of the sites were al most the same. I think that altavista would only be good to use if you are using a really large topic because altavista gives a lot of sites, and it even has a extension of AltaVista called AltaVista Prisma which can refine the search and help a little bit more, and with all the customer service tools it just helps even more.
The search engine www.yahoo.com was very easy to get onto and very entertaining as well. To find information, all you have to do is just type the word, or words in the search box, and then it will give you all of the information it found on the subject. While it did usually find a lot of information on the topics I entered, I cannot say it always was the best information. A couple of times most of it was not even close to what I was looking for, but just random information. Customer service on Yahoo is very good, and was very easy to find on the site, and very easy to use. There is a big question mark on the top of the web page, and then that link not only takes you to customer care, but it helps you answer a lot of other questions on how to search for things, as well as it can suggest sites for you. Although there were a couple of bad searches, the engine always did find a lot of information, so when it actually did get the search right I did have a lot of information. So basically after all I think Yahoo is a great form of web e-mail, and an ok search engine.
Comparison of News Services: Will be e-mailed to you.
Technology is constantly changing the ways tasks are completed. One of the most recent advances in technology is the Internet. There are many internet services currently available and there will be many more internet services created in the future. Current services and future services will drastically change processes in personal lives as well as in businesses.
Internet services will affect the lives of people by increasing availability of services such as; online shopping, online bill payments, electronic mail and internet telephones. Online shopping will make shopping easier on people with disabilities and possibly even lower traffic. Disabled people will be able to simply click on their desired products and have them shipped to their doors with minimal effort. With more people using online shopping, there will be less people driving to stores. Less traffic could result in fewer accidents and reduced pollution. Online bill payments will make it easier to avoid late fees with automatic bill payments. This will also allow users to make payments whenever possible and not simply when the bill arrives. Electronic mail services are created every day and make it possible for people to communicate instantly and for free. In the future, e-mail usage will continue to increase as it becomes a primary source of personal communication. As internet services continue to become more efficient, the internet telephone will be more widely used. The internet telephone will allow people to communicate with each other from anywhere in the world for a minimal cost. There are currently internet phone services; however, many of them are unclear and inefficient. In the future, the increases and improvements in services such as; online shopping, online bill payments, electronic mail and internet telephones will change many processes in people’s personal lives.
With increased utilization of electronic fund transfer services, extranets, and teleconferencing; many aspects of business will change. Electronic fund transfer services will make payments and receipts simple and cost efficient. As more companies implement this internet service, payments will be instant. This service will save companies time by eliminating the usual process of receiving bills and sending out checks. Similarly, extranet services will make many business processes significantly easier. Extranets will make just-in-time inventory companies more productive. Suppliers will be able to view the raw-material needs of the companies that they supply and immediately send out those goods. Combining this service with the electronic fund transfers enables the suppliers to be paid at the same time also. Although both services are currently in use, more companies will begin to use them in the future. Finally, through internet services, teleconferencing will change the ways that many businesses conduct themselves. Through teleconferencing, meetings can be held with participants in different parts of the world. With an internet connection, many business processes will no longer require people to “go in” to work. This will also prevent meetings from being ruined by a missing person, because in the future this service will eliminate many usual excuses. Teleconferencing will also increase communication between various plants and buildings inside a business. Electronic fund transfer services, extranets and teleconferencing will continue to change business processes as more businesses begin to utilize them.
In the future, businesses and people will make dramatic changes in everyday processes, through the use of internet services. Internet services will facilitate the normal processes as most new technologies do.
Captain- Brian Bennett
I think that this project was interesting because I researched and compared the search engines yahoo, google, and altavista and also found out how www.cnn.com, www.nytimes.com , and www.usatoday.com compared to each other. In doing so I learned which ones would be the easiest, have the most information, have the best customer service, which was the most popular and the most useful. I think this project was a little confusing and hard. It was so hard to get together with everyone in our group because everyone’s obligations. And for some reason everyone in my group, including me, thought that the project was due on Thursday when actually it was due on Tuesday, but luckily someone checked the syllabus before it was due so we had enough time to get it all together. For the first project with my group in this class I would have to say it went a little rough, but when everyone had to get it done we did. So all in all it was a good first project.
Reflector- Kimberly Kelly
Overall I think our group did a pretty good job for how hard it was for all of us to meet all of the time. Even with only having four people in our group we had a lot of problems trying to meet for meetings, and trying to meet just to get the project done. But when we did get a chance to meet things went really well. Everyone seems to be doing a really good job in pulling their own weight, and making sure that they are getting their stuff accomplished. And now by making some mistakes we now know what not to do for next time, and I think we all feel that out next project will go a lot smoother, more organized, and hopefully a lot better.
Recorder- Sean Madden
In our first group project I felt that our group did a decent job of accomplishing the project despite our busy schedules. It seemed that there were few times that more than one person had free time. The lack of time caused the entire group to put off the project until we neared the deadline. I think that the next project will go much smoother because we will try to meet earlier and we will put everything together before the week of the deadline. It would be nice if there were a couple of group members that had an open schedule most days. One problem we had was when we failed to take advantage of the class time given for the project. That was one time that we all could meet; however, we decided that since we had plenty of time before the due date we could just go home early that day. I think this time around we will try to make better use of any time given in class. Relying on technology caused some problems also. When we began putting everything together, we had problems with different word processors working together. Overall I hope that we do a better job on completing future projects.