In The Media A
Question of Answers
The Age, April 2 2003 Melbourne-based online
researcher Robert Skelton is part of a global community that can respond to your
most obscure queries. Every day at 5.30am Robert Skelton sits at
his computer in his bedroom in inner-city Kensington and checks if somebody has
a question for him to answer. Such as: What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Or: Did Jesus drink alcohol? Or: What is the secret of women?* Skelton,
37, knows it all, or as much as can be known. He is one of a handful of Australians
who work for Google Answers, an Internet research service that promises to answer
pretty much anything for a fee. More...
Free
for all on the web
The Age, May 12 2005 It's a sentiment repeated
by marketing professional Rob Skelton, who founded the Melbourne community in
November 2003. It was Australia's first Freecycle group, and has since been followed
by 38 more, most recently in Shepparton in March. "Each time I see
an offer of a large item like a sofa I feel good," Mr Skelton says. "(But)
it is just the tip of the iceberg in Australia. In the US, some cities have 9000
members, and in Austin, Texas, members account for 1.5 per cent of the population.
If we managed 1.5 per cent, that would be something like 40,000 or 50,000 members.
Right now we have 1100 members. "Mostly we have offers of furniture,
appliances, computer products, garden items and baby things. But we have also
had a worm factory, an Elizabethan dog collar, carp fertiliser, yoga bricks, bus
seats, lapidary equipment, spinnakers and an eight-tonne truck. We discourage
requests for items that you could not reasonably expect to be lying unused in
a member's home." More...
A nice collection of search engines complete with forms integrated into the
site is available at SearchEngines ( http://searchenginez.com/ ). The front page
provides a drop-down menu of several different search categories at the top of
the page, including search engines, news, and reference. Choose a category
and you'll get taken to a page of search forms, annotation, and search hints.
There's also a "more resources" list at the bottom of the page in addition
to the resources with annotation/forms. Further down on the page you'll
find links to pages of more specialty content forms, including currency converters,
health, images, and, um, video game cheats. Along the left side of the page you'll
find listings of new and updated resources. Some of these were to be expected
(Amazon) and some not (Walhello.)
Research
Buzz, Dec 2002
Beyond
Google: Search Compilations
MicroDoc News, April 1 2003
SearchEngineZ
Search engines are cool. This site is cooler. The premise is this: No
matter how effective or thorough Yahoo! or AltaVista may be in helping you find
information on the Web, these sites are still loaded with lots of unnecessary
graphics and ads. This site offers a way to search without all the bells and whistles.
(Jacksonville.com
WebWatch)
Finding
a Dated Cache, TVC Alert, 20 March
2003
WORTH A LOOK: GoogleFan.com
Within this site you will find the latest (and archived) news, links
and free GoogleFan email addresses to let the world know how much you love Google!
[SearchEngineGuide]
Newsletter 2003-02-17
The best all-purpose, one-stop people search
page I've ever found and used is this: http://searchenginez.com/ Gives
an exhaustive sellection of free search resources, plus a option to use more powerful
pay services when the free ones hit a wall. It seems that this guy went to a LOT
of trouble. God bless him. Straight Dope MessageBoard
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182190
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