13/12/2012

Use Bottlenose search engine when you need trending news

This is another post that goes out to my colleagues at FeckTV as much as to the public at large about a shit-hot 'what's-hot-now' dashboard: Bottlenose.  As we are, in essence, journalists, we're always looking for trending news.

Specifically, I'd like to introduce a search engine that displays results with the trending news first.  There's a registration application as well, but there's perhaps too much to go into it all in one post.  So let's concentrate on the theory behind the Bottlenose search engine that operates within your browser, first.

Not only does Bottlenose feature the 'what's hot' news prominently, but it also displays those results in the style of a magazine or a stream or a now.  However you want to read the news, Bottlenose pretty much has it covered.

[caption id="attachment_15576" align="aligncenter" width="646"]Bottlenose screen snip my Bottlenose dashboard showing trending shit - screen snip[/caption]

Now we journos can manipulate our search to display what is to us familiar territory: new news.  Whether it's real or made up, we'll come to that in a moment.

But first, let's appreciate the traditional search engine. Google calculates page rankings on history; or at least history has a bearing. By that I mean the amount of time a site's been live on the Interent counts in SERPs indexing as well as relevance to the search term.

Google doesn't always display trending news first


For example, search any celebrity, music star, football team or location, you know that Wikipedia is gonna figure somewhere on page one of the SERPs. Whilst the Wiki is brilliant for time-honoured facts, it's not always updated instantly with trending news. If at all.

For example, yesterday's sports article was about how Arsène Wenger is sailing a bit close to the wind on the back of Arsenal's recent form. But it's not only their drop away from the big four, Man City filling their shoes and some, that's an issue.

The story is also about the added pressure on his shoulders after Arsenal crashed out of the League Cup to Bradford. If we're looking to search for "Arsenal FC" using the traditional search engines, Google or Bing/Yahoo, we know the likely results of page one, as indicated above.

Using Bottlenose, the results for "Arsenal FC" would be entirely populated with the Bradford City defeat headlines from today. Yes, you'd also get Mr Wenger's rather large conk atop a slippery French gob trying to convince us that his team played well.  But back to my earlier point.

Bottlenose does not come with a bullshit detector


Unfortunately, Bottlenose has not got a bullshit detector built into it. But as the post-game interviews on the BBC, Arsenal website and SKY are classed as trending news, yes, you'd get Wenger's froggy bullshit, too.

What Bottlenose does have is a list of the latest indexed blogs and websites on the left.  That's if you use the non-registration version.  By creating an account and aligning your social media, it becomes a whole new ball game.  More about that later, but the screen clip gives you some idea.

True, if you're looking to do background research on established facts for an article, then perhaps Bottlenose is not the search engine to use. If you're looking for hot trending news, like FeckTV is one step away from gatecrashing the online media party for instance, then Bottlenose is certainly fit for that porpoise (sorry, it took a nose-dive right at the death, but I couldn't help myself...).

No 'have your say' with this one; rather, please just share this article with every FeckTV writer that you know - it will be invaluable as we strive to be the best of the best, sir!

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