

Firefox plugin extends Google & Wikipedia with "1-Click Web Explorer" - webzzle
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9929

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thorax
Maybe a screenshot or something would help? I'm not grokking what this does
(though I may not have my caffeine yet).

Edit: Tracked back to the homepage and I have a better idea now.

<http://www.webzzle.com>

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webzzle
A screenshot in the Mozilla addon page ?

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thorax
Yeah, like most other addons do:

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6138>

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5890>

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webzzle
You're right. I understand what you mean. I'll do it.

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webzzle
I'm one the founder of Webzzle and I'd like to get as many feedbacks as
possible in order to improve Webzzle. We want to build Webzzle with the
community.

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timdorr
First off, it needs a much better explanation of what it does. I tried the
home page and the addons page. I have no clue what the hell this thing does.
It combines Wikipedia and Google results in some way? I don't see how that's
relevant. Your current tagline is way too technical and buzzwordy. Explain to
me what I'm getting while dumbing it down as much as you can.

Example: <http://www.webzzle.com/intl/en/help.html> This presentation is
confusing as fuck and waaaaay too verbose. I have to weed through 10 slides of
diagrams and explanations to figure out what this thing is about? No thanks!

Edit: Actually, what's really missing is a use case or example. Everything's
telling me how this is useful and very advanced stuff and how awesome it's
supposed to be, but I have no clue how I'd use it and what I would use it for.
Both of those questions could be solved by a good demonstration. Usually when
you have something as complex as this, examples are the best way to dumb it
down and get the point across easily.

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webzzle
1) We use references and external links brought and qualified by 8.5 millions
people (the Wikipedia community). 2) We send more than 20 searches to Google
when you post a URL to Webzzle. We examine the results for you, filter and
presents the best. It saves time and you get much better quality results. Try
to explore from a Linkedin profile page for example. You'll get better Google
results for instance. The usual problem we face is that when we explain the
tech, people get lost. We try only to speak about the feature. I can tell a
lot about the tech. We work on Webzzle since 1999. But it has been hard to
bring the Object technology to the users.

~~~
timdorr
You're still just explaining the process, but not what the results actually
are. What do I use this for? What are these results? I understand that you're
pooling Wikipedia and Google together, but I don't get at all how that
benefits me.

Try to condense it to less than 10 words and in a phrase that describes what I
get out of it.

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webzzle
The results come from the real-time community actions and from the Google
index you use everyday. Basically, Webzzle is to 'explore' what Google is to
'search'. We all use Google to search but Google is using keywords. It's good
when it's the first step of your search process but not convenient when you
want to know more from a Web page. What keywords will you select ? At Webzzle,
we analyse the Web page from which you want to know more (chen you click
'explore' and send one query to Webzzle (to get Real-Time knowledge from the
community) and many queries to Google in order to help you find the best
results in 1 click instead of multiples keywords queries by yourself in the
Google search interface.

~~~
baddox
I for one am still confused. I went to the wikipedia page for "disco" and hit
Explore. It took me to a webzzle page with a link to a disco band and a list
of top disco songs, then a google "enhanced results" list which was basically
the standard google results for "disco" but with only results related to
music. For example, the Mac burning software "Disco" is #2 on google, but
didn't appear on the webzzle results. So I understand that it's working by not
showing non-music-related results, but I still don't grasp the purpose. Please
give an example of a usage of this program, for example: while at pageA I
clicked Explore because I wanted to see X and these results helped me out.

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webzzle
You start to get it. We basically use Wikipedia content to build the semantic
Web and try to dramatically improve the search results quality. We build the
meaning based Web. Keywords don't handle the meaning. The purpose of the
explore feature is to save time for the user in the search results analysis
process and get higher quality results : go straight to better results. As the
community grows, the Webzzle results improve. It's the knowledge network
effect.

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heed
Interesting, I will try this out.

But what I'm really looking for in search is the ability to sort results by
date (I know you can filter by 'past 24 hours' in google, but the results are
not sorted) and simultaneously view in real-time.

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webzzle
The Webzzle technology takes the date into account to rank results. However,
we don't provide a filter to select a date range. The 'Relative Energy' levels
(used to give a score to a Web resource and a Web user) are time variable.

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webzzle
Webzzle is to 'explore' what Google is to 'search'. We all use Google to
search but Google is using keywords. It's good when it's the first step of
your search process but not convenient when you want to know more from a Web
page. What keywords will you select ? At Webzzle, we analyse the Web page from
which you want to know more (chen you click 'explore' and send one query to
Webzzle (to get Real-Time knowledge from the community) and many queries to
Google in order to help you find the best results in 1 click instead of
multiples keywords queries by yourself in the Google search interface.

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ynniv
I can't figure out how this is supposed to be useful. The website doesn't have
data for pages that I've tried it on, and it doesn't seem like I can somehow
contribute any... The pomp without substance gives me the feeling that I'm
being had. I actually opened up the source code to make sure it isn't doing
anything bad to my computer :-/

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webzzle
Webzzle has been initially populated with Wikipedia references and external
links. When, there is no data in Webzzle & Wikipedia, we present the enhanced
Google results. That avoids you to launch many keywords searches, filter the
results and browse the best ones. If you want to contribute, you open an
account, put the 'save' button in your browser and save the Web pages using
Wikipedia concepts. The saved pages will be in your organizer.

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pasbesoin
Intriguing, but the Addons page doesn't demonstrate how it works in detail,
and the product's website is fairly uninformative to someone using NoScript.
I'd suggest that the latter fail more gracefully in the absence of scripting.

Edit: Ok, one in from the initial landing page, there is this link, under
Publisher Tools, which has some more detail:

<http://www.webzzle.com/intl/en/publisher_tools.html>

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webzzle
This slideshow explains how it works. You need scripts to use Webzzle.
<http://www.webzzle.com/intl/en/help.html>

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pasbesoin
I may just be a bit of an antique ;-), but I like to be able to do an initial
evaluation of a website / product without enabling scripting. If I'm
interested enough and develop a basic trust, I may enable scripting and
investigate further.

I'm not criticizing the use of scripting in the product or its website. I'd
just like to be able to form a bit more of an impression without needing to
enable it.

I like the concept of merging Wikipedia and Google results (and/or other
combinations). I've been growing increasingly dissatisfied with direct search
engine results; it's taking longer and longer to find the decent content
within all the noise.

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webzzle
We need scripts because of the Ajax autocomplete feature and because of the
concepts selection mechanism to build an object query. That's all. Thanks for
your comment. With a growing community (lke the one of Wikipedia), Webzzle can
bring more and more value everyday to our quest of knowledge.

