Teachers. Technology. Transformation.

I was driving this afternoon with my radio tuned to NPR (of course!) when I happened to catch this story about Bing vs. Google. I must admit, I have only used Bing once, so when I heard about this person who was going to only use Bing for a week, I was intrigued. As you know, I am a Google fan and I would have a hard time leaving my favorite search engine for another. Listen to the story...

Bing_vs_Google

I did visit the Bing-vs-Google web site mentioned in the piece to see the side by side comparison for a search on "Darin Wagner". I was pleased to see that on both engines, this blog was in the top three. Not too shabby.

Anyway, before I write off Bing, I will give it a try - an extended try. But I believe there is much truth to the idea that it is better to master one search engine, whatever your preference, so that you can effectively use that tool. So, in fariness, let's see what Bing can do...

Earlier this month, the Diigo Blog posted about a change to the “Diigo + Google” search box. If you have the Diigo Toolbar installed in your browser, and I know you do, go to the search box and enter a search term. Diigo now uses an auto-suggest of keywords from your Diigo “My Tags + Search History” plus “Goolge Suggest“.

When the results appear, your Google results will display in the left column and any results from your library or your community library appear on the right side. This all assumes that you have the search tool active. If you don't, visit the blog site to follow directions for making it available. Have fun searching!

When I opened my Inbox this morning, there was a message from AppJet Inc., the creators of EtherPad. I have written about this online tool in two previous posts. Anyway, AppJet has been acquired by Google and will continue to develop their real-time collaboration tool by joining the Google Wave team. So, as an EtherPad user, I was sent an invitation to get started with Google Wave! I had applied to get an invitation to Google Wave a couple of months ago but hadn't heard anything, so I was very excited to get this one.

As you can imagine, I accepted the invitation immediately and took a quick look around. I have to explore some more before I will feel comfortable with the tool but am really looking forward to this experience. Will let you know how it works out for me!

So, if you, too, are an EtherPad user, expect your invitation soon! And in case you are worried about your existing pads, read about the transition plan. Catch you on the Wave!