Search Insider: Just The 'Factz' On Smarter 'Surch Enginez'

What don't the major search engines do well? That's a burning question these days from way too many parties. It comes up in John Battelle's most recent post, which culminates in a plea for teaching search literacy in schools, and then journalist Cyrus Farivar's thoughtful commentary on it. It's a hot topic on Alt Search Engines, where Charles Knight finds and promotes startups that beat the engines at their own game. And of course it's the raison d'and#234;tre for all those engines. There are two ways to address the problem of engines' shortcomings. One way is to make the engines smarter. The other is to make the users smarter. With any luck we'll meet somewhere in the middle.