Opinion, Forums, Usenet, and Social Search Engines
Searchable Usenet newsgroup archives (now more commonly known simply as discussions or forums) offer several important sources of information that may not be found elsewhere on the Web. Use for finding information on individuals, personal product experiences, competitive intelligence, product technical support, and breaking news. However, all but Google Groups have disappeared. For personal opinions about products and individual product reviews, some of these newer online opinion and rating services can be quite useful.
| Search Engine | Default | Boolean | Phrase | Proximity | Truncation |
|
Google Groups |
AND |
OR - |
"Yes" |
None |
None |
| Epinions | OR | None | No | None | Automatic |
| ConsumerReview | OR | +, - | "Yes" | None | Yes, * |
BoardReader is a search engine that just searches Web-based discussion forums. These online discussion forums are often not indexed by other search engines. BoardReader accepts phrase searching and truncation with an asterisk. Their results include a cached copy, the date, and the number of replies.
Twing is another, newer discussion forum search engine