Collecta vs. Google in real-time search matchup

With the Iran government locking down principal sources of information emerging from the country's borders, the unofficial channels are becoming flooded with information from everyday citizens everywhere chronicling the changes to their country from their perspective. So a search anywhere for Iran election could provide you with reports or correspondence having to do with any number of events triggered by the election itself.

Suppose you're specifically interested in the status or well-being of the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the subject of our next test query. This is a touchy subject, especially for Iran where knowing where a popular candidate is located is not always a good thing.

In a chain of events that is literally unfolding by the minute, it is astounding to find that Google News' latest entry on Mousavi is dated last Tuesday -- six days ago. There's some good biographical information in there for folks who are just tuning into the story, but nothing for someone who would like an update on whether the fellow is still alive and safe. In fact, what you'd see here is no newer than what you might find in your dentist office's waiting room.

By comparison, while Collecta's first dozen or so tweets on the subject were the same one -- moreover, a link to a biographical piece from several days ago -- down the list was a blog post that linked to an Associated Press video dated today, released on the AP's YouTube channel. There's Mousavi in public, standing before a crowd, promising protesters of the certified election results that he will stand by them.

So on the one hand, Collecta beat Google in pointing Internet users toward the source of the information they're looking for. On the other hand, it's a very roundabout way of getting this information: a link to a personal blog whose publisher has some very outspoken viewpoints on some subjects, so not exactly a "fair and balanced" source. But it included the video.

However, as was the case with the Steve Jobs news, anyone who truly knew where to find such news would have already located it. The AP video channel is right there on YouTube (ironically, owned by Google), and it's providing the latest videos from wherever professional and amateur journalists have been able to grab them, with camcorders or cell phones or sketch pads. What's more, there are hundreds of Twitter feeds currently operating now with information of some sort emerging from Tehran and elsewhere, none of which were featured on either Collecta or Google. In fairness to Google, a search of Google Blogs did pull up posts dated a few hours ago about Mousavi, but those posts appeared to be links to other sources (e.g., Fox News) whose video was already more than a week old.

Right now, if there is any battle between Collecta and Google, it's in the bluster department: Google touts numbers like "4,906 results" that appear to be drawn at random, while Collecta provides a dozen or so very recent results whose quality or accuracy or reliability is not what it could be.