31 January 2007

OhNoRobot.com: a new search engine for webcomics

Webcomics are a huge phenomenon on the internet. The comics are usually in the form of a single strip, like those seen on the fun pages of newspapers. There are thousands of webcomics available online and some have massive followings. In the past, finding webcomics has been difficult, since fans would only be able to search in a directory or find out about locations through word of mouth. This is because of one major flaw in the way webcomics are presented: since most are image files, their text cannot be searched by conventional search engines.











However, Ryan North, the creator of popular webcomic Dinosaur Comics realised this fact; he and co-creator T. Campbell have put together a new webcomic search engine called OhNoRobot.com. OhNoRobot relies on users to transcribe the webcomics that they read using Ryan's 'distributed transcription' method. A button is displayed under a comic and whenever a reader feels that they would like to add to the database of archived comics, they can transcribe the comic to make it searchable. The site currently searches 53,298 strips over 664 comics, but this number is continually expanding.

As a search engine, OhNoRobot is comprehensive and seems very inclusive; people looking for webcomics are almost certain to find what they're looking for using this search facility. For instance, users are able to search for all webcomics with the words 'big mouth' present in them. If you happen to have a particular favourite series of webcomics, you can even search for results only in those comics. For example, you can search for all the instances of the word 'horse' in White Ninja Comics.

In the age of Web 2.0, user-generated content is fast becoming a phenomenon, especially as sites like Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers flourish. OhNoRobot is an excellent tool for readers of webcomics, not only because it allows them to search for past favourites, but also because it encourages users to encounter new and undiscovered webcomics, such as this writer's new favourite: a webcomic mostly made out of Lego.

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