Friday, March 31, 2006
John Battelle's Searchblog: Oh, To Be A Fly On The Wall In A Facebook Board Meeting:
"Om says: when offered $750 million for your company, well... Erhmmm. TAKE IT. Bizweek is reporting that the company turned that figure down and is looking for something more like $2 billion.
Is this going to be another Friendster tale of woe?
Well, perhaps. As I learned when similar sized offers came to the Standard's board table, selling the company is not always the entrepreneurs' decision. The investors usually have final word, though I have no idea if that is true or not in the case of Facebook. And the company does have a remarkable business, in terms of its nearly complete reach into one of the most sought after markets in America - college kids. I can certainly see why Facebook board members might pound the table and say 'We're worth more, dammit!'
But, twenty years from now, I'm not sure anyone in the deal would argue that taking $750 million was such a bad move. Especially when the money in was about $13 million, and the damn worm of cool turns so fast in this business..."
"Om says: when offered $750 million for your company, well... Erhmmm. TAKE IT. Bizweek is reporting that the company turned that figure down and is looking for something more like $2 billion.
Is this going to be another Friendster tale of woe?
Well, perhaps. As I learned when similar sized offers came to the Standard's board table, selling the company is not always the entrepreneurs' decision. The investors usually have final word, though I have no idea if that is true or not in the case of Facebook. And the company does have a remarkable business, in terms of its nearly complete reach into one of the most sought after markets in America - college kids. I can certainly see why Facebook board members might pound the table and say 'We're worth more, dammit!'
But, twenty years from now, I'm not sure anyone in the deal would argue that taking $750 million was such a bad move. Especially when the money in was about $13 million, and the damn worm of cool turns so fast in this business..."
Thursday, March 30, 2006
John Battelle's Searchblog: Higest Paying AdWords:
"I love lists like this. Recently updated highest paying keywords from Google. Top Ten:
$54.33 mesothelioma lawyers
$47.79 what is mesothelioma
$47.72 peritoneal mesothelioma
$47.25 consolidate loans
$47.16 refinancing mortgage
$45.55 tax attorney
$41.22 mesothelioma
$38.86 car accident lawyer
$38.68 ameriquest mortgage
$38.03 mortgage refinance
Found on Xooglers..."
"I love lists like this. Recently updated highest paying keywords from Google. Top Ten:
$54.33 mesothelioma lawyers
$47.79 what is mesothelioma
$47.72 peritoneal mesothelioma
$47.25 consolidate loans
$47.16 refinancing mortgage
$45.55 tax attorney
$41.22 mesothelioma
$38.86 car accident lawyer
$38.68 ameriquest mortgage
$38.03 mortgage refinance
Found on Xooglers..."
New Google Local Ads Being Tested; Coffee Icons Within Google Maps; GeoAds?:
"Google is testing placing icons within Google Maps, for some Google Local searches. For example (it only works if you are on a PC), conduct a search on booksellers nyc at Google Local. You will notice little coffee icons in within the maps. If you click on the coffee icon, you will see a 'sponsored listing' for Barnes and Noble. This was first discovered by Shimon Sandler and then I blogged it over at the SEW Blog (check the SEW blog for screen shots of this in action).
In the past, Google tried sponsored listing in Google Local and Google Maps with blue balloons."
"Google is testing placing icons within Google Maps, for some Google Local searches. For example (it only works if you are on a PC), conduct a search on booksellers nyc at Google Local. You will notice little coffee icons in within the maps. If you click on the coffee icon, you will see a 'sponsored listing' for Barnes and Noble. This was first discovered by Shimon Sandler and then I blogged it over at the SEW Blog (check the SEW blog for screen shots of this in action).
In the past, Google tried sponsored listing in Google Local and Google Maps with blue balloons."
Official Google Blog: Google Reader learns to share:
"Mom always taught us to share and now we know why: it's fun. Google Reader, which keeps track of websites you like to read regularly, just added the ability to share what you like to read with your friends.
You can send a link to your starred items in Reader, and you can even put a clip on your blog with recent items from your reading list. For instance, I mark all of the interesting posts that I find as 'linkblog.' Then my friends can subscribe to my 'linkblog' label -- even if they don't use Google Reader -- and visitors to my blog can see it in the sidebar..."
"Mom always taught us to share and now we know why: it's fun. Google Reader, which keeps track of websites you like to read regularly, just added the ability to share what you like to read with your friends.
You can send a link to your starred items in Reader, and you can even put a clip on your blog with recent items from your reading list. For instance, I mark all of the interesting posts that I find as 'linkblog.' Then my friends can subscribe to my 'linkblog' label -- even if they don't use Google Reader -- and visitors to my blog can see it in the sidebar..."
It's Official: US Ad Spending Is Up:
"MARCH 25, 2006
It is now unanimous. 2005 was a very good year for US ad spending, and particularly good for online, Spanish-language and cable advertising.
According to figures just released by Nielsen Media Research, total US advertising spending in 2005 was 4.2% higher than in 2004, reflecting increases in most major media.
Spending growth was led by the Internet, which was up 23%, and Spanish-language and cable TV, which were up 17% and 11% respectively. Local and national consumer magazine advertising rebounded as well, with a 10% increase over 2004.
The ten largest advertisers, though, spent only $17 billion in 2005, up a mere 0.3% from 2004.
Spending in the 10 largest industry categories, however, reached over $43 billion for the year, a more healthy 5.4% gain over 2004.
The mobile phone industry was the fastest growing in terms of percent increase over the prior year. In fact, almost all product categories increased spending, with the exception of local automotive dealerships, which was down slightly. But, for the industry as a whole, the drop was more than offset by increased spending at the automotive factory and dealer association levels.
For more information on this topic, read the eMarketer report Ad Spending Trends: The Internet and Other Media ."
"MARCH 25, 2006
It is now unanimous. 2005 was a very good year for US ad spending, and particularly good for online, Spanish-language and cable advertising.
According to figures just released by Nielsen Media Research, total US advertising spending in 2005 was 4.2% higher than in 2004, reflecting increases in most major media.
Spending growth was led by the Internet, which was up 23%, and Spanish-language and cable TV, which were up 17% and 11% respectively. Local and national consumer magazine advertising rebounded as well, with a 10% increase over 2004.
The ten largest advertisers, though, spent only $17 billion in 2005, up a mere 0.3% from 2004.
Spending in the 10 largest industry categories, however, reached over $43 billion for the year, a more healthy 5.4% gain over 2004.
The mobile phone industry was the fastest growing in terms of percent increase over the prior year. In fact, almost all product categories increased spending, with the exception of local automotive dealerships, which was down slightly. But, for the industry as a whole, the drop was more than offset by increased spending at the automotive factory and dealer association levels.
For more information on this topic, read the eMarketer report Ad Spending Trends: The Internet and Other Media ."
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Ask.com's New Motto: Be Evil?:
"...At this point Diller was eager to turn the discussion back to the pragmatic side of search, suggesting an Ask slogan could be "use tools, be human," and insisting that as search evolved, the tools that are best for the job would evolve. "Search is an evolutionary process," he argued. "It's not simply ten blue links."...
...Sullivan asked about what Diller's team looked at when they considered a potential acquisition in search. At first, Diller admitted, "we spent a long time thinking of search engines defensively—could they disintermediate Expedia, etc.—but next, we asked, 'is there an opportunity?'"
The opportunity, Diller maintains, is that no media business in history has held at 30-40% market share. This analysis, though, depends on whether you accept that search engines or web services companies are like 'media' businesses (so, a media mogul like Diller or Semel logically descends from the heights to manage one), or whether they're more like technology standards (so better run by uber-geeks like Gates and Schmidt). If Diller's right in his characterization, Ask is poised for growth.
A further condition would seem to be admitting that IAC's properties must eventually be knitted together in a more self-conscious portal model with Ask as the glue. The "holding company" patter would need to be traded in for a self-consciously cohesive "media company" image. "Media company" or "portal" aren't quite the right terms for IAC, though. Given that they have a deeper focus in direct ecommerce plays in key fields than most of their competitors, and less focus in other areas, "The Ecommerce Portal" might be the best unofficial description for the group. Searchability is as integral to this group of web properties as it is for Amazon.com, so a vibrant search technology division can't help but improve operations. Perhaps not coincidentally, IAC is worth just a bit less than Amazon ($9.7 billion to $15 billion). Users need world-class navigation.
Whatever the grand plan, it's clear that Diller and the team (including Jim Lanzone, who demonstrated a few of Ask's new features for the audience) are fully engaged and enjoying the opportunity to directly influence one of the most exciting media(?) companies in the world today. For that ride, it seems, they wouldn't trade all the tea in China.
And he won't be cheap. Promises Diller: "Capital investment will support Ask in a way they weren't before." Search engines have always been better when not forced to monetize every pixel. As I like to say when a search engine is content to undermonetize in a bid for market share: enjoy it while it lasts, dear user..."
"...At this point Diller was eager to turn the discussion back to the pragmatic side of search, suggesting an Ask slogan could be "use tools, be human," and insisting that as search evolved, the tools that are best for the job would evolve. "Search is an evolutionary process," he argued. "It's not simply ten blue links."...
...Sullivan asked about what Diller's team looked at when they considered a potential acquisition in search. At first, Diller admitted, "we spent a long time thinking of search engines defensively—could they disintermediate Expedia, etc.—but next, we asked, 'is there an opportunity?'"
The opportunity, Diller maintains, is that no media business in history has held at 30-40% market share. This analysis, though, depends on whether you accept that search engines or web services companies are like 'media' businesses (so, a media mogul like Diller or Semel logically descends from the heights to manage one), or whether they're more like technology standards (so better run by uber-geeks like Gates and Schmidt). If Diller's right in his characterization, Ask is poised for growth.
A further condition would seem to be admitting that IAC's properties must eventually be knitted together in a more self-conscious portal model with Ask as the glue. The "holding company" patter would need to be traded in for a self-consciously cohesive "media company" image. "Media company" or "portal" aren't quite the right terms for IAC, though. Given that they have a deeper focus in direct ecommerce plays in key fields than most of their competitors, and less focus in other areas, "The Ecommerce Portal" might be the best unofficial description for the group. Searchability is as integral to this group of web properties as it is for Amazon.com, so a vibrant search technology division can't help but improve operations. Perhaps not coincidentally, IAC is worth just a bit less than Amazon ($9.7 billion to $15 billion). Users need world-class navigation.
Whatever the grand plan, it's clear that Diller and the team (including Jim Lanzone, who demonstrated a few of Ask's new features for the audience) are fully engaged and enjoying the opportunity to directly influence one of the most exciting media(?) companies in the world today. For that ride, it seems, they wouldn't trade all the tea in China.
And he won't be cheap. Promises Diller: "Capital investment will support Ask in a way they weren't before." Search engines have always been better when not forced to monetize every pixel. As I like to say when a search engine is content to undermonetize in a bid for market share: enjoy it while it lasts, dear user..."
Monday, March 27, 2006
John Battelle's Searchblog: Local Matters Going IPO:
"I've spoken off and on over the years with Local Matters' CEO Perry Evans, and watched as he rolled up his company, formerly Aptas, into a major online Yellow Pages and directory play. I missed it due to all my travels, but last week Local Matters filed to go public. Perry was the founder of Jabber and always struck me as extremely thoughtful. Though he's in a quiet period now, I'll be pinging him to see if he'd like to speak with us..."
"I've spoken off and on over the years with Local Matters' CEO Perry Evans, and watched as he rolled up his company, formerly Aptas, into a major online Yellow Pages and directory play. I missed it due to all my travels, but last week Local Matters filed to go public. Perry was the founder of Jabber and always struck me as extremely thoughtful. Though he's in a quiet period now, I'll be pinging him to see if he'd like to speak with us..."
Wiser About The Web:
"...advertising executives predict that the display banners and videos that appear on Web pages will outpace search this year. "Most of the big money [advertisers] -- cars, movies, packaged goods -- are putting more of their budgets into display," says Jeff Lanctot, general manager at agency Avenue A/Razorfish (AQNT ), the world's largest buyer of Internet ads. "We think growth in search will fall back in '06." Google's chief financial officer, George Reyes, hinted much the same when he indicated on Feb. 28 that Google's per-customer growth in search advertising had topped out, triggering an investor stampede.
As brand advertisers push into display ads, they're hungry for new measurements. With the page view as its standard metric, display has always been far less accountable than search. Sure, Web sites can count the times an ad pops up on a page someone visits. But how many of the readers actually focus on the ad? Studies show that they take in only an average of one of every 12 Internet ads. What's more, in display advertising, even the more concrete metric of clicks is questionable. "Click measurement has been abused," says Greg Stuart, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in New York, an industry group. "There's no relationship between clicks and brand awareness."
Some 18 months ago, Stuart's group set out to quantify the value of Internet ads and to compare them with advertisements in other media. The agenda was clear: to attract advertisers, who were placing only about 3% of their budgets online. The resulting IAB studies, which involved 30 major advertisers, including Procter & Gamble (PG ), Kraft Foods (KFT ), and Ford Motor (F ), used testing methods similar to those of social scientists. They created control groups, exposed them to mixes of advertisements from various media, and tracked their effects in recall, brand recognition, and intent to purchase. The IAB concluded that most of the advertisers were underspending online -- and advertisers agreed. Ford, which was spending less than 5% of its ad budget online, quickly moved to triple it...
...
PRIME NET REAL ESTATE
As ads spew out more data, their value rises. According to Avenue A/Razorfish, a banner on a leading portal, such as Yahoo or MSN, now costs about $500,000 for a day, about the same as a 30-second spot on a hit TV series such as CBS's CSI. Some 20 million to 25 million unique visitors stop by while the ad is up. These spots are so hot that the portals, like TV networks, sell them long in advance. And as a condition for prime real estate, portals demand that advertisers buy inventory on their less popular pages..."
"...advertising executives predict that the display banners and videos that appear on Web pages will outpace search this year. "Most of the big money [advertisers] -- cars, movies, packaged goods -- are putting more of their budgets into display," says Jeff Lanctot, general manager at agency Avenue A/Razorfish (AQNT ), the world's largest buyer of Internet ads. "We think growth in search will fall back in '06." Google's chief financial officer, George Reyes, hinted much the same when he indicated on Feb. 28 that Google's per-customer growth in search advertising had topped out, triggering an investor stampede.
As brand advertisers push into display ads, they're hungry for new measurements. With the page view as its standard metric, display has always been far less accountable than search. Sure, Web sites can count the times an ad pops up on a page someone visits. But how many of the readers actually focus on the ad? Studies show that they take in only an average of one of every 12 Internet ads. What's more, in display advertising, even the more concrete metric of clicks is questionable. "Click measurement has been abused," says Greg Stuart, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in New York, an industry group. "There's no relationship between clicks and brand awareness."
Some 18 months ago, Stuart's group set out to quantify the value of Internet ads and to compare them with advertisements in other media. The agenda was clear: to attract advertisers, who were placing only about 3% of their budgets online. The resulting IAB studies, which involved 30 major advertisers, including Procter & Gamble (PG ), Kraft Foods (KFT ), and Ford Motor (F ), used testing methods similar to those of social scientists. They created control groups, exposed them to mixes of advertisements from various media, and tracked their effects in recall, brand recognition, and intent to purchase. The IAB concluded that most of the advertisers were underspending online -- and advertisers agreed. Ford, which was spending less than 5% of its ad budget online, quickly moved to triple it...
...
PRIME NET REAL ESTATE
As ads spew out more data, their value rises. According to Avenue A/Razorfish, a banner on a leading portal, such as Yahoo or MSN, now costs about $500,000 for a day, about the same as a 30-second spot on a hit TV series such as CBS's CSI. Some 20 million to 25 million unique visitors stop by while the ad is up. These spots are so hot that the portals, like TV networks, sell them long in advance. And as a condition for prime real estate, portals demand that advertisers buy inventory on their less popular pages..."
Online Publishers Association: Newsletters:
"Pew: Broadband drives more people to get news online
Yet another survey shows just how important the online realm is for news consumption in America. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 43% of broadband users turn to the Internet to get news on an average day at the end of 2005. That compares to just 26% of dial-up users who get their news online. Among broadband users, the Internet (43%) tops newspapers (38%) as a source for news. However, the AP points out that the survey shows people are unwilling to pay for news they get online. While half of Net users have registered to get free news on websites, only 6% have paid for video, articles or other news items online. 'The growth of broadband penetration has now totally changed the way people are getting news,' Pew's John Horrigan said. 'High-powered Internet users are clearly going to the Net for news over every other media form.'
»Young people turn to the Web for news (USA Today)
»Pew: Web Users Still Unlikely to Pay for News (AP)
»Many turn to Net for news (Detroit Free Press)
»Study: More readers turning to the Web for news (News.com)
»Online News: For many home broadband users, the internet is a primary news "
"Pew: Broadband drives more people to get news online
Yet another survey shows just how important the online realm is for news consumption in America. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 43% of broadband users turn to the Internet to get news on an average day at the end of 2005. That compares to just 26% of dial-up users who get their news online. Among broadband users, the Internet (43%) tops newspapers (38%) as a source for news. However, the AP points out that the survey shows people are unwilling to pay for news they get online. While half of Net users have registered to get free news on websites, only 6% have paid for video, articles or other news items online. 'The growth of broadband penetration has now totally changed the way people are getting news,' Pew's John Horrigan said. 'High-powered Internet users are clearly going to the Net for news over every other media form.'
»Young people turn to the Web for news (USA Today)
»Pew: Web Users Still Unlikely to Pay for News (AP)
»Many turn to Net for news (Detroit Free Press)
»Study: More readers turning to the Web for news (News.com)
»Online News: For many home broadband users, the internet is a primary news "
Friday, March 24, 2006
Yahoo dumps Yahoo Plus service | CNET News.com:
"Yahoo on Thursday said that it was discontinuing its Yahoo Plus service, a bundle of offerings including a broadband-optimized portal, extra storage for mail, photos and other data, premium video content, ad-free radio and online security services. The service, which cost $5.95 a month or $47.40 a year, will be discontinued beginning April 23, the company said in an e-mail sent to customers Wednesday.
'We are discontinuing our Yahoo Plus service as part of our ongoing commitment to focus on businesses that are core to our future growth,' a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail on Thursday. 'We always listen to our users and assess which businesses it makes the most sense for Yahoo to operate in and it has become clear that Plus was not an essential service for Yahoo users.' Yahoo has a frequently asked questions page with more information."
"Yahoo on Thursday said that it was discontinuing its Yahoo Plus service, a bundle of offerings including a broadband-optimized portal, extra storage for mail, photos and other data, premium video content, ad-free radio and online security services. The service, which cost $5.95 a month or $47.40 a year, will be discontinued beginning April 23, the company said in an e-mail sent to customers Wednesday.
'We are discontinuing our Yahoo Plus service as part of our ongoing commitment to focus on businesses that are core to our future growth,' a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail on Thursday. 'We always listen to our users and assess which businesses it makes the most sense for Yahoo to operate in and it has become clear that Plus was not an essential service for Yahoo users.' Yahoo has a frequently asked questions page with more information."
TechCrunch » AjaxWrite, the Newest Ajax Office Entrant:
"AjaxWrite, an online Ajax version of Word, is the newest entrant into the online office space. It opens and saves documents in Word format (you can also save in PDF), has good basic functionality and is fairly fast. I agree with Michael Robertson, the man behind AjaxWrite, that this and other Ajax Word products like Writely and Zoho Writer significanly reduce the need for most of the world’s population to buy Microsoft Word.
AjaxWrite is bare bones by design and fast. If you need to read and/or edit a Word doc quickly, this is a workable solution and I assume it will get better and faster over time. AjaxWrite currently is Firefox only.
Michael also tells us to look out for new weekly Ajax applications at his new site, AjaxLaunch. AjaxWrite is the first. I’m looking forward to the next..."
"AjaxWrite, an online Ajax version of Word, is the newest entrant into the online office space. It opens and saves documents in Word format (you can also save in PDF), has good basic functionality and is fairly fast. I agree with Michael Robertson, the man behind AjaxWrite, that this and other Ajax Word products like Writely and Zoho Writer significanly reduce the need for most of the world’s population to buy Microsoft Word.
AjaxWrite is bare bones by design and fast. If you need to read and/or edit a Word doc quickly, this is a workable solution and I assume it will get better and faster over time. AjaxWrite currently is Firefox only.
Michael also tells us to look out for new weekly Ajax applications at his new site, AjaxLaunch. AjaxWrite is the first. I’m looking forward to the next..."
ResearchBuzz: Keotag -- Meta Tag Search With Preview:
"...Keotag (http://keotag.com/) ... Keotag (it's in beta) is a search engine that queries a variety of tag sites and lets you preview the answers from one results screen on Keotag. A couple of the search engine choices are odd, but this site is nifty.
Go to Keotag and enter a query; simpler ones are better because you are searching tag sites. Keotag refreshes with a Technorati graph showing you how active that query has been (sometimes the graph is blank) and a set of icons. If you mouseover the icons you'll get a popup showing you with what search engines they're affiliated. Many of the search engines will be familiar to you -- Technorati, Yahoo, Feedster, Google blog search, etc.
Click on an icon and a preview window will open showing you a summary of the content from that site. For example, click on the Technorati icon and you'll get a list of Technorati's tag search result for your query. (Note that the tag search is NOT the blog search. The tag search is in my experience more limited in its results.) You won't get any additional information that you might get from the search result at the site, like index date, source, or page size. It's just like getting a headline-only RSS feed. The results from a site also include an XML link to get an RSS feed for that specific query from the site.
This is a good idea that's well-implemented, though I confess there were some resources I missed. It seemed odd to have, for example, 43 Things as one of the search results. It didn't seem to fit. On the other hand, it would have been nice to see resources here like FindArticles and Flickr, as well as some of the newer tagging sites like Ma.gnolia. (Don't get me wrong, I think 43 Things is a great site. It just didn't seem to fit with the other offerings here.)"
"...Keotag (http://keotag.com/) ... Keotag (it's in beta) is a search engine that queries a variety of tag sites and lets you preview the answers from one results screen on Keotag. A couple of the search engine choices are odd, but this site is nifty.
Go to Keotag and enter a query; simpler ones are better because you are searching tag sites. Keotag refreshes with a Technorati graph showing you how active that query has been (sometimes the graph is blank) and a set of icons. If you mouseover the icons you'll get a popup showing you with what search engines they're affiliated. Many of the search engines will be familiar to you -- Technorati, Yahoo, Feedster, Google blog search, etc.
Click on an icon and a preview window will open showing you a summary of the content from that site. For example, click on the Technorati icon and you'll get a list of Technorati's tag search result for your query. (Note that the tag search is NOT the blog search. The tag search is in my experience more limited in its results.) You won't get any additional information that you might get from the search result at the site, like index date, source, or page size. It's just like getting a headline-only RSS feed. The results from a site also include an XML link to get an RSS feed for that specific query from the site.
This is a good idea that's well-implemented, though I confess there were some resources I missed. It seemed odd to have, for example, 43 Things as one of the search results. It didn't seem to fit. On the other hand, it would have been nice to see resources here like FindArticles and Flickr, as well as some of the newer tagging sites like Ma.gnolia. (Don't get me wrong, I think 43 Things is a great site. It just didn't seem to fit with the other offerings here.)"
TechCrunch » Riya - 1 Million Photos in 2 Days:
"Tara Hunt, Riya’s chief blogger, says on her personal blog that they’ve had a million photos uploaded just two days after launching. Wow, that’s a lot of pictures. Congratulations (again) Riya.
More on what Riya is all about here."
Note: Also check out http://www.riya.com/location
"Tara Hunt, Riya’s chief blogger, says on her personal blog that they’ve had a million photos uploaded just two days after launching. Wow, that’s a lot of pictures. Congratulations (again) Riya.
More on what Riya is all about here."
Note: Also check out http://www.riya.com/location
Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » Secrets behind MySpace’s success:
"I met MySpace’s CTO, Aber Whitcomb, last night at the posh and packed MySpace party here at Mix06 and I asked him how MySpace got so popular. He cited a few things:
1) They made sure influentials in Hollywood (stars, bands) were among the first users.
2) They listen to their users and add features frequently (usually noticeable new features every week).
3) They let the users tell them what to do. He mentioned that other services, like Friendster, tried to tell their users what not to do.
4) When MySpace visitors first log on they already had a friend: the founder Tom. That was in contrast to other services where you had to work to find your first friend. His page also gave you a template to get started.
These things mirror what Danah Boyd noticed in her essay: Is MySpace just a fad? She says that we need to pay attention to MySpace because moral outrage against MySpace will hurt all of us. I totally agree. More reactions to Danah’s post are on Memeorandum."
"I met MySpace’s CTO, Aber Whitcomb, last night at the posh and packed MySpace party here at Mix06 and I asked him how MySpace got so popular. He cited a few things:
1) They made sure influentials in Hollywood (stars, bands) were among the first users.
2) They listen to their users and add features frequently (usually noticeable new features every week).
3) They let the users tell them what to do. He mentioned that other services, like Friendster, tried to tell their users what not to do.
4) When MySpace visitors first log on they already had a friend: the founder Tom. That was in contrast to other services where you had to work to find your first friend. His page also gave you a template to get started.
These things mirror what Danah Boyd noticed in her essay: Is MySpace just a fad? She says that we need to pay attention to MySpace because moral outrage against MySpace will hurt all of us. I totally agree. More reactions to Danah’s post are on Memeorandum."
A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines:
"Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
* My Yahoo
* NetVibes
* Topix.net
* Findory
* Gixo
* Google News"
"Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;
* My Yahoo
* NetVibes
* Topix.net
* Findory
* Gixo
* Google News"
Social Bookmarking Made Easy By Socializer:
Check this one out:
"I reported on a tool named Socializer, an automated social bookmarking service that you can easily add to your content. This service easily allows you to add a link to your content; the link directs you to a page that looks like this. The page has icons of dozens of social bookmarking Web sites, including Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Furl and more. Social bookmarking, i.e. tagging, is considered by some the new form of link popularity. If you agree with that or not, tagging your content, does help get your content out there, which does give you a better shot at getting more links to your pages."
Check this one out:
"I reported on a tool named Socializer, an automated social bookmarking service that you can easily add to your content. This service easily allows you to add a link to your content; the link directs you to a page that looks like this. The page has icons of dozens of social bookmarking Web sites, including Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Furl and more. Social bookmarking, i.e. tagging, is considered by some the new form of link popularity. If you agree with that or not, tagging your content, does help get your content out there, which does give you a better shot at getting more links to your pages."
TechCrunch » Riya to Launch Today:
"...Riya, which is funded by Blue Run Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, and Bay Partners, is a service that automatically recognizes people in photos and groups them. Add a tag to the person and all of the photos are tagged with that name. As your friends and family join Riya too, many of their pictures will automatically be tagged with your data (and their other friends’ data) too...."
"...Riya, which is funded by Blue Run Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, and Bay Partners, is a service that automatically recognizes people in photos and groups them. Add a tag to the person and all of the photos are tagged with that name. As your friends and family join Riya too, many of their pictures will automatically be tagged with your data (and their other friends’ data) too...."
About Us :: gada.be: "What is gada.be?
It's a metasearch service, no matter where or how you view it. gada.be is for anybody with access to the Web and in need of immediate, impartial results:
* Save time, page loads, and keystrokes
* Get vendor-neutral results from fantastic resources
* Output OPML for easy importing into news aggregators
* Link your tags to gada.be for more comprehensive results
* Load with slow connections, Treos, PSP, dial-up, cell phones
* Search through an ever-expanding set of results
* Navigate a simple subdirectory structure, quick to key-in
* Run it on either desktop-based or mobile devices
* View or subscribe to results in RSS
* Get full access without needing to register
You're going to save time and bandwidth immediately; imagine how long it would take to traverse all those sites just to find the one thing you were looking for!? If you tend to view only the top results for a cursory search, why not just feed you the top results in one easy spot (where you can subsequently subscribe to them)? Look for more gada.be features to roll out as the weeks march forward!..."
It's a metasearch service, no matter where or how you view it. gada.be is for anybody with access to the Web and in need of immediate, impartial results:
* Save time, page loads, and keystrokes
* Get vendor-neutral results from fantastic resources
* Output OPML for easy importing into news aggregators
* Link your tags to gada.be for more comprehensive results
* Load with slow connections, Treos, PSP, dial-up, cell phones
* Search through an ever-expanding set of results
* Navigate a simple subdirectory structure, quick to key-in
* Run it on either desktop-based or mobile devices
* View or subscribe to results in RSS
* Get full access without needing to register
You're going to save time and bandwidth immediately; imagine how long it would take to traverse all those sites just to find the one thing you were looking for!? If you tend to view only the top results for a cursory search, why not just feed you the top results in one easy spot (where you can subsequently subscribe to them)? Look for more gada.be features to roll out as the weeks march forward!..."
John Battelle's Searchblog: News: Google.Portal.Finance Launches:
"...First, this marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. And that's a shift, a shift that is worth noting.
Second, Google is integrating its Finance section as the first link in its one box implementation, ahead of Yahoo and the others who previously got the free Google juice (see it in action HERE). Now the first results are going to...well...Google. That's obviously the right thing to do for the business, but it brings up the question - is Google in the pure unadulterated we don't mess with your results at all we're totally objective search business, or....is it in the Yahoo business of being a content company?..."
"...First, this marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. And that's a shift, a shift that is worth noting.
Second, Google is integrating its Finance section as the first link in its one box implementation, ahead of Yahoo and the others who previously got the free Google juice (see it in action HERE). Now the first results are going to...well...Google. That's obviously the right thing to do for the business, but it brings up the question - is Google in the pure unadulterated we don't mess with your results at all we're totally objective search business, or....is it in the Yahoo business of being a content company?..."
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Google Jumps Into Social Tagging With New Google Reader Feature:
"Philipp Lenssen notes that the Google Reader Blog has announced that you can now share the content you read with your friends, family, colleagues and others. This is a big move for Google, what seems to be the first time they've allowed people to both tag and importantly share that tagged content with others.
Google's had tagging in the form of "labels" at Gmail for some time and recently added (and also see here) bookmark/tagging features to the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. However, items you tagged couldn't be shared with others.
In contrast, Yahoo allows people to share tagged content through its My Web 2.0 service, not to mention owning two posterchilds of the tag-and-share movement, del.icio.us and Flickr.
Now Google's on the sharing scene. Perhaps they'll even begin saying "tags" rather than "labels," as they did originally in the Google Reader announcement, only to later fall back to the preferred term of labels:
Additionally, if you use the tagging labeling feature of Reader, you can label items and share them.
To begin sharing your reading lists or add a clip to your blog, go to reader.google.com and open the Share tab. Check the 'shared' check box to opt-in to sharing your starred items or selected labels.
For examples, Philipp shared this page as items labeled "google". You can also share your "starred" pages."
"Philipp Lenssen notes that the Google Reader Blog has announced that you can now share the content you read with your friends, family, colleagues and others. This is a big move for Google, what seems to be the first time they've allowed people to both tag and importantly share that tagged content with others.
Google's had tagging in the form of "labels" at Gmail for some time and recently added (and also see here) bookmark/tagging features to the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. However, items you tagged couldn't be shared with others.
In contrast, Yahoo allows people to share tagged content through its My Web 2.0 service, not to mention owning two posterchilds of the tag-and-share movement, del.icio.us and Flickr.
Now Google's on the sharing scene. Perhaps they'll even begin saying "tags" rather than "labels," as they did originally in the Google Reader announcement, only to later fall back to the preferred term of labels:
Additionally, if you use the tagging labeling feature of Reader, you can label items and share them.
To begin sharing your reading lists or add a clip to your blog, go to reader.google.com and open the Share tab. Check the 'shared' check box to opt-in to sharing your starred items or selected labels.
For examples, Philipp shared this page as items labeled "google". You can also share your "starred" pages."
John Battelle's Searchblog: Abortion, Adoption, Amazon:
"This NYT story is getting some pickup across the mainstream mediasphere, it demonstrates how search and clickstream habits can create sticky political wickets. From the piece:
Amazon.com last week modified its search engine after an abortion rights organization complained that search results appeared skewed toward anti-abortion books.
Until a few days ago, a search of Amazon's catalog of books using the word 'abortion' turned up pages with the question, 'Did you mean adoption?' at the top, followed by a list of books related to abortion.
Amazon removed that question from the search results page after it received a complaint from a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national organization based in Washington.
In short, it seemed to the pro-choice group that Amazon had an editorial opinion. I am quite sure this is not true (Amazon denies it), but it's yet another example of how we see ourselves reflected - at least how we wish to see ourselves reflected - in the cultural mirror that is search. Amazon decided to disable the search suggestion, which, to be honest, *is* an editorial decision."
"This NYT story is getting some pickup across the mainstream mediasphere, it demonstrates how search and clickstream habits can create sticky political wickets. From the piece:
Amazon.com last week modified its search engine after an abortion rights organization complained that search results appeared skewed toward anti-abortion books.
Until a few days ago, a search of Amazon's catalog of books using the word 'abortion' turned up pages with the question, 'Did you mean adoption?' at the top, followed by a list of books related to abortion.
Amazon removed that question from the search results page after it received a complaint from a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national organization based in Washington.
In short, it seemed to the pro-choice group that Amazon had an editorial opinion. I am quite sure this is not true (Amazon denies it), but it's yet another example of how we see ourselves reflected - at least how we wish to see ourselves reflected - in the cultural mirror that is search. Amazon decided to disable the search suggestion, which, to be honest, *is* an editorial decision."
John Battelle's Searchblog: About Sun's Grid...:
"So soon Sun is going to launch its utility computing grid, open to all for rent. In Jonathan's post covering the launch here, I wonder, really, truly - isn't Google the clear competitor here? Oh, wait, no, it's already Amazon. I'm pinging Jonathan to ask about this. Google is Sun's partner, but will they also be fundamental competitors? (Thanks, James)"
"So soon Sun is going to launch its utility computing grid, open to all for rent. In Jonathan's post covering the launch here, I wonder, really, truly - isn't Google the clear competitor here? Oh, wait, no, it's already Amazon. I'm pinging Jonathan to ask about this. Google is Sun's partner, but will they also be fundamental competitors? (Thanks, James)"
Blogger Buzz: Search policy:
"Last Friday, Inside Google posted about a Blog*Spot user who had allegedly received an email from Blogger that stated the MSN Search box on his blog constituted a violation of Blogger's Terms of Service. I'd like to clarify a couple of points about this claim:..."
"Last Friday, Inside Google posted about a Blog*Spot user who had allegedly received an email from Blogger that stated the MSN Search box on his blog constituted a violation of Blogger's Terms of Service. I'd like to clarify a couple of points about this claim:..."
Monday, March 20, 2006
MSN Search Box Not Allowed on Google's BlogSpot Blogs?:
"Nathan Weinberg reports that http://rjdohnert.blogspot.com/ received an email from Google saying you are not allowed to place the MSN Search box on a BlogSpot blog because 'obstructing Google's services from operating efficiently and effectively'. The blog has been removed from Google and is now at WordPress. It seems unlikely to me that this is against Google's terms of service for BlogSpot, but it is possible."
"Nathan Weinberg reports that http://rjdohnert.blogspot.com/ received an email from Google saying you are not allowed to place the MSN Search box on a BlogSpot blog because 'obstructing Google's services from operating efficiently and effectively'. The blog has been removed from Google and is now at WordPress. It seems unlikely to me that this is against Google's terms of service for BlogSpot, but it is possible."
Google Health To Cure The World?:
"Garett Rogers reports of a recent Google hire, Adam Bosworth, with the title 'Architect, Google Health.' Garett asks, what would the Architect, Google Health do at Google? I have read some speculation that Google's enormous database can potential cure the world of illnesses. It can help be a predictive gauge for diseases to come, as well. This is all just speculation, but based on Bosworth's background, something may be up at Google."
"Garett Rogers reports of a recent Google hire, Adam Bosworth, with the title 'Architect, Google Health.' Garett asks, what would the Architect, Google Health do at Google? I have read some speculation that Google's enormous database can potential cure the world of illnesses. It can help be a predictive gauge for diseases to come, as well. This is all just speculation, but based on Bosworth's background, something may be up at Google."
GoogleBot Goes Wireless - Google Mobile Transcoding:
"It looks like we have a new GoogleBot that we need to worry about. The Google spider has the User Agent; 'Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)' and comes from a Google IP address. The bot is not incredibly new, but it is picking up speed. Many Webmasters are noticing this new creature explore their sites. There is a whole section on the Google Remove URL page under the Remove transcoded pages anchor. This transcoding translates the page and strips out some html, which is upsetting to some. Mobile is important to Google, they have even added mobile queries to Google Sitemaps recently."
"It looks like we have a new GoogleBot that we need to worry about. The Google spider has the User Agent; 'Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)' and comes from a Google IP address. The bot is not incredibly new, but it is picking up speed. Many Webmasters are noticing this new creature explore their sites. There is a whole section on the Google Remove URL page under the Remove transcoded pages anchor. This transcoding translates the page and strips out some html, which is upsetting to some. Mobile is important to Google, they have even added mobile queries to Google Sitemaps recently."
John Battelle's Searchblog: An Interesting Note in Google's 10K: No Favored Nation Status for AOL:
"Thanks to Bear Stearn's Robert Peck, for doing the work, in the summary of the 10K he finds:
Google also stated that they have substantially completed negotiations with Time Warner and AOL and expect the investment to close in 2Q06. One of the prior elements in the agreement, Âmaking AOL content more accessible to Google web crawlersÂ, was removed, likely due to concerns that Google would give AOLÂs content preferential treatment in its search results. AOL represented 9% of revenues in 05, down from 12% of revenues in 04.
So, it seems, Google and AOL have quietly dropped one of the most controversial elements of the deal. Remember the hubbub (I made a shark jumping comment, you may recall)?"
Just because they dropped it from the 10K does not mean it will not happen ;-)
"Thanks to Bear Stearn's Robert Peck, for doing the work, in the summary of the 10K he finds:
Google also stated that they have substantially completed negotiations with Time Warner and AOL and expect the investment to close in 2Q06. One of the prior elements in the agreement, Âmaking AOL content more accessible to Google web crawlersÂ, was removed, likely due to concerns that Google would give AOLÂs content preferential treatment in its search results. AOL represented 9% of revenues in 05, down from 12% of revenues in 04.
So, it seems, Google and AOL have quietly dropped one of the most controversial elements of the deal. Remember the hubbub (I made a shark jumping comment, you may recall)?"
Just because they dropped it from the 10K does not mean it will not happen ;-)
Yahoo! Mindset:
"Mindset: Intent-driven Search
* Find the results you like.
* Sort the way you need.
A Yahoo! Research demo that applies a new twist on search that uses machine learning technology to give you a choice: View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources)..."
"Mindset: Intent-driven Search
* Find the results you like.
* Sort the way you need.
A Yahoo! Research demo that applies a new twist on search that uses machine learning technology to give you a choice: View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources)..."
Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » College trends:
"...He’s the director of technology for Warner Bros Records.
The other day he gave a lecture at University of California Santa Barbara and found some interesting things:
* About 1/3 had a MySpace profile.
* Roughly 90% had FaceBook profiles.
* Five people, all guys had heard of digg
* No one had heard of BoingBoing, Delcious, memorandum or NewsVine.
* About 15 had the Arctic Monkeys CD. None had paid for it
* Only a few had actually bought music in the last month
* About 20 had heard about the Sony DRM scandal"
"...He’s the director of technology for Warner Bros Records.
The other day he gave a lecture at University of California Santa Barbara and found some interesting things:
* About 1/3 had a MySpace profile.
* Roughly 90% had FaceBook profiles.
* Five people, all guys had heard of digg
* No one had heard of BoingBoing, Delcious, memorandum or NewsVine.
* About 15 had the Arctic Monkeys CD. None had paid for it
* Only a few had actually bought music in the last month
* About 20 had heard about the Sony DRM scandal"
Mappr! About.:
"About Mappr
Mappr is an interactive environment for exploring place, based on the photos people take. By adding geographical information to the wealth of photographs found on Flickr, it allows new ways of looking at spaces and images. Mappr adds place to pictures.
Mappr takes advantage of the cornucopia of descriptive information provided by Flickr's users to organize their photos. Flickr's admirable policy of openness with its data provides a way to anticipate and envision a future where cheaply-available GPS technology generates this placement as a matter of course. There's no reason to wait for this technology to become common; by mapping the millions of photos that Flickr makes available, we can start looking at its broad scale potential now."
"About Mappr
Mappr is an interactive environment for exploring place, based on the photos people take. By adding geographical information to the wealth of photographs found on Flickr, it allows new ways of looking at spaces and images. Mappr adds place to pictures.
Mappr takes advantage of the cornucopia of descriptive information provided by Flickr's users to organize their photos. Flickr's admirable policy of openness with its data provides a way to anticipate and envision a future where cheaply-available GPS technology generates this placement as a matter of course. There's no reason to wait for this technology to become common; by mapping the millions of photos that Flickr makes available, we can start looking at its broad scale potential now."
TechCrunch » Brightcove Acquires metaStories:
"Jeremy Allaire’s still-in-beta Brightcove is announcing the aquisition of Seattle based metaStories this morning at 8 am EST.
This looks like a good match. Brightcove is focused on “Internet TV,” or creating an Internet outlet for media producers. Heather Green at Business Week calls it “distribution feeds to micro-audiences”.
MetaStories, on the other hand, has tools for actually creating that content. Their main product, StoryMaker, is a publishing tool for creating interactive Flash content."
"Jeremy Allaire’s still-in-beta Brightcove is announcing the aquisition of Seattle based metaStories this morning at 8 am EST.
This looks like a good match. Brightcove is focused on “Internet TV,” or creating an Internet outlet for media producers. Heather Green at Business Week calls it “distribution feeds to micro-audiences”.
MetaStories, on the other hand, has tools for actually creating that content. Their main product, StoryMaker, is a publishing tool for creating interactive Flash content."
MySpace to expand in the UK - Mar. 17, 2006:
"The popular Internet Web site MySpace is going to run a MySun social-networkng website for readers of The Sun of London, a newspaper also owned by News Corp. According to The Guardian, News Corp. also considered a site for readers of TheTimes of London, but decided that the Sun's younger audience was more likely to use such a site. MySpace recently overtook the BBC Web site in traffic after growing sixfold in a year."
"The popular Internet Web site MySpace is going to run a MySun social-networkng website for readers of The Sun of London, a newspaper also owned by News Corp. According to The Guardian, News Corp. also considered a site for readers of TheTimes of London, but decided that the Sun's younger audience was more likely to use such a site. MySpace recently overtook the BBC Web site in traffic after growing sixfold in a year."
Basement.org: Google's Laser-Guided Missiles:
"PCMag.com has a good summary of a lunch Google's CEO Eric Schmidt gave to journalists recently. He addresses a lot of the Google-related hot topics these days.
On the Writely acquisition, Schmidt brushed off theories that it was a play to compete with Microsoft Office. He said the real purpose of the acquisition was part of Google's strategy to 'collect and organize the world's data.'
This is pretty frightening to me. The next logical question is: why does Google want to do this? So they can gain a better understanding of who we are, what we want and what we care about. Which begs the next question: why does Google want to collect and organize the things that matter to us? To make them readily accessible for a fee from anywhere? Or is it to deliver more targeted results throughout the Google experience? For example, I search elsewhere away from my documents; Google connects the dots between the content of my documents and my search terms.
I can't help but worry about this insatiable desire to consume, digest, index, study, analyze, extrapolate from and finally act upon the behaviors and artifacts that make up my life. In a word, it's creepy.
Luckily, we have the option to not use Google..."
"PCMag.com has a good summary of a lunch Google's CEO Eric Schmidt gave to journalists recently. He addresses a lot of the Google-related hot topics these days.
On the Writely acquisition, Schmidt brushed off theories that it was a play to compete with Microsoft Office. He said the real purpose of the acquisition was part of Google's strategy to 'collect and organize the world's data.'
This is pretty frightening to me. The next logical question is: why does Google want to do this? So they can gain a better understanding of who we are, what we want and what we care about. Which begs the next question: why does Google want to collect and organize the things that matter to us? To make them readily accessible for a fee from anywhere? Or is it to deliver more targeted results throughout the Google experience? For example, I search elsewhere away from my documents; Google connects the dots between the content of my documents and my search terms.
I can't help but worry about this insatiable desire to consume, digest, index, study, analyze, extrapolate from and finally act upon the behaviors and artifacts that make up my life. In a word, it's creepy.
Luckily, we have the option to not use Google..."
TechCrunch » The Power of Digg:
"Digg is only a year and a half old, but it is already a significant social force that moves massive attention and traffic around the Internet. As has been noted for some time, it has been steadily closing the gap in alexa comparisons with Slashdot, and now has more than 800,000 average daily visitors.
...
Along with that power, of course, comes some negative attention as well - specifically people trying to game Digg for their own purposes. It can be as simple as using fake accounts to push a story up to the front page. As the site gets more popular, this becomes harder to do, but the reward (more traffic) also gets correspondingly larger. The increased costs are matched by increased incentives.
The most recent story of abuse is a suggestion that people are using Digg to artificially inflate the price of a public company - Sun - by promoting a rumor that Google may be acquiring the company. Digg has a number of protections in place to guard against bad news - including user flags of suspicious posts.
But the real story isn’t about how people are gaming Digg, or how Digg fights it. The important news is that Digg is so big now that people are trying to game it to do things like affect the stock price of a public company. That says a lot about the bright future of this young site. "
"Digg is only a year and a half old, but it is already a significant social force that moves massive attention and traffic around the Internet. As has been noted for some time, it has been steadily closing the gap in alexa comparisons with Slashdot, and now has more than 800,000 average daily visitors.
...
Along with that power, of course, comes some negative attention as well - specifically people trying to game Digg for their own purposes. It can be as simple as using fake accounts to push a story up to the front page. As the site gets more popular, this becomes harder to do, but the reward (more traffic) also gets correspondingly larger. The increased costs are matched by increased incentives.
The most recent story of abuse is a suggestion that people are using Digg to artificially inflate the price of a public company - Sun - by promoting a rumor that Google may be acquiring the company. Digg has a number of protections in place to guard against bad news - including user flags of suspicious posts.
But the real story isn’t about how people are gaming Digg, or how Digg fights it. The important news is that Digg is so big now that people are trying to game it to do things like affect the stock price of a public company. That says a lot about the bright future of this young site. "
AP Wire | 03/17/2006 | Web site files complaint against Google:
"SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s mysterious methods for ranking Web sites came under attack Friday in a lawsuit accusing the online search engine leader of ruining scores of Internet businesses that have been wrongfully banished from its index.
The civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose by KinderStart.com, seeks to be certified as a class action representing the owners of all Web sites blacklisted by Google's Internet-leading search engine since January 2001..."
"SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s mysterious methods for ranking Web sites came under attack Friday in a lawsuit accusing the online search engine leader of ruining scores of Internet businesses that have been wrongfully banished from its index.
The civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose by KinderStart.com, seeks to be certified as a class action representing the owners of all Web sites blacklisted by Google's Internet-leading search engine since January 2001..."
Friday, March 17, 2006
MSN Search's WebLog : New Toolbar Release: Windows Live Toolbar beta available:
"We have released the Windows Live Toolbar beta which adds some really cool technology from Onfolio, a company we just acquired. Onfolio grabs scraps of web pages to be shared or viewed later, which is my favorite part. Also, it allows you to collect and read feed collections via a great reader that is integrated into IE so you can read all your feeds in one place. This is a great tool to help organize information that you find on the web.
In addition, the beta integrates with the great new services such as Windows Live Search, Windows Live Local, Windows Live Favorites and Live.com with automatic RSS detection and aggregation. You can also add, arrange and display the buttons as you want. On top of all this is integration, Windows Desktop Search continues to brings you the rich ability to find items on your own computer, but now you can include them in the collections of information you have..."
"We have released the Windows Live Toolbar beta which adds some really cool technology from Onfolio, a company we just acquired. Onfolio grabs scraps of web pages to be shared or viewed later, which is my favorite part. Also, it allows you to collect and read feed collections via a great reader that is integrated into IE so you can read all your feeds in one place. This is a great tool to help organize information that you find on the web.
In addition, the beta integrates with the great new services such as Windows Live Search, Windows Live Local, Windows Live Favorites and Live.com with automatic RSS detection and aggregation. You can also add, arrange and display the buttons as you want. On top of all this is integration, Windows Desktop Search continues to brings you the rich ability to find items on your own computer, but now you can include them in the collections of information you have..."
Search Engine Journal » Mozilla Googlebot : Mozilla or Godzilla?:
"Jim Trivolette of Blackwood Productions has been checking out the Mozilla Googlebot which he says is a “new Googlebot which has the ability to index many more pages then the old Googlebot.”
Jim says that Mozilla Googlebot has the same tendency of Godzilla; in an effort to protect its homeland (Japan : Internet), the new Googlebot may cause rampage in its waking path:
“It can visit you so fast and so often it creates denial of service like attacks that can shut down hosting servers. This little crawler is the beginning of the end for many black hatters.
This Googlebot can read CSS, JavaScript, Div, and it also gets served up a website as if it were a normal person/viewer in effect bypassing bot redirects and cloaked pages.”
The new bot will show up in server logs with this ID : Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
More from Jim :
...
...Sure there is some bugs still left in the system like crashing hosting providers but when you bring out this big of a change you can expect little else.
...Google adsense uses the same bot so if the new Googlebot is denied access to your server don’t expect to be able to hook up that new adsense account...
... Google will be able to make updates to the bot easier then they could have in the past. This bot is already doing things that have shaken the net, such as fill out and submit forms on websites to make sure the links work and click on live help links and initiate chats. It looks like the next step for Googlebot is going to be eyes and ears, time to watch movies and listen to .mp3’s?"
"Jim Trivolette of Blackwood Productions has been checking out the Mozilla Googlebot which he says is a “new Googlebot which has the ability to index many more pages then the old Googlebot.”
Jim says that Mozilla Googlebot has the same tendency of Godzilla; in an effort to protect its homeland (Japan : Internet), the new Googlebot may cause rampage in its waking path:
“It can visit you so fast and so often it creates denial of service like attacks that can shut down hosting servers. This little crawler is the beginning of the end for many black hatters.
This Googlebot can read CSS, JavaScript, Div, and it also gets served up a website as if it were a normal person/viewer in effect bypassing bot redirects and cloaked pages.”
The new bot will show up in server logs with this ID : Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
More from Jim :
...
...Sure there is some bugs still left in the system like crashing hosting providers but when you bring out this big of a change you can expect little else.
...Google adsense uses the same bot so if the new Googlebot is denied access to your server don’t expect to be able to hook up that new adsense account...
... Google will be able to make updates to the bot easier then they could have in the past. This bot is already doing things that have shaken the net, such as fill out and submit forms on websites to make sure the links work and click on live help links and initiate chats. It looks like the next step for Googlebot is going to be eyes and ears, time to watch movies and listen to .mp3’s?"
Search Engine Journal » CenSEARCHip : Compare Censored Search Results:
"CenSEARCHip is a tool developed by Mark Meiss and Filippo Menczer at the Indiana University School of Informatics for comparing the differences in the results returned by Google and Yahoo! versions for the United States, China, France, and Germany.
When you enter your search terms and select one of the search buttons, the lower part of your browser window will show a split display of the results for the two countries. For example, if you’re comparing China and the United States, you’ll see information about the Chinese search on the left and the United States search on the right.
CenSEARCHip offers both Web Search and Image Search options but if you are at work beware, they’ve disabled “safe search” in the Image Results:
“In order to give as accurate a comparison as possible, we’ve disabled the ‘SafeSearch’ feature that search engines use to block images with explicit violent or sexual content from their search results. Some of the images returned may be quite graphic and inappropriate for children. Please exercise caution in your searches!”"
"CenSEARCHip is a tool developed by Mark Meiss and Filippo Menczer at the Indiana University School of Informatics for comparing the differences in the results returned by Google and Yahoo! versions for the United States, China, France, and Germany.
When you enter your search terms and select one of the search buttons, the lower part of your browser window will show a split display of the results for the two countries. For example, if you’re comparing China and the United States, you’ll see information about the Chinese search on the left and the United States search on the right.
CenSEARCHip offers both Web Search and Image Search options but if you are at work beware, they’ve disabled “safe search” in the Image Results:
“In order to give as accurate a comparison as possible, we’ve disabled the ‘SafeSearch’ feature that search engines use to block images with explicit violent or sexual content from their search results. Some of the images returned may be quite graphic and inappropriate for children. Please exercise caution in your searches!”"
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Google And Yahoo To Sell Branded PCs?:
"Garrett French reports on a Silicon Valley Watcher article that says Google and Yahoo are in talks with Wyse Technology to build out low-priced PC. Reportedly, Google and Yahoo are 'interested in using low-priced PC-compatible computers to capture millions of users in developing countries.'
There has been a lot of past speculation that Google working on its own operating system named Goobuntu, which Google denied. Also, back in March, Google Hired Microsoft's Top Windows Architect but then again denied rumors of building and selling computers. Makes you wonder what type of comment Google will release based on this news."
"Garrett French reports on a Silicon Valley Watcher article that says Google and Yahoo are in talks with Wyse Technology to build out low-priced PC. Reportedly, Google and Yahoo are 'interested in using low-priced PC-compatible computers to capture millions of users in developing countries.'
There has been a lot of past speculation that Google working on its own operating system named Goobuntu, which Google denied. Also, back in March, Google Hired Microsoft's Top Windows Architect but then again denied rumors of building and selling computers. Makes you wonder what type of comment Google will release based on this news."
Nutch's Doug Cutting Joins Yahoo Full Time After Serving Four Years Independently:
"Jeremy Zawodny notes that Doug Cutting, who has been working at Yahoo for four-years as an independent contractor, as now signed on with Yahoo full time, as an employee. Doug will most likely continue working from home on his open source projects; Lucene, Hadoop and Nutch. So while Yahoo loses some employees, they gain some as well."
"Jeremy Zawodny notes that Doug Cutting, who has been working at Yahoo for four-years as an independent contractor, as now signed on with Yahoo full time, as an employee. Doug will most likely continue working from home on his open source projects; Lucene, Hadoop and Nutch. So while Yahoo loses some employees, they gain some as well."
Finding the Values of U.S. Homes:
"...Zillow is a free service that's very easy to use. Simply enter an address, street or neighborhood together with a city, state or zip code, and Zillow searches through the information it has compiled on more than 60 million residential properties in the U.S. to provide you with an approximate valuation of the property...."
"...Zillow is a free service that's very easy to use. Simply enter an address, street or neighborhood together with a city, state or zip code, and Zillow searches through the information it has compiled on more than 60 million residential properties in the U.S. to provide you with an approximate valuation of the property...."
Search Engine Journal » $100 Laptop + Writely + GDrive = Google’s Future?:
"...People have been speculating for the last couple of years about a GoogleOS or a GooglePC. There’s no GoogleOS, per se — although there is GooglePack and the deal with Sun regarding OpenOffice. And now there’s the Google acquisition of Writely. And then there’s GDrive.
Let’s put aside the major, major privacy issues that may prevent GDrive from really hatching into a full-grown butterfly. Having made that very important qualification, let’s step back and look at the really big picture here:
1. Low cost computers that don’t have big hard drives (say the $100 laptop or similar device)
2. Ubiquitous high-speed access (see GoogleNet or FON)
3. Web-based consumer software apps (e.g., GMail or Writely)
4. Virtually unlimited personal online storage (GDrive)
..."
"...People have been speculating for the last couple of years about a GoogleOS or a GooglePC. There’s no GoogleOS, per se — although there is GooglePack and the deal with Sun regarding OpenOffice. And now there’s the Google acquisition of Writely. And then there’s GDrive.
Let’s put aside the major, major privacy issues that may prevent GDrive from really hatching into a full-grown butterfly. Having made that very important qualification, let’s step back and look at the really big picture here:
1. Low cost computers that don’t have big hard drives (say the $100 laptop or similar device)
2. Ubiquitous high-speed access (see GoogleNet or FON)
3. Web-based consumer software apps (e.g., GMail or Writely)
4. Virtually unlimited personal online storage (GDrive)
..."
GDrive: Google's Virtual Hard Drive:
"At Google Annual Analyst Day there was a slide or two on the presentation that showed evidence of Google creating GDrive; a virtual location to store your files without using a Gmail hack. Greg Linden said Google has removed the revealing notes with slides (PDF) of the presentation. But Derrick posted a comment with the notes for those slides at Greg's blog, where GDrive is mentioned.
Garett Rogers at Googling Google tries to figure out how GDrive will be monetized. He suggests that Google may offer a set amount of storage for free and charge an additional monthly fee for added space. He also suggests that Google may offer hard drive backup services to external devices like DVDs as an additional paid service. But I may offer that Google provides a Gmail-like interface to the data on this GDrive, with ads contextual relevant to the folders and files in the drive."
"At Google Annual Analyst Day there was a slide or two on the presentation that showed evidence of Google creating GDrive; a virtual location to store your files without using a Gmail hack. Greg Linden said Google has removed the revealing notes with slides (PDF) of the presentation. But Derrick posted a comment with the notes for those slides at Greg's blog, where GDrive is mentioned.
Garett Rogers at Googling Google tries to figure out how GDrive will be monetized. He suggests that Google may offer a set amount of storage for free and charge an additional monthly fee for added space. He also suggests that Google may offer hard drive backup services to external devices like DVDs as an additional paid service. But I may offer that Google provides a Gmail-like interface to the data on this GDrive, with ads contextual relevant to the folders and files in the drive."
Ask.com: The Dark Horse in Search?:
"Barry Diller likes long shots. He's built a career betting on the long shot. Climbing from the mail room of the William Morris agency to network exec was business as usual for Diller. Taking ABC from a perpetual also-ran to challenge the dominance of CBS and NBC was not out of the realm of the doable. And Diller's Fox is the once impossible fourth network. So, don't be too quick to bet against him.
Today, Diller is stacking his chips for a run at the lucrative search market, and he's betting that history can repeat itself. Fresh from killing off his venerable butler, Jeeves, Diller showcased the new Ask.com at the New York Search Engine Strategies show.
In a keynote conversation with Danny Sullivan that opened the show, Diller made it clear that's he's in this for the long haul. Diller knows it will take time and significant improvements in the user experience to wrestle market share from the Google Juggernaut. And Ask.com just might have the goods to add another underdog win to Diller's already impressive CV.
Good Core Functionality
Behind the Ask interface lies some pretty impressive technology. The Teoma back end that Ask purchased in 2001 is arguably every bit as good as Google's vaulted relevancy algorithms, and many industry insiders argue that their core concept of expert communities or hubs is actually a step ahead of Google's link based approach.
But good relevancy is just the price you have to pay to play in this game. It should be a given. Relevancy algorithms won the game once (for Google) but the playing field has evened. The next step is an improved user experience, and it's here where Ask has a couple of significant advantages that might give it a shot at taking on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Deeply Vertical
The search engines are moving to deeper vertical experiences. They are trying to interpret intent based on the search query, and delivering a richer set of results in the appropriate category. So, if the search engine knows your query is local in nature (because of the inclusion of a city or zip code) it will try to deliver local search results, complete with addresses and maps showing the location. It's a closer match to what your intent is, which is to locate a local business. The goal of the search engine is to get you closer to the information you want, and minimize the number of clicks you have to take to get there.
Diller's IAC includes some well established vertical properties, including CitySearch, Hotels.com and Match.com. It makes tremendous sense to use Ask as the portal into these vertical experiences. Already, the new Ask features CitySearch ratings on many local results. Diller indicated that increased verticalization is likely in the future, but it has to be integrated in a way that makes sense, "We have an enormous amount of vertical data, but we're never going to give a bad user experience."
Betting Big when You Have Nothing to Lose
Perhaps Ask's biggest advantage is the fact that they have nothing to loose. Their market share sits at about 2.5% (according to Nielsen NetRatings). They can afford to fine tune an interface.
Google is no longer the brash newcomer in the search biz. When you have 50% plus market share and your entire revenue channel is dependent on maintaining that share, you have to step very carefully. This is not usually the corporate climate that fosters discontinuous innovation. And discontinuous innovation is the only thing that's going to unseat the leaders in the search space. As Diller said in his keynote address, "We're not looking for Ask to be another search engine, we're looking for it to be an alternative to the other engines."...
...Diller also shared some more philosophical moments in his conversation with Danny Sullivan. "I've spent my whole life telling stories in the narrative. I'm fascinated by the interactivity of online, by what's possible in a screen. I'm still curious about the potential of this radical revolution." He also took the opportunity to take some shots at his main rival, Google. "The whole idea of ‘don't be evil' is a little pretentious. I don't believe the vast majority of corporations are out there setting up evil empires."
One thing that was interesting to note on the floors of SES was the continuing shift in attitude towards Google. Resentment towards their domination of search is growing and becoming more vocal. We want more competition in the search space, and many attendees would like to see Google's gargantuan corporate ego get knocked down a few notches. It seems that MSN is stumbling in their efforts to get the job done, so perhaps it's time for the guy who's always placed his money on the long shot..."
"Barry Diller likes long shots. He's built a career betting on the long shot. Climbing from the mail room of the William Morris agency to network exec was business as usual for Diller. Taking ABC from a perpetual also-ran to challenge the dominance of CBS and NBC was not out of the realm of the doable. And Diller's Fox is the once impossible fourth network. So, don't be too quick to bet against him.
Today, Diller is stacking his chips for a run at the lucrative search market, and he's betting that history can repeat itself. Fresh from killing off his venerable butler, Jeeves, Diller showcased the new Ask.com at the New York Search Engine Strategies show.
In a keynote conversation with Danny Sullivan that opened the show, Diller made it clear that's he's in this for the long haul. Diller knows it will take time and significant improvements in the user experience to wrestle market share from the Google Juggernaut. And Ask.com just might have the goods to add another underdog win to Diller's already impressive CV.
Good Core Functionality
Behind the Ask interface lies some pretty impressive technology. The Teoma back end that Ask purchased in 2001 is arguably every bit as good as Google's vaulted relevancy algorithms, and many industry insiders argue that their core concept of expert communities or hubs is actually a step ahead of Google's link based approach.
But good relevancy is just the price you have to pay to play in this game. It should be a given. Relevancy algorithms won the game once (for Google) but the playing field has evened. The next step is an improved user experience, and it's here where Ask has a couple of significant advantages that might give it a shot at taking on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Deeply Vertical
The search engines are moving to deeper vertical experiences. They are trying to interpret intent based on the search query, and delivering a richer set of results in the appropriate category. So, if the search engine knows your query is local in nature (because of the inclusion of a city or zip code) it will try to deliver local search results, complete with addresses and maps showing the location. It's a closer match to what your intent is, which is to locate a local business. The goal of the search engine is to get you closer to the information you want, and minimize the number of clicks you have to take to get there.
Diller's IAC includes some well established vertical properties, including CitySearch, Hotels.com and Match.com. It makes tremendous sense to use Ask as the portal into these vertical experiences. Already, the new Ask features CitySearch ratings on many local results. Diller indicated that increased verticalization is likely in the future, but it has to be integrated in a way that makes sense, "We have an enormous amount of vertical data, but we're never going to give a bad user experience."
Betting Big when You Have Nothing to Lose
Perhaps Ask's biggest advantage is the fact that they have nothing to loose. Their market share sits at about 2.5% (according to Nielsen NetRatings). They can afford to fine tune an interface.
Google is no longer the brash newcomer in the search biz. When you have 50% plus market share and your entire revenue channel is dependent on maintaining that share, you have to step very carefully. This is not usually the corporate climate that fosters discontinuous innovation. And discontinuous innovation is the only thing that's going to unseat the leaders in the search space. As Diller said in his keynote address, "We're not looking for Ask to be another search engine, we're looking for it to be an alternative to the other engines."...
...Diller also shared some more philosophical moments in his conversation with Danny Sullivan. "I've spent my whole life telling stories in the narrative. I'm fascinated by the interactivity of online, by what's possible in a screen. I'm still curious about the potential of this radical revolution." He also took the opportunity to take some shots at his main rival, Google. "The whole idea of ‘don't be evil' is a little pretentious. I don't believe the vast majority of corporations are out there setting up evil empires."
One thing that was interesting to note on the floors of SES was the continuing shift in attitude towards Google. Resentment towards their domination of search is growing and becoming more vocal. We want more competition in the search space, and many attendees would like to see Google's gargantuan corporate ego get knocked down a few notches. It seems that MSN is stumbling in their efforts to get the job done, so perhaps it's time for the guy who's always placed his money on the long shot..."
Email graphic traceroute:
"Paste an email with full headers (we need the 'Received' lines -- we don't need your email addresses, digg). The app will (we hope) trace the path your email message took as it passed through various servers, on Google maps..."
"Paste an email with full headers (we need the 'Received' lines -- we don't need your email addresses, digg). The app will (we hope) trace the path your email message took as it passed through various servers, on Google maps..."
TechCrunch » SixApart Confirms Funding and Acquisition:
"As previously widely speculated, Six Apart, the makers of the TypePad blogging platform and MovableType blogging tool today announced that they have closed a Series C round of financing of $12 Million. The round was raised from Focus Ventures, Intel Capital and August Capital and brings total amount Six Apart has raised to $23 Million.
Six Apart seem to be doing well with a large subscriber base at TypePad and their recent announcement of TypePad business class and a new plan to bring more businesses into blogging easier. SixApart have a lot more growing to do and this latest round of funding should see them through the next phases of growth.
Also SixApart today announced that they have acquired SplashBlog for an undisclosed sum. SplashBlog is a blogging solution for mobile phones and PDA’s and we should shortly see this service integrated with Six Apart’s existing services."
"As previously widely speculated, Six Apart, the makers of the TypePad blogging platform and MovableType blogging tool today announced that they have closed a Series C round of financing of $12 Million. The round was raised from Focus Ventures, Intel Capital and August Capital and brings total amount Six Apart has raised to $23 Million.
Six Apart seem to be doing well with a large subscriber base at TypePad and their recent announcement of TypePad business class and a new plan to bring more businesses into blogging easier. SixApart have a lot more growing to do and this latest round of funding should see them through the next phases of growth.
Also SixApart today announced that they have acquired SplashBlog for an undisclosed sum. SplashBlog is a blogging solution for mobile phones and PDA’s and we should shortly see this service integrated with Six Apart’s existing services."
TechCrunch » Fox to Acquire Startup NewRoo:
"Fox Interactive is in the closing stages of acquiring unlaunched startup NewRoo for “less than $10 million,” according to very reliable sources.
This follows Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn’s dramatic announcement at a recent UTR conference that “they’ve acquired someone in this room,” leading to serious blog speculation as to who the acquired company might be. While NewRoo did not present at the event, it turns out that they were in fact in the room at the time.
NewRoo is a real-time news aggregator that allows users to create their own customized news and content pages. The company has not launched. See my previous post on NewRoo for a full profile of the company.
While this is a small acquisition for Fox, there is a clear product synergy with their Myspace and Fox Sports online properties - users of those sites can create their own music/youth related content sites in the case of Myspace, or sports related news sites in the case of Fox Sports. Given Ross’ stated infatuation with user-generated content, it isn’t hard to see how NewRoo’s technology can add to their overall strategy of generating more page views without paying for the actual content generation.
UPDATE: Rafat at PaidContent says Yahoo was also in the running to acquire NewRoo. It’s always good to have (at least) two horses in the race - the acquisition price tends to go up dramatically."
"Fox Interactive is in the closing stages of acquiring unlaunched startup NewRoo for “less than $10 million,” according to very reliable sources.
This follows Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn’s dramatic announcement at a recent UTR conference that “they’ve acquired someone in this room,” leading to serious blog speculation as to who the acquired company might be. While NewRoo did not present at the event, it turns out that they were in fact in the room at the time.
NewRoo is a real-time news aggregator that allows users to create their own customized news and content pages. The company has not launched. See my previous post on NewRoo for a full profile of the company.
While this is a small acquisition for Fox, there is a clear product synergy with their Myspace and Fox Sports online properties - users of those sites can create their own music/youth related content sites in the case of Myspace, or sports related news sites in the case of Fox Sports. Given Ross’ stated infatuation with user-generated content, it isn’t hard to see how NewRoo’s technology can add to their overall strategy of generating more page views without paying for the actual content generation.
UPDATE: Rafat at PaidContent says Yahoo was also in the running to acquire NewRoo. It’s always good to have (at least) two horses in the race - the acquisition price tends to go up dramatically."
Pay Per Click Strategies Explained a Little Fuzzy:
"There's an article over at ClickZ today that attempts to explain the concepts of 'drafting' and 'hijacking' when it comes to pay per click advertising, but that leaves a pretty fuzzy impression over what the author believes constitutes hijacking. I've written before about how easy it is for small business owners and those new to search marketing to read and article and get confused about what the author is trying to say, so I thought this would be a good one to delve a little more deeply into..."
Posted the original last week and it was a little confusing. This should help.
"There's an article over at ClickZ today that attempts to explain the concepts of 'drafting' and 'hijacking' when it comes to pay per click advertising, but that leaves a pretty fuzzy impression over what the author believes constitutes hijacking. I've written before about how easy it is for small business owners and those new to search marketing to read and article and get confused about what the author is trying to say, so I thought this would be a good one to delve a little more deeply into..."
Posted the original last week and it was a little confusing. This should help.
Google Partnering With Publishers To Sell Online Books:
"Google gave me the heads-up late Friday that a new feature allowing publishers to sell online versions of their books through Google Book Search was about to go live. Nothing was yet online when we talked, but that's since changed. A new help page, What does it mean to sell online access to my book?, explains that the program is the first in a series of revenue tools being rolled out for publishers.
The experiment will allow publishers to sell access to their books online, something Google hinted was coming back in November and January. Publishers set a price, then consumers can buy and read the book online. At the moment, the program supposedly will not allow copies of the book to be saved to a computer or pages to be printed ('copy pages') to be made. We'll see. So far, Google's existing protections limiting what users can see from books online have not been cracked, to my knowledge..."
Guess they are selling them really cheap? I would not want to have to read everythingonline.
"Google gave me the heads-up late Friday that a new feature allowing publishers to sell online versions of their books through Google Book Search was about to go live. Nothing was yet online when we talked, but that's since changed. A new help page, What does it mean to sell online access to my book?, explains that the program is the first in a series of revenue tools being rolled out for publishers.
The experiment will allow publishers to sell access to their books online, something Google hinted was coming back in November and January. Publishers set a price, then consumers can buy and read the book online. At the moment, the program supposedly will not allow copies of the book to be saved to a computer or pages to be printed ('copy pages') to be made. We'll see. So far, Google's existing protections limiting what users can see from books online have not been cracked, to my knowledge..."
Guess they are selling them really cheap? I would not want to have to read everythingonline.
TechCrunch » Tagworld Hits 1 million members, announces $7.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson:
"Tagworld, the next generation Myspace competitor, is showing that there is plenty of room for growth in the crowded teen/young adult home page market (previous TechCrunch posts on Tagworld are here).
First, they’ve closed $7.5 million series A round of financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Note: competitor Tagged announced a $7 million financing led by Mayfield in February 2006.
This comes as Tagworld hits an important milestone - 1 million members and counting since their launch on November 11, 2005. while this is still just a drop in the Myspace bucket of 60 odd million members, its still a lot of people using the service after a very short period of time.
Tagworld will be launching a number of new products and partnerships this week as well:
..."
"Tagworld, the next generation Myspace competitor, is showing that there is plenty of room for growth in the crowded teen/young adult home page market (previous TechCrunch posts on Tagworld are here).
First, they’ve closed $7.5 million series A round of financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Note: competitor Tagged announced a $7 million financing led by Mayfield in February 2006.
This comes as Tagworld hits an important milestone - 1 million members and counting since their launch on November 11, 2005. while this is still just a drop in the Myspace bucket of 60 odd million members, its still a lot of people using the service after a very short period of time.
Tagworld will be launching a number of new products and partnerships this week as well:
..."
Search for Gmail Addresses at Google Search: "Do you want a list of active gmail address to add to your mailing list? Well, Google is giving it out completely free of charge. Just use this search command at Google to get, currently, 13,000 results; site:~.googlepages.com. Of course, it is illegal to email these people without permission but that doesn't stop most spammers.
DaveN posted a thread about this at DigitalPoint forums named Google Schoolboy Error ?? In that thread DaveN explained how he came to figure this out. He noticed a ton of new spam in his gmail account, and then did some digging to come up with the googlepages privacy concern. So spam me, why don't ya?"
DaveN posted a thread about this at DigitalPoint forums named Google Schoolboy Error ?? In that thread DaveN explained how he came to figure this out. He noticed a ton of new spam in his gmail account, and then did some digging to come up with the googlepages privacy concern. So spam me, why don't ya?"
"TechSearch Combines Search and Blogs Into A Powerful Information Tool
The two most important trends on the Web today are Search and Blogs. TechSearch combines both into a uniquely valuable resource for technology professionals. It offers world-class search to help you find the information you're looking for, and a collection of brand-new, industry-specific blogs to help you find the information you didn't know you needed to know.
Published by CMP Media's Business Technology Group, TechSearch is built around a high-quality search engine providing instant access to high-technology news and information from CMP's extensive network of industry-leading technology publications and blogs. This includes IT reporting from TechWeb, InformationWeek, InternetWeek, CMP's Pipeline sites, CRN, EE Times, Optimize Magazine, and other leading magazines and online news outlets.
But that's only part of the story. TechSearch also searches high-value sites across the World Wide Web, helping you find the best information available, no matter where it was created.
But what about the critical information you don't know about yet? You can't search for information you're not yet looking for. That's where TechSearch's suite of exclusive blogs comes in. Written by a team of dedicated industry experts, these informed, insightful blogs point you to the most important developments in security, electronics, software, e-business, networking and telecommunications, the Internet, channel and distribution, and government..."
Peeking Into Google: "Peeking Into Google
By Susan Kuchinskas
BURLINGAME, Calif. -- The key to the speed and reliability of Google (Quote, Chart) search is cutting up data into chunks, its top engineer said.
Urs Hoelzle, Google vice president of operations and vice president of engineering, offered a rare behind-the-scenes tour of Google's architecture on Wednesday. Hoelzle spoke here at EclipseCon 2005, a conference on the open source, extensible platform for software tools.
To deal with the more than 10 billion Web pages and tens of terabytes of information on Google's servers, the company combines cheap machines with plenty of redundancy, Hoelzle said. Its commodity servers cost around $1,000 apiece, and Google's architecture places them into interconnected nodes.
All machines run on a stripped-down Linux kernel. The distribution is Red Hat (Quote, Chart), but Hoelzle said Google doesn't use much of the distro. Moreover, Google has created its own patches for things that haven't been fixed in the original kernel...."
By Susan Kuchinskas
BURLINGAME, Calif. -- The key to the speed and reliability of Google (Quote, Chart) search is cutting up data into chunks, its top engineer said.
Urs Hoelzle, Google vice president of operations and vice president of engineering, offered a rare behind-the-scenes tour of Google's architecture on Wednesday. Hoelzle spoke here at EclipseCon 2005, a conference on the open source, extensible platform for software tools.
To deal with the more than 10 billion Web pages and tens of terabytes of information on Google's servers, the company combines cheap machines with plenty of redundancy, Hoelzle said. Its commodity servers cost around $1,000 apiece, and Google's architecture places them into interconnected nodes.
All machines run on a stripped-down Linux kernel. The distribution is Red Hat (Quote, Chart), but Hoelzle said Google doesn't use much of the distro. Moreover, Google has created its own patches for things that haven't been fixed in the original kernel...."
Search Engine Journal » Why Brazil Loves Orkut!: "Danny Sullivan made a post today at Search Engine Watch quoting a USA Today piece on the alarming amount of Al-Qaeda “fan” groups in Google’s Orkut. Anytime one talks about Orkut the Brazilian phenomina is discussed which centers around why is Orkut so popular in Brazil?
Danny posted on Search Engine Watch after Google Analyst Day : “My favorite part is probably the explanation of why Orkut only seems to be taking off in Brazil. “Brazilians are just very community-oriented.” What, all those crazy US kids jumping into MySpace like my niece don’t have a sense of community?”
I’ve been thinking about this myself lately and took the liberty of speaking with some Orkut loving Brazilians, my wife (who is from Brazil), representatives from Google Japan (there are over 100,000 wired Brazilians living in Japan) and others about Orkut and came up with this list:..."
Danny posted on Search Engine Watch after Google Analyst Day : “My favorite part is probably the explanation of why Orkut only seems to be taking off in Brazil. “Brazilians are just very community-oriented.” What, all those crazy US kids jumping into MySpace like my niece don’t have a sense of community?”
I’ve been thinking about this myself lately and took the liberty of speaking with some Orkut loving Brazilians, my wife (who is from Brazil), representatives from Google Japan (there are over 100,000 wired Brazilians living in Japan) and others about Orkut and came up with this list:..."
Max Kiesler - Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials:
"There are quite a few AJAX demos and examples on the web right now. While these are invaluable to learning AJAX, some people need a bit more information than just a raw piece of code. In todays environment there are many ways to learn AJAX including, books, classes, conferences, workshops and tutorials. Of these the only one that is free and accessible to everyone are web-based tutorials. The following is a list of what I consider the be the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials that I've found over the past year.
Please let me know through email or a comment if you know of any other great AJAX tutorials and I'll be glad to post them. Also special thanks to all of the folks who produced all of these great free learning experiences..."
"There are quite a few AJAX demos and examples on the web right now. While these are invaluable to learning AJAX, some people need a bit more information than just a raw piece of code. In todays environment there are many ways to learn AJAX including, books, classes, conferences, workshops and tutorials. Of these the only one that is free and accessible to everyone are web-based tutorials. The following is a list of what I consider the be the best and most helpful AJAX tutorials that I've found over the past year.
Please let me know through email or a comment if you know of any other great AJAX tutorials and I'll be glad to post them. Also special thanks to all of the folks who produced all of these great free learning experiences..."
Technology News Article | Reuters.com:
"Bill Gates mocks MIT's $100 laptop project
By Joel Rothstein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..."
"Bill Gates mocks MIT's $100 laptop project
By Joel Rothstein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..."
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
[physics/0602091] A system of mobile agents to model social networks:
"...We propose a model of mobile agents to construct social networks, based on a system of moving particles by keeping track of the collisions during their permanence in the system. We reproduce not only the degree distribution, clustering coefficient and shortest path length of a large data base of empirical friendship networks recently collected, but also some features related with their community structure. The model is completely characterized by the collision rate and above a critical collision rate we find the emergence of a giant cluster in the universality class of two-dimensional percolation. Moreover, we propose possible schemes to reproduce other networks of particular social contacts, namely sexual contacts..."
"...We propose a model of mobile agents to construct social networks, based on a system of moving particles by keeping track of the collisions during their permanence in the system. We reproduce not only the degree distribution, clustering coefficient and shortest path length of a large data base of empirical friendship networks recently collected, but also some features related with their community structure. The model is completely characterized by the collision rate and above a critical collision rate we find the emergence of a giant cluster in the universality class of two-dimensional percolation. Moreover, we propose possible schemes to reproduce other networks of particular social contacts, namely sexual contacts..."
TRN Research News Roundup March 6, 2006:
"Motion models how we meet
What does math have to do with friendship and sex? Quite a bit, these days. Mathematical models are emerging as a useful tool for studying and monitoring social networks.
Networks have three principal characteristics: a structure that indicates the average degrees of separation between nodes, a clustering coefficient that indicates the sizes and distribution of subgroups, and a dynamical evolution that indicates the rate at which links and clusters are formed and broken.
Scientists from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, Federal University of Ceará in Brazil, and the Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics in Portugal have developed a model that captures all three characteristics using a single behavior -- motion. The model contains mobile agents that move randomly and collide with each other, with collisions representing acquaintanceships.
The researchers' model accurately represented the characteristics of several networks: friendships among some 90,000 students at 84 schools in the U.S, and sexual contacts among a network of 250 people.
The model could be used to map many types of networks, including those that inform disease tracking and treatment, sociological studies, and law enforcement.
(System of Mobile Agents to Model Social Networks, Physical Review Letters, March 3, 2006) "
"Motion models how we meet
What does math have to do with friendship and sex? Quite a bit, these days. Mathematical models are emerging as a useful tool for studying and monitoring social networks.
Networks have three principal characteristics: a structure that indicates the average degrees of separation between nodes, a clustering coefficient that indicates the sizes and distribution of subgroups, and a dynamical evolution that indicates the rate at which links and clusters are formed and broken.
Scientists from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, Federal University of Ceará in Brazil, and the Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics in Portugal have developed a model that captures all three characteristics using a single behavior -- motion. The model contains mobile agents that move randomly and collide with each other, with collisions representing acquaintanceships.
The researchers' model accurately represented the characteristics of several networks: friendships among some 90,000 students at 84 schools in the U.S, and sexual contacts among a network of 250 people.
The model could be used to map many types of networks, including those that inform disease tracking and treatment, sociological studies, and law enforcement.
(System of Mobile Agents to Model Social Networks, Physical Review Letters, March 3, 2006) "
Amazon's Newest Product: Storage:
"Huh? That's right, the online store with "Earth's biggest selection" of everything from books to zithers will announce Tuesday morning that it's adding a new and different kind of service: an unlimited data storage service aimed at software developers who are creating new Web sites and services.
This could help spur a whole bunch of new Web mash-ups and other services. Already, a few groups have been using the service, among them a UC Berkeley team running NASA's Stardust@Home project that involves 60,000 images to 100,000 volunteers worldwide so they can scan them for comet dust, the podcasting transcription service CastingWords for storing MP3 files, and FilmmakerLIVE.com for sharing digital storyboard elements.
All these folks need a lot of storage, but it's not that easy to set up storage services cheaply, easily, and reliably at the same time. Amazon's offering up real estate on the same storage system that it uses for its own collection of Web sites around the world for 15 cents per gigabyte of storage per month and 20 cents per gigabyte of storage transferred. I'm told that's cheaper than a lot of hosting services.
What I find most interesting from a business standpoint is that this looks like the clearest step yet that Amazon has taken beyond the retail business model on which it was created. And it should put to rest the notion, still popular among a few analysts, that Amazon is just a retailer.
Adam Selipsky, Amazon Web Services vice-president of product management and developer relations, characterizes the service as simply an extension of the Web services that for years it has offered to developers--access to its product listings, historical prices, its Alexa Web search data, and the like.
...
The S3 "simple storage service" seems to suggest that ultimately, Amazon could offer a wide range of services to do whatever businesses and consumers want to do online. In this case, says Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink, "They're building a system to sell digital goods."
...
So what's Amazon turning into? "They want to be seen as a platform for Web 2.0 applications," says Schmelzer. That still may take awhile. But it's clearer than ever that Amazon intends to keep pace with the big guns on the Web."
"Huh? That's right, the online store with "Earth's biggest selection" of everything from books to zithers will announce Tuesday morning that it's adding a new and different kind of service: an unlimited data storage service aimed at software developers who are creating new Web sites and services.
This could help spur a whole bunch of new Web mash-ups and other services. Already, a few groups have been using the service, among them a UC Berkeley team running NASA's Stardust@Home project that involves 60,000 images to 100,000 volunteers worldwide so they can scan them for comet dust, the podcasting transcription service CastingWords for storing MP3 files, and FilmmakerLIVE.com for sharing digital storyboard elements.
All these folks need a lot of storage, but it's not that easy to set up storage services cheaply, easily, and reliably at the same time. Amazon's offering up real estate on the same storage system that it uses for its own collection of Web sites around the world for 15 cents per gigabyte of storage per month and 20 cents per gigabyte of storage transferred. I'm told that's cheaper than a lot of hosting services.
What I find most interesting from a business standpoint is that this looks like the clearest step yet that Amazon has taken beyond the retail business model on which it was created. And it should put to rest the notion, still popular among a few analysts, that Amazon is just a retailer.
Adam Selipsky, Amazon Web Services vice-president of product management and developer relations, characterizes the service as simply an extension of the Web services that for years it has offered to developers--access to its product listings, historical prices, its Alexa Web search data, and the like.
...
The S3 "simple storage service" seems to suggest that ultimately, Amazon could offer a wide range of services to do whatever businesses and consumers want to do online. In this case, says Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink, "They're building a system to sell digital goods."
...
So what's Amazon turning into? "They want to be seen as a platform for Web 2.0 applications," says Schmelzer. That still may take awhile. But it's clearer than ever that Amazon intends to keep pace with the big guns on the Web."
Blog club FM nabs funding | News.blog | CNET News.com:
"Federated Media, a blog network started by John Battelle, founder of The Industry Standard and Wired, said Wednesday it closed a Series A round of financing led by JP Morgan Partners (JPMP)
The amount of the investment was not disclosed. But JPMP was joined in the funding round by several of FM's original investors, including The New York Times, the Omidyar Network and Mitch Kapor. JPMP partner Chris Albinson also joined FM's board.
FM essentially brings together many well-known blogs and provides backend services such as advertising sales. Blogs in the network include BoingBoing.net, Digg.com, Fark.com and GigaOm.com."
"Federated Media, a blog network started by John Battelle, founder of The Industry Standard and Wired, said Wednesday it closed a Series A round of financing led by JP Morgan Partners (JPMP)
The amount of the investment was not disclosed. But JPMP was joined in the funding round by several of FM's original investors, including The New York Times, the Omidyar Network and Mitch Kapor. JPMP partner Chris Albinson also joined FM's board.
FM essentially brings together many well-known blogs and provides backend services such as advertising sales. Blogs in the network include BoingBoing.net, Digg.com, Fark.com and GigaOm.com."
Amazon.com Amazon Web Services Store: Amazon S3 / Amazon Web Services:
"Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers..."
"Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers..."
Search Engine Journal » Yahoo’s Jerry Yang on Search & Social Media:
"Over at Comparison Engines, Brian Smith has the text highlights of Gordon Hodge’s chat with Chief Yahoo!, Jerry Yang from the Thomas Weisel Partners (TWP) Internet & Telcom Conference. Gordon & Jerry discussed the future and importance of Social Media to Yahoo and their growing list of competiton.
Here are some samplers of the words Yahoo’s co-founder on Competition:
You have the ability of start ups to come out of nowhere and become great companies. That’s what keeps us on our toes. We’ve had some big competitors over the last couple years - AOL, Microsoft, Google, eBay - and the competitive dynamics have only gotten more intense.
On China :
I think we always have taken a view that China is a long term project. The opportunity to be in China is huge. It is not wihtout potential pitfalls. At the same time, you have to balance the risk of not participating. We have journalists getting arrested for free speech violations, and you feel horrible. Are we doing better over the long run? Can we get the government to have a dialogue? If you want to do business there, you have to comply.
And on Yahoo Search Technology’s direction of Social Search, Tags, Reviews, Ratings & Bookmarks:
It is something that has a huge potential. It combines the user participation model and the algorithmic model. You have the 6 degrees of separation model…to run that as a service/technology is a challenge."
"Over at Comparison Engines, Brian Smith has the text highlights of Gordon Hodge’s chat with Chief Yahoo!, Jerry Yang from the Thomas Weisel Partners (TWP) Internet & Telcom Conference. Gordon & Jerry discussed the future and importance of Social Media to Yahoo and their growing list of competiton.
Here are some samplers of the words Yahoo’s co-founder on Competition:
You have the ability of start ups to come out of nowhere and become great companies. That’s what keeps us on our toes. We’ve had some big competitors over the last couple years - AOL, Microsoft, Google, eBay - and the competitive dynamics have only gotten more intense.
On China :
I think we always have taken a view that China is a long term project. The opportunity to be in China is huge. It is not wihtout potential pitfalls. At the same time, you have to balance the risk of not participating. We have journalists getting arrested for free speech violations, and you feel horrible. Are we doing better over the long run? Can we get the government to have a dialogue? If you want to do business there, you have to comply.
And on Yahoo Search Technology’s direction of Social Search, Tags, Reviews, Ratings & Bookmarks:
It is something that has a huge potential. It combines the user participation model and the algorithmic model. You have the 6 degrees of separation model…to run that as a service/technology is a challenge."
Curious about all the new "Web 2.0" companies out there?? Try this:
http://www.web2logo.com/index.php?num_logo=450
http://www.web2logo.com/index.php?num_logo=450
AJAX scripts - A library of nice looking DHTML(dynamic HTML) scripts - DHTMLgoodies.com:
Some interesting scripts, lots of possibilities....
Some interesting scripts, lots of possibilities....
TechCrunch » Flickr has some catching up to do:
"Kristopher Tate walked Brian Oberkirch and me through a demo of his zooomr project at a meetro party last week (Kris, who’s 17, works full time at meetro and zooomr is a side project). He launched zooomr on March 1, 2006 after working on it for only three months or so. And what he’s built is a flickr on steroids.
Zooomr has a similar interface as flickr but does a lot more. You can choose to create an account or just use one of five other credentials to set up an account (Level9, OpenID, LiveJournal, Google (Gmail) or Meetro. The functionality is the same. Zooomr also offers the site in 15 languages.
The real benefit of zooomr is the wide variety of metadata that can be associated with a photo. Any photo can have an audio annotation, although recording functionality is not yet built into zooomr and so you must do this from your camera or an audio program and upload it separately. Zooomr has a built in flash player to listen to the annotation. You can also associate any person with a photo (something you can’t do on flickr, where you can only tag a photo with a person’s name if you like), and there is very tight integration with Google maps to allow geographic information to be included with a photo. If a lot of photos are geo tagged in a specific place at the same time, zooomr assumes they are part of an event even if the photos are all from different users..."
"Kristopher Tate walked Brian Oberkirch and me through a demo of his zooomr project at a meetro party last week (Kris, who’s 17, works full time at meetro and zooomr is a side project). He launched zooomr on March 1, 2006 after working on it for only three months or so. And what he’s built is a flickr on steroids.
Zooomr has a similar interface as flickr but does a lot more. You can choose to create an account or just use one of five other credentials to set up an account (Level9, OpenID, LiveJournal, Google (Gmail) or Meetro. The functionality is the same. Zooomr also offers the site in 15 languages.
The real benefit of zooomr is the wide variety of metadata that can be associated with a photo. Any photo can have an audio annotation, although recording functionality is not yet built into zooomr and so you must do this from your camera or an audio program and upload it separately. Zooomr has a built in flash player to listen to the annotation. You can also associate any person with a photo (something you can’t do on flickr, where you can only tag a photo with a person’s name if you like), and there is very tight integration with Google maps to allow geographic information to be included with a photo. If a lot of photos are geo tagged in a specific place at the same time, zooomr assumes they are part of an event even if the photos are all from different users..."
Gates says services are the future for computers -- and Microsoft - 03/14/06 - The Detroit News:
"Company makes plans to move away from prepackaged software and into web-based applications
Charles Piller / Los Angeles Times
As the Internet transforms the way people use computers, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates has a message for the world's biggest software maker: adapt or die.
'We must act quickly and decisively,' Gates wrote in an Oct. 30 memo to Microsoft executives. 'The next sea change is upon us.'
In the four months since Gates put his company on notice, the maker of the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite has embarked on a restructuring no less significant than its adoption of the graphical, mouse-based user interface 20 years ago or its embrace of the Internet a decade later.
This time, Microsoft wants to diversify away from pre-packaged software and toward Web-based services that provide steadier, faster-growing income streams. In this vision, users would lease access to online software or use services in exchange for putting up with on-screen ads...
..."Microsoft has moved from a highly focused firm to a software conglomerate," said David Yoffie, a business professor at Harvard University. "They are betting on basically everything that has potential to be large and important on the software side of computing, communications and entertainment."
If so, the services push may be Gates using his famously effective paranoia to keep the company hungry, and partly a ploy to keep competitors off balance.
"Microsoft is going to remain a software company for as long as they possibly can," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "There's a bit of misdirection going on here.""
"Company makes plans to move away from prepackaged software and into web-based applications
Charles Piller / Los Angeles Times
As the Internet transforms the way people use computers, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates has a message for the world's biggest software maker: adapt or die.
'We must act quickly and decisively,' Gates wrote in an Oct. 30 memo to Microsoft executives. 'The next sea change is upon us.'
In the four months since Gates put his company on notice, the maker of the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite has embarked on a restructuring no less significant than its adoption of the graphical, mouse-based user interface 20 years ago or its embrace of the Internet a decade later.
This time, Microsoft wants to diversify away from pre-packaged software and toward Web-based services that provide steadier, faster-growing income streams. In this vision, users would lease access to online software or use services in exchange for putting up with on-screen ads...
..."Microsoft has moved from a highly focused firm to a software conglomerate," said David Yoffie, a business professor at Harvard University. "They are betting on basically everything that has potential to be large and important on the software side of computing, communications and entertainment."
If so, the services push may be Gates using his famously effective paranoia to keep the company hungry, and partly a ploy to keep competitors off balance.
"Microsoft is going to remain a software company for as long as they possibly can," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "There's a bit of misdirection going on here.""
Five reasons why you should never use PostgreSQL -- ever:
[Don't let the title fool you,it's actually about "why you should use PostgreSQL"]
"Within the past two years, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have all released freely available versions of their flagship database servers, a move that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. While their respective representatives would argue the move was made in order to better accommodate the needs of all users, it's fairly clear that continued pressure from open source alternatives such as MySQL and PostgreSQL have caused these database juggernauts to rethink their strategies within this increasingly competitive market.
While PostgreSQL's adoption rate continues to accelerate, some folks wonder why that rate isn't even steeper given its impressive array of features. One can speculate that many of the reasons for not considering its adoption tend to be based on either outdated or misinformed sources.
In an effort to dispel some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding this impressive product,...
...
To put it simply, if you require a SQL standards-compliant database with all of the features found in any enterprise-class product and capable of storing terabytes of data while efficiently operating under heavy duress, chances are PostgreSQL will quite satisfactorily meet your needs. However, it doesn't come packaged in a nice box, nor will a sales representative stand outside your bedroom window after you download it.
For applications that require Oracle to even function properly, consider EnterpriseDB, a version of PostgreSQL, which has reimplemented features such as data types, triggers, views and cursors that copy Oracle's behavior. Just think of all the extra company coffee mugs you could purchase with the savings. "
[Don't let the title fool you,it's actually about "why you should use PostgreSQL"]
"Within the past two years, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have all released freely available versions of their flagship database servers, a move that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. While their respective representatives would argue the move was made in order to better accommodate the needs of all users, it's fairly clear that continued pressure from open source alternatives such as MySQL and PostgreSQL have caused these database juggernauts to rethink their strategies within this increasingly competitive market.
While PostgreSQL's adoption rate continues to accelerate, some folks wonder why that rate isn't even steeper given its impressive array of features. One can speculate that many of the reasons for not considering its adoption tend to be based on either outdated or misinformed sources.
In an effort to dispel some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding this impressive product,...
...
To put it simply, if you require a SQL standards-compliant database with all of the features found in any enterprise-class product and capable of storing terabytes of data while efficiently operating under heavy duress, chances are PostgreSQL will quite satisfactorily meet your needs. However, it doesn't come packaged in a nice box, nor will a sales representative stand outside your bedroom window after you download it.
For applications that require Oracle to even function properly, consider EnterpriseDB, a version of PostgreSQL, which has reimplemented features such as data types, triggers, views and cursors that copy Oracle's behavior. Just think of all the extra company coffee mugs you could purchase with the savings. "
Blogcritics.org: Does Personal E-Mail From Sun Exec Reveal Google Is Buying Sun?:
"Something is definitely going on over at the Sun Microsystems camp right now. Since I wrote my first piece on the topic of a Sun takeover by Google, numerous visitors from SEC and Sun Microsystems internal servers have been flocking to read the analysis.
Then, when I penned 'McNealy Resigns, Google To Buy Sun,' only two days ago, the story broke over both Yahoo! Finance and Silicon Investor like wildfire: with over 800 visits in a single day, and a top Digg post, speculation became rampant. With so much attention, and so many anonymous repeat visits from Sun servers, it is difficult to believe that there is not a shred of truth in the argument that the search engine giant is planning a takeover of McNealy's hardware company. I have e-mailed Jonathan Schwartz to comment on the speculation too, but mysteriously, he has not replied so far..."
"Something is definitely going on over at the Sun Microsystems camp right now. Since I wrote my first piece on the topic of a Sun takeover by Google, numerous visitors from SEC and Sun Microsystems internal servers have been flocking to read the analysis.
Then, when I penned 'McNealy Resigns, Google To Buy Sun,' only two days ago, the story broke over both Yahoo! Finance and Silicon Investor like wildfire: with over 800 visits in a single day, and a top Digg post, speculation became rampant. With so much attention, and so many anonymous repeat visits from Sun servers, it is difficult to believe that there is not a shred of truth in the argument that the search engine giant is planning a takeover of McNealy's hardware company. I have e-mailed Jonathan Schwartz to comment on the speculation too, but mysteriously, he has not replied so far..."
The Net's New Age:
"...But the transaction stands out for bigger reasons. Writely is one of dozens of companies that are infusing once-static Web pages with the power, speed, and features of sophisticated desktop applications. And by combining these online applications with the new wireless and broadband communications ability of the Web, they are redefining the Internet itself.
With an application like Writely, people can do much more than store documents online. They can also collaborate, often in new and unique ways. Groups can work together on a document, making changes that appear in real time and doing so without the need to reload the Web page..."
"...But the transaction stands out for bigger reasons. Writely is one of dozens of companies that are infusing once-static Web pages with the power, speed, and features of sophisticated desktop applications. And by combining these online applications with the new wireless and broadband communications ability of the Web, they are redefining the Internet itself.
With an application like Writely, people can do much more than store documents online. They can also collaborate, often in new and unique ways. Groups can work together on a document, making changes that appear in real time and doing so without the need to reload the Web page..."
Wired News::
"Man vs. Machine in Newsreader War
...in the future, will you find your man vs. machine story relying on a human-edited source or from an algorithm?
Standing up for the human intellect, upstart Digg is betting that its formidable legion of users can find better and more interesting news faster than any algorithm Google -- or a number of upstart companies -- can code.
'I have to admit when we first started experimenting with this a year ago, the verdict was out whether (human filtering) was a benefit or a detriment,' CEO Jay Adelson said. 'We found that it works, that it works really, really well.... We think people do a better job.'
On the machine side, the purest algorithmic news finder is Google News, which made waves in the media world when it debuted. With Google News, it's code, and not a team of editors, that decides which stories make it onto the front page.
Today Google News will even tailor the front page to your particular interests as determined by your news reading habits and search history (so long as you are willing to log in to Google with a user name).
Likewise, Tailrank, a San Francisco-based startup founded by Kevin Burton, also relies heavily on smart code to find cool stories -- not just from news outlets, but also from tens of thousands of blogs...."
"Man vs. Machine in Newsreader War
...in the future, will you find your man vs. machine story relying on a human-edited source or from an algorithm?
Standing up for the human intellect, upstart Digg is betting that its formidable legion of users can find better and more interesting news faster than any algorithm Google -- or a number of upstart companies -- can code.
'I have to admit when we first started experimenting with this a year ago, the verdict was out whether (human filtering) was a benefit or a detriment,' CEO Jay Adelson said. 'We found that it works, that it works really, really well.... We think people do a better job.'
On the machine side, the purest algorithmic news finder is Google News, which made waves in the media world when it debuted. With Google News, it's code, and not a team of editors, that decides which stories make it onto the front page.
Today Google News will even tailor the front page to your particular interests as determined by your news reading habits and search history (so long as you are willing to log in to Google with a user name).
Likewise, Tailrank, a San Francisco-based startup founded by Kevin Burton, also relies heavily on smart code to find cool stories -- not just from news outlets, but also from tens of thousands of blogs...."
Selenium IDE Intro:
Firefox extension to easily automate all your browsing tasks
"There is a Firefox extension called Selenium IDE made by the folks over at OpenQA.org. It is a very easy to use and powerful tool for controlling, automating or testing web sites. If there is any repetitive or predictable task that you are always doing in your browser why not let the Selenium IDE handle it for you. It has a very easy record and playback feature making it a breeze to automate anything you want. It will even save your automated task in Ruby code without needing to know a lick of Ruby. The Selenium IDE makes this possible by intercepting browser actions such as clicking on a link, entering some text in a field, submitting a form, etc. and then performing those actions as if you were doing it with your keyboard or mouse. Don't' get scared away, this is all really very easy, and you don't need to know anything about computer programming to use it (although it's a plus if you do). Let me show you how easy it is. I'll show you how to make a script that will automatically enter positive feedback for your last eBay auction."
Firefox extension to easily automate all your browsing tasks
"There is a Firefox extension called Selenium IDE made by the folks over at OpenQA.org. It is a very easy to use and powerful tool for controlling, automating or testing web sites. If there is any repetitive or predictable task that you are always doing in your browser why not let the Selenium IDE handle it for you. It has a very easy record and playback feature making it a breeze to automate anything you want. It will even save your automated task in Ruby code without needing to know a lick of Ruby. The Selenium IDE makes this possible by intercepting browser actions such as clicking on a link, entering some text in a field, submitting a form, etc. and then performing those actions as if you were doing it with your keyboard or mouse. Don't' get scared away, this is all really very easy, and you don't need to know anything about computer programming to use it (although it's a plus if you do). Let me show you how easy it is. I'll show you how to make a script that will automatically enter positive feedback for your last eBay auction."
Should Google Desktop be banned? | Tech News on ZDNet:
"UK IT bosses are already taking measures to ban employees from downloading Google's Desktop search software on PCs and laptops because of the security risk to corporate data.
Analyst Gartner last week warned that the 'search across computers' feature on the latest version of Google Desktop poses an 'unacceptable risk' to many organizations because it allows people to share information and also stores some of that data on Google servers.
Google claims the enterprise version of the software includes security management controls to address corporate security concerns but a sample of UK IT bosses in silicon.com's 12-man CIO Jury user panel said they had already banned or planned to ban any use of Google Desktop within their organization..."
"UK IT bosses are already taking measures to ban employees from downloading Google's Desktop search software on PCs and laptops because of the security risk to corporate data.
Analyst Gartner last week warned that the 'search across computers' feature on the latest version of Google Desktop poses an 'unacceptable risk' to many organizations because it allows people to share information and also stores some of that data on Google servers.
Google claims the enterprise version of the software includes security management controls to address corporate security concerns but a sample of UK IT bosses in silicon.com's 12-man CIO Jury user panel said they had already banned or planned to ban any use of Google Desktop within their organization..."
Cool Tool: Consensus Web Filters:
"...This new genre fits into a whitespace between already occupied niches of social web sites. In the established center are the group-produced sites such as Slashdot, BoingBoing, WorldChaning, Huffington Post, to name just four very popular ones, where a very small cast of editors (under a dozen or so) collaboratively filter and annotate the links to other sources. A daring and effective extension of this method was devised by the fantastic group at MetaFilter. Here the editors are a very smart mob of 25,000 users. One by one readers recommend the cool new stuff they find. Their filter is simply the emergent one of their collective discretion and taste; no one votes or ranks links. At the other end of the axis of collaborative filtering is the likes of Google and Yahoo News, which use the entire collaboration inherent in the web and many Googleish algorithms to programmatically generate a list of what's new based on who is linking stuff, the most "important" item at the top. No humans explicitly vote on the items.
These new uncategorized sites, which have emerged this year (and reviewed below), fall in between the positions above. They take the smart mob approach of MetaFilter and add the algorithms of search engines. So, readers themselves vote on the importance of linked items suggested by other readers; these votes are then subjected to a complex formula to produce rankings. The sites use various flavors of algorithms to balance and refine the votes and selection of smart mobs. Or they use the action of tagging or bookmarking a site as a type of vote. Each site uses a different algorithm, yielding slightly different mixes of links, and a different personality. The best sites maintain a balance between providing a sense of what everyone is reading (consensus popularity) and some novel items that not everyone is reading (yet). In the reviews below I try to capture some sense of distinctive style for each site.
How I use these consensus tools: By scanning these lists daily I get a fantastic sense of what the web is reading, and an early glimpse of what will reach the MSM in the next day or so. But most important for me is the large volume of very interesting news that will not become "news." This is the kind of material that is more interesting than random pages but which lacks an appealing hook to place it on the front page of a magazine or even a news website. Often these items are timeless; they don't make the front page because they could be run at any time. But they are more valuable than odd curiosities. Because of the voting, tagging, bookmarking process enough people find the item worthwhile that they rise to notice. What emerges for me is a delightful counter-news, or what we used to call at CoEvolution Quarterly, "news that stays news." I have encountered no other process in the world that is better at surfacing "news that stays news" and "news that will be news" better than these collaborative filtering sites.
I imagine in the near future there will be many dozens, if not hundreds, of tweaks on this scheme. Readers will gravitate to a formula that suits their own personal taste. Inevitably, there'll be some meta-operation that will seek out the overlaps among all the collab-voting sites and extract its own meta-list. Or, eventually, you'll be able to tweak your own mix of others' votes to roll your own collabvote site.
Given the rate of innovation, I'm sure I've missed some already in progress. If you find a new one at all useful, let me know about it.
-- KK
Digg
My first stop. I only look at their top stories page, an approach which some devotees find whimpy; true Diggers look at the real-time stream of suggested items before they have too many votes.
Reddit
If I had to pick only one of these I would pick Reddit. It gives me the best balance between the lesser-seen and the over-seen. Some folks don't like it because users can down-vote items which may make the list more manipulated. But I feel it brings me a little more variety than Digg. I find I click on more stories here than any other consensus site.
NewsVine
I have their science thread bookmarked. It's the best link for breaking science news. And their world news thread is very fine too. (I find the their top story thread to be polluted by popularity.)
Fantacular
A new one. Still learning its personality, but so far it delivers fairly techie posts, closer to Slashdot themes. It does not churn as fast as Slashdot or Digg and Reddit.
180 News
Good for getting the latest news in the last five minutes. There's no attempt to weed out duplicates, as in say Google News, so you get a raw stream of voted items, many of them the same story reported by different sources. Their technology stream resembles the mix of Fantacular and Digg, but faster. I also like their World News bookmark. It feels like Yahoo or Google news, but still faster.
Gather
The type of stories that rise to the top here reminds me of a cross between Reader's Digest and NPR's Weekend Edition -- light, offbeat, humorous, encouraging, sometimes odd, inspiring. If you like a collaborative group hug, this is your place. It's just not me.
The above websites use voting to rank links to other sites. Another set of new websites use shared bookmarks to rank links. Delicious was the first well-known shared, or social bookmarking site. As readers bookmark interesting pages they would tag (categorize) and share these bookmarks with other readers through Delicious. The original idea was that one could search bookmarks by tags to find listings of cool sites by subject. But folks discovered that by compiling a list of the most popular shared bookmarks an ever-changing ranked list of sites would also emerge. There are now at least 15 different social bookmarking sites. Some of them provide a ranking of most popularly bookmark pages of the moment. I use this ranking function without bothering with the tagging part of sites.
Del.icio.us
I look at the "popular" page on Delicious. It features 4 or 5 popular links for five sample subjects at one time. The subjects seem to change every few days. There's a lot of action, and the links are generally high quality.
Oishii
This is my preferred way to "read" Delicious. It polls the front page of Delicious and posts any item that is bookmarked by at least 30 people. Quick, fast, one page.
Blogmarks
I like Blogmarks for one great innovation: they display a thumbnail of the front page of the sites they link to. Why don't all of these sites do that?
Blinklist
Blinklist also displays thumbnails of listed sites but not consistently.
Furl
Choose the "day" mode, otherwise the list refreshes too slowly.
Simpy
A lot of very geeky links, with an occasional keeper.
Spurl
Scarce traffic keeps the change in the list slow."
"...This new genre fits into a whitespace between already occupied niches of social web sites. In the established center are the group-produced sites such as Slashdot, BoingBoing, WorldChaning, Huffington Post, to name just four very popular ones, where a very small cast of editors (under a dozen or so) collaboratively filter and annotate the links to other sources. A daring and effective extension of this method was devised by the fantastic group at MetaFilter. Here the editors are a very smart mob of 25,000 users. One by one readers recommend the cool new stuff they find. Their filter is simply the emergent one of their collective discretion and taste; no one votes or ranks links. At the other end of the axis of collaborative filtering is the likes of Google and Yahoo News, which use the entire collaboration inherent in the web and many Googleish algorithms to programmatically generate a list of what's new based on who is linking stuff, the most "important" item at the top. No humans explicitly vote on the items.
These new uncategorized sites, which have emerged this year (and reviewed below), fall in between the positions above. They take the smart mob approach of MetaFilter and add the algorithms of search engines. So, readers themselves vote on the importance of linked items suggested by other readers; these votes are then subjected to a complex formula to produce rankings. The sites use various flavors of algorithms to balance and refine the votes and selection of smart mobs. Or they use the action of tagging or bookmarking a site as a type of vote. Each site uses a different algorithm, yielding slightly different mixes of links, and a different personality. The best sites maintain a balance between providing a sense of what everyone is reading (consensus popularity) and some novel items that not everyone is reading (yet). In the reviews below I try to capture some sense of distinctive style for each site.
How I use these consensus tools: By scanning these lists daily I get a fantastic sense of what the web is reading, and an early glimpse of what will reach the MSM in the next day or so. But most important for me is the large volume of very interesting news that will not become "news." This is the kind of material that is more interesting than random pages but which lacks an appealing hook to place it on the front page of a magazine or even a news website. Often these items are timeless; they don't make the front page because they could be run at any time. But they are more valuable than odd curiosities. Because of the voting, tagging, bookmarking process enough people find the item worthwhile that they rise to notice. What emerges for me is a delightful counter-news, or what we used to call at CoEvolution Quarterly, "news that stays news." I have encountered no other process in the world that is better at surfacing "news that stays news" and "news that will be news" better than these collaborative filtering sites.
I imagine in the near future there will be many dozens, if not hundreds, of tweaks on this scheme. Readers will gravitate to a formula that suits their own personal taste. Inevitably, there'll be some meta-operation that will seek out the overlaps among all the collab-voting sites and extract its own meta-list. Or, eventually, you'll be able to tweak your own mix of others' votes to roll your own collabvote site.
Given the rate of innovation, I'm sure I've missed some already in progress. If you find a new one at all useful, let me know about it.
-- KK
Digg
My first stop. I only look at their top stories page, an approach which some devotees find whimpy; true Diggers look at the real-time stream of suggested items before they have too many votes.
If I had to pick only one of these I would pick Reddit. It gives me the best balance between the lesser-seen and the over-seen. Some folks don't like it because users can down-vote items which may make the list more manipulated. But I feel it brings me a little more variety than Digg. I find I click on more stories here than any other consensus site.
NewsVine
I have their science thread bookmarked. It's the best link for breaking science news. And their world news thread is very fine too. (I find the their top story thread to be polluted by popularity.)
Fantacular
A new one. Still learning its personality, but so far it delivers fairly techie posts, closer to Slashdot themes. It does not churn as fast as Slashdot or Digg and Reddit.
180 News
Good for getting the latest news in the last five minutes. There's no attempt to weed out duplicates, as in say Google News, so you get a raw stream of voted items, many of them the same story reported by different sources. Their technology stream resembles the mix of Fantacular and Digg, but faster. I also like their World News bookmark. It feels like Yahoo or Google news, but still faster.
Gather
The type of stories that rise to the top here reminds me of a cross between Reader's Digest and NPR's Weekend Edition -- light, offbeat, humorous, encouraging, sometimes odd, inspiring. If you like a collaborative group hug, this is your place. It's just not me.
The above websites use voting to rank links to other sites. Another set of new websites use shared bookmarks to rank links. Delicious was the first well-known shared, or social bookmarking site. As readers bookmark interesting pages they would tag (categorize) and share these bookmarks with other readers through Delicious. The original idea was that one could search bookmarks by tags to find listings of cool sites by subject. But folks discovered that by compiling a list of the most popular shared bookmarks an ever-changing ranked list of sites would also emerge. There are now at least 15 different social bookmarking sites. Some of them provide a ranking of most popularly bookmark pages of the moment. I use this ranking function without bothering with the tagging part of sites.
Del.icio.us
I look at the "popular" page on Delicious. It features 4 or 5 popular links for five sample subjects at one time. The subjects seem to change every few days. There's a lot of action, and the links are generally high quality.
Oishii
This is my preferred way to "read" Delicious. It polls the front page of Delicious and posts any item that is bookmarked by at least 30 people. Quick, fast, one page.
Blogmarks
I like Blogmarks for one great innovation: they display a thumbnail of the front page of the sites they link to. Why don't all of these sites do that?
Blinklist
Blinklist also displays thumbnails of listed sites but not consistently.
Furl
Choose the "day" mode, otherwise the list refreshes too slowly.
Simpy
A lot of very geeky links, with an occasional keeper.
Spurl
Scarce traffic keeps the change in the list slow."
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
John Battelle's Searchblog: Google Is Selling Books:
"Back in the day (OK, 18 months ago), Google was quite coy about whether or not it was going to get into the business of marketplace transactions. Since Video and Base came out, however, it's clear the company is looking to move in on eBay and Amazon, and now the company is in the bookselling business. Welcome to the merchandising business, Google!
Update: I should clarify, that Google as yet is not enabling the selling of physical books, but online access to books. I for one think it's only a matter of time..."
"Back in the day (OK, 18 months ago), Google was quite coy about whether or not it was going to get into the business of marketplace transactions. Since Video and Base came out, however, it's clear the company is looking to move in on eBay and Amazon, and now the company is in the bookselling business. Welcome to the merchandising business, Google!
Update: I should clarify, that Google as yet is not enabling the selling of physical books, but online access to books. I for one think it's only a matter of time..."
Google Operations VP Talks Of "Shards" & Other Search Architecture Details:
"An InternetNews.com article named Peeking Into Google has Google's VP of operations and engineering giving us insight into Google's architecture. The article covers Google's hardware, the operating system on that hardware, and the auto-healing technology used on Google's servers. Also, the article describes how Google stores the data on the machines, and the action Google takes when a query is submitted. As you continue reading through the article, you also learn where the snippet of content comes from on the search results page and that search result page is then stored into memory. The Google VP also discusses the 'Google File System', 'Map/Reduce Framework' and 'Global Work Queue' and each of its respective responsibilities.
Here are some key points from the article;..."
"An InternetNews.com article named Peeking Into Google has Google's VP of operations and engineering giving us insight into Google's architecture. The article covers Google's hardware, the operating system on that hardware, and the auto-healing technology used on Google's servers. Also, the article describes how Google stores the data on the machines, and the action Google takes when a query is submitted. As you continue reading through the article, you also learn where the snippet of content comes from on the search results page and that search result page is then stored into memory. The Google VP also discusses the 'Google File System', 'Map/Reduce Framework' and 'Global Work Queue' and each of its respective responsibilities.
Here are some key points from the article;..."
Search Engine Journal » Myspace Messenger Open For Beta Testing:
"There had been some rumors on Myspace planning on launching their messenger IM service sometime soon, especially with them heavily targeting Yahoo staff like Yahoo’s Manager of email and IM, Brad Garlinghouse. The reasoning for Myspace Messenger is quitesimple, while Myspace is the premier destination for young active blogging music loving teenagers, those users are doing their messaging and emailing (if they still practice such outdated web communnications tools like email) elsewhere.
Pete Cashmore backs this point up on Mashable when discussing reasons why Fox Interactive should acquire Goowy :
… when MySpace users aren’t on MySpace, they’re checking their email or chatting on IM. If Fox Interactive can own that time too, they’ll have 100% attention from the youth demographic. Hence, getting into the IM and email space would make perfect sense.
So, if you use Myspace and want to get even more connected to your friends or groups, sign up to beta test the Myspace Messenger IM:
MySpace is launching a totally new IM service!
Here’s what you get:
* MySpace Messenger account with your own MySpace UserName!
* IM your MySpace friends anytime!
* One-click login to your mail, blogs, and more!
* Get instant notification for add requests, messages, and comments!
* Find and view your friends’ profiles with one click!
* It’s FREE! And more features coming soon!
In time, I think its quite safe to expect VOIP and mobile communications integration into the Myspace Messenger system, which is what will become the major FOX Interactive backbone for decades to come..."
"There had been some rumors on Myspace planning on launching their messenger IM service sometime soon, especially with them heavily targeting Yahoo staff like Yahoo’s Manager of email and IM, Brad Garlinghouse. The reasoning for Myspace Messenger is quitesimple, while Myspace is the premier destination for young active blogging music loving teenagers, those users are doing their messaging and emailing (if they still practice such outdated web communnications tools like email) elsewhere.
Pete Cashmore backs this point up on Mashable when discussing reasons why Fox Interactive should acquire Goowy :
… when MySpace users aren’t on MySpace, they’re checking their email or chatting on IM. If Fox Interactive can own that time too, they’ll have 100% attention from the youth demographic. Hence, getting into the IM and email space would make perfect sense.
So, if you use Myspace and want to get even more connected to your friends or groups, sign up to beta test the Myspace Messenger IM:
MySpace is launching a totally new IM service!
Here’s what you get:
* MySpace Messenger account with your own MySpace UserName!
* IM your MySpace friends anytime!
* One-click login to your mail, blogs, and more!
* Get instant notification for add requests, messages, and comments!
* Find and view your friends’ profiles with one click!
* It’s FREE! And more features coming soon!
In time, I think its quite safe to expect VOIP and mobile communications integration into the Myspace Messenger system, which is what will become the major FOX Interactive backbone for decades to come..."
Search Engine Journal » 3-D Seek Doodle Search Engine Now Available for Testing with 6,000 Items in Index:
"3-D Seek is a joint effort of Imaginestics and the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program which is a search engine that lets users find items in an online catalog without ever needing to know the items’ names, part numbers or keywords. Instead of searching by term, the user simply draws a freehand sketch, or a doodle.
3D-Seek was originally designed for manufacturing firms, which are constantly looking for hinges, bolts, conveyor belts, motors and a host of other products. However 3D-Seeks feels that the basic search engine could “prove equally useful for ordinary shoppers: instead of having to go to the hardware store lugging, say, a specific plumbing joint, a customer could just sketch what he or she needed to find an exact match.” 3D-Seek is now open for public testing.
“In order to make such a search engine commercially viable we had to overcome the challenge of matching something as rudimentary as a doodle to a 3-D object - in seconds,” said Nainesh Rathod, co-founder and President of Imaginestics. “This is important, as Web users have become accustomed to retrieving information instantaneously. Our shape-search engine processes data that are far more complex then those handled by the leading Internet search engines, and yet still finds results quickly.”..."
"3-D Seek is a joint effort of Imaginestics and the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program which is a search engine that lets users find items in an online catalog without ever needing to know the items’ names, part numbers or keywords. Instead of searching by term, the user simply draws a freehand sketch, or a doodle.
3D-Seek was originally designed for manufacturing firms, which are constantly looking for hinges, bolts, conveyor belts, motors and a host of other products. However 3D-Seeks feels that the basic search engine could “prove equally useful for ordinary shoppers: instead of having to go to the hardware store lugging, say, a specific plumbing joint, a customer could just sketch what he or she needed to find an exact match.” 3D-Seek is now open for public testing.
“In order to make such a search engine commercially viable we had to overcome the challenge of matching something as rudimentary as a doodle to a 3-D object - in seconds,” said Nainesh Rathod, co-founder and President of Imaginestics. “This is important, as Web users have become accustomed to retrieving information instantaneously. Our shape-search engine processes data that are far more complex then those handled by the leading Internet search engines, and yet still finds results quickly.”..."
Search Engine Journal » Yahoo! Refunds Click Fraud Without Customer Requesting Refund:
"A thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Kudos to YSM Click Fraud Dept shows how two moderators have received automated email notifications from Yahoo! Search Marketing that they have been refunded money (some a large amount) for click fraud. Elisabeth, Search Engine Watch Forums Editor said,
Iwas pleasantly surprised to see a couple of automatic emails from YSM notifying me that they had automatically credited a few (one was a fairly significant dollar figure) of my clients’ accounts for “some unusual clicks on your account that were not detected before they reached your account balance.”
Andrew Goodman adds that “We recently received word of a substantial refund that we were not even claiming was fraud, just a spike in content spend that was quite unwanted.”
This is the type of proactive action a PPC engine should take to build advertiser confidence and help the search marketing industry grow. Kudos to Yahoo! Search Marketing!"
"A thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Kudos to YSM Click Fraud Dept shows how two moderators have received automated email notifications from Yahoo! Search Marketing that they have been refunded money (some a large amount) for click fraud. Elisabeth, Search Engine Watch Forums Editor said,
Iwas pleasantly surprised to see a couple of automatic emails from YSM notifying me that they had automatically credited a few (one was a fairly significant dollar figure) of my clients’ accounts for “some unusual clicks on your account that were not detected before they reached your account balance.”
Andrew Goodman adds that “We recently received word of a substantial refund that we were not even claiming was fraud, just a spike in content spend that was quite unwanted.”
This is the type of proactive action a PPC engine should take to build advertiser confidence and help the search marketing industry grow. Kudos to Yahoo! Search Marketing!"
Search Engine Journal » eBay’s Investment in Meetup.com:
"eBay has taken its high profile investments and acquisitions beyond Craigslist and Skype and over to the Meetup.com. Along with other investors including Senator Bill Bradley (you know, the guy who lost to Al Gore in the 2000 Democratic primaries, who is also an investor in QuinStreet) and the Omidyar Network, eBay lead the investors who in all received a 10% equity in Meetup.com.
Meetup.com fits into eBay’s community feel and community expansion plans, moving beyond auctions and into communications, local classifieds, and now local gatherings. Meetup.com, with its 2.5 million registered members, would be a perfect fit with integrated eBay tools and Meetup.com usage is geared to heatup with cut throat US Congressional elections this fall and the next Presidential election in 2008.
From Meetup.com : “Since the 2004 presidential election, Meetup.com quietly continued to grow, in the number of people going to Meetups– and as a viable business. From Moms to Dog Owners, NASCAR Fans to Knitters, more-and-more people everyday are creating and becoming part of local Meetups in their towns. All Meetups pay Meetup.com a monthly fee of up to $19 per month for listings and services to help them grow a sustainable Meetup. The company’s sales have more than doubled in the past six months.”
Moms to Dog Owners, NASCAR Fans to Knitters? Yes, that sounds like eBay’s core business.
“Meetup.com and eBay share a focus on using the Internet to connect people and create communities,” said Garrett Price, vice president of New Ventures, eBay. “In fact, we are now seeing groups of eBay users in local areas using Meetup.com to arrange get-togethers.”
“Meetup was one of the key inspirations in creating Omidyar Network, a mission-based investment group committed to individual self-empowerment,” said Pierre Omidyar, Meetup board member, Omidyar Network CEO, and founder/Chairman of eBay. “My belief that business can be a tool for social good is validated by eBay and Meetup’s ability to connect people over shared interests through a for-profit model.” "
"eBay has taken its high profile investments and acquisitions beyond Craigslist and Skype and over to the Meetup.com. Along with other investors including Senator Bill Bradley (you know, the guy who lost to Al Gore in the 2000 Democratic primaries, who is also an investor in QuinStreet) and the Omidyar Network, eBay lead the investors who in all received a 10% equity in Meetup.com.
Meetup.com fits into eBay’s community feel and community expansion plans, moving beyond auctions and into communications, local classifieds, and now local gatherings. Meetup.com, with its 2.5 million registered members, would be a perfect fit with integrated eBay tools and Meetup.com usage is geared to heatup with cut throat US Congressional elections this fall and the next Presidential election in 2008.
From Meetup.com : “Since the 2004 presidential election, Meetup.com quietly continued to grow, in the number of people going to Meetups– and as a viable business. From Moms to Dog Owners, NASCAR Fans to Knitters, more-and-more people everyday are creating and becoming part of local Meetups in their towns. All Meetups pay Meetup.com a monthly fee of up to $19 per month for listings and services to help them grow a sustainable Meetup. The company’s sales have more than doubled in the past six months.”
Moms to Dog Owners, NASCAR Fans to Knitters? Yes, that sounds like eBay’s core business.
“Meetup.com and eBay share a focus on using the Internet to connect people and create communities,” said Garrett Price, vice president of New Ventures, eBay. “In fact, we are now seeing groups of eBay users in local areas using Meetup.com to arrange get-togethers.”
“Meetup was one of the key inspirations in creating Omidyar Network, a mission-based investment group committed to individual self-empowerment,” said Pierre Omidyar, Meetup board member, Omidyar Network CEO, and founder/Chairman of eBay. “My belief that business can be a tool for social good is validated by eBay and Meetup’s ability to connect people over shared interests through a for-profit model.” "
Google Buys SketchUp:
"Reistance is futile – Google acquires yet another company. This time it’s @Last Software, makers of SketchUp, a nice and easy 3D program for architects. From the official Google Blog:
“People see SketchUp and they love it. Now that we’re part of Google, how many of those ah-ha moments will happen every day? Already we’ve had hundreds of users create 3D content in SketchUp and place their models in Google Earth. (...) What will that virtual world look like when tens of thousands of users are doing the same?”
Currently SketchUp costs $495, with a trial version available. I wonder if Google will release this for free one day?"
"Reistance is futile – Google acquires yet another company. This time it’s @Last Software, makers of SketchUp, a nice and easy 3D program for architects. From the official Google Blog:
“People see SketchUp and they love it. Now that we’re part of Google, how many of those ah-ha moments will happen every day? Already we’ve had hundreds of users create 3D content in SketchUp and place their models in Google Earth. (...) What will that virtual world look like when tens of thousands of users are doing the same?”
Currently SketchUp costs $495, with a trial version available. I wonder if Google will release this for free one day?"
Friday, March 10, 2006
Search Engine Journal - Clusty's Benjamin Franklin Portal:
"I just browsed over to one of my favorite metasearch engines, Clusty, and noticed that they now have a Benjamin Franklin Information Portal. More from the site:
“Welcome to the Benjamin Franklin web portal: a comprehensive, one-stop site that includes carefully curated educational resources, Franklin’s own writings and proverbs, and tens of thousands of websites scattered throughout cyberspace. Befitting this founding father’s leadership in establishing the country’s first public library, this free site, in honor of his Tercentenary, is accessible to anyone with an internet connection.”
One of the best features that Clusty offers are clustered results (hence the name), and this really shines if you click on any of the Clusty.Ben tabs; for instance, click on “Proverbs”, then “Show All”, and you’ll get a great table of contents to the left of your browser window, such as Ease, Fools, Death, etc."
"I just browsed over to one of my favorite metasearch engines, Clusty, and noticed that they now have a Benjamin Franklin Information Portal. More from the site:
“Welcome to the Benjamin Franklin web portal: a comprehensive, one-stop site that includes carefully curated educational resources, Franklin’s own writings and proverbs, and tens of thousands of websites scattered throughout cyberspace. Befitting this founding father’s leadership in establishing the country’s first public library, this free site, in honor of his Tercentenary, is accessible to anyone with an internet connection.”
One of the best features that Clusty offers are clustered results (hence the name), and this really shines if you click on any of the Clusty.Ben tabs; for instance, click on “Proverbs”, then “Show All”, and you’ll get a great table of contents to the left of your browser window, such as Ease, Fools, Death, etc."
