Internet News

About.com traffic is dropping

The New York Times’ About.com: From All-Star To Albatross, Jeff Roberts, PaidContent.org (Feb 3)

Bad news for About.com. New York Times, the owner, revealed that About.com "suffered a 67% drop in profits and that revenues had fallen by a quarter".

It sounds serious. Of course revenue is from ads (there are a lot of them on about.com pages) - and it didn't help that Google downgraded About.com pages in ranking results. About.com does get 60 million unique monthly visitors, but that it gets 80% of traffic from being found in a search engine does not bode well.

Pity - because the About.com are generally excellent - the guides are broad and current.

But the amount of screen space given over to ads does make it look spammy. Did NYT ever consider that?

What Google Knows

Who Does Google Think You Are?, Karen Weise, Bloomberg Busienss Week (Feb 2)

Find out who Google thinks you are as a marketing target in terms of interests and age. As the article says, the url is awkward - just search Google for ad preferences manager - follow the link and sign into your Google account. Are you what Google thinks you are?

The issue is Google's intention to bring together in one place all the products a Google account holder uses in order to integrate the data - and know its users better.

Of interest: "The concern has prompted regulators in Ireland and France to announce they’re going to examine Google’s new policy. A bipartisan group of eight U.S. representatives sent Google Chief Executive Officer Larry Page a letter with questions about the change. Google responded on Jan. 30, emphasizing the controls users do have and how new approaches will make it easier and quicker for people to find the information they want on the Web. They also noted that Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, praised the clarity of the unified privacy policy."

Grow your social network

Google+ Growing Your Social Network: Quantity vs. Quality, Aaron Friedman, Search Engine Land (Jan 31)

Interesting proposition - "Google may be building a network simply to enhance our search results, not necessarily to kill Facebook.

The concept of a social graph, which was brought to life by Facebook, may be what Google is really creating. But not for the Social network; for relevance in the search results."

Therefore, build your circles to improve search results for your specialty. Mind, this article was written for marketers looking to "grow" an audience.

Socialized search personalization - not yet

It’s Complicated: The Awkward Socialization Of Search, Kendall Allen, Marketing Land (jan 31)

"Socialized search personalization", notwithstanding the all-out efforts of Google and Facebook, is a long way away - and may never be.

"In order to deliver perfectly and authentically on this hallowed search concept, all across the land, many entities must cooperate and expose themselves on the back-end. Exactly how many entities must play along with the mass data game? The answer is: all of them. In order to service legitimate, socialized search personalization, every single platform or social network used by our friends, peers and business networks must participate: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, MySpace, Tagged, Orkut, Meetup, Ning. The list goes on and on."

To this we might add - be careful what you wish for.

Amazing tips for using Google+

50 Great Google+ Tips for School Librarians, Melissa Venable, Online College (

This is an interesting list of ways school librarians can use Google+ to stay in touch with parents, students, teachers. We can easily adapt these for any group. Course, the first step will be to have members in the group a open Google account.

Some tips in the list are about finding new people through search, following them, and following Google+ suggestions. Another use - create your own circle for following authors.

All in all - use Google+ as a PLN - personal learning network .

Machine Language Translation

Language Translation in the Internet Age 'My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels’ by Nancy K. Herther, Searcher (Feb)

Machine translation still has some distance to go. It still isn't good enough for business use, but it might give the searcher enough to get buy on.

"With the use of computers for nearly everything today — news, shopping, education, communication, information — it seems only natural to assume that computers will somehow play a major role in helping us deal with the increasingly global aspect of the internet and, in particular, the profusion of languages being used."

Therefore, what shall we use? Article describes translations efforts today and the software available - Bing, Yahoo, and Google are on the list.

Of interest: Google Translate -- "Introduced in 2006 originally for Arabic, the underlying software is also used in Babel Fish, Yahoo!, and AOL translation products. In May 2011, Google announced that Google Translate would be terminated; however, due to public pressure. in June, it announced that a paid version of the Translate API would remain available for developers."

Ebook Buzz Column

University Presses and Ebooks: A New Horizon by Sue Polanka, Wright State University, Online (Feb)

Online Magazine has added Ebook Buzz as a new column about ebooks in libraries and scholarly publishing - and we hope it will be free to view.

eBooks have arrived at universities - and they will soon be well integrated into online scholarly research.

"No fewer than four different nonprofit entities—Project MUSE, JSTOR, Cambridge University Press, and the Oxford-sponsored University Press Scholarship Online—now offer online distribution options to university presses."

SLA on its social networking project

Blog Impossible by Meryl B. Cole, Christian L. Gray, and Cindy A. Romaine, Newsbreaks (Feb 1)

SLA volunteers ran a blog during 2011 - FutureReady365 - with a post every day on sharing ideas on preparing for the future. Grand idea and grand execution.

The article by three of the organizers recaps leading ideas on values and activities for being future ready contributed by members. It also describes how volunteers were involved and ways by which they kept up the online social energy. They give a "tip sheet on how to create your own daily, collaborative social networking project".

Great - so why not continue the blog through 2012?

Legal Situation with Google Books

Divide and Conquer: Update on the Google Books Lawsuit by George H. Pike, Newsbreaks (Feb 2012)

Google has been engaged in legal action concerning Google Books and the digitization projects for 7 years. George Pike brings us to the present as Google tries to defang the class action suit by the Authors' Guild and photographs by seeking a dismissal.

Much of this would go away if copyright law were changed.

"Of course, the best solution would be for changes in the copyright law to reflect the technological changes and social benefit that the Google book database unquestionably provides. The orphan works problem continues to loom; it inhibits not only Google but also any other organization that wants to digitize and make available any information that is copyrighted but does not have an identifiable owner. Millions of documents, photographs, works of music, and media items representing an extensive cultural and historical heritage exist in this netherworld, possessed by libraries and archives but limited to their dusty shelves."

We get an update on Europeana too - and its use of a registry for holding information about orphan works.

LAC uses Flickr

Launch of a New Flickr Image Set: Prime Minister Louis Stephen St-Laurent, Library and Archives Canada (Feb 2)

Interesting: 1) the photos, and 2) that LAC uses Flickr - owned by Yahoo, situated in the United States. What happens when Yahoo sells Flickr - as might happen, or changes it in some extreme way? Also, should Library and Archives Canada be outsourcing to a US based service? What's wrong with buy Canadian? Cost would be the reason - that's how strapped cultural organizations are in Canada.

Complying with content rules

Google Introduces Country Domains on Blogger to Aid Content Removal, John Ribeiro, IDG News (Feb 2)

Empires will control communications if they can - Harold Innis was right.

Countries have rules on what their people are allowed to read - China, India, some Arab countries, some European countries.

Google has changed Blogger so that there are localized country domains making it easier to comply with content removal rules.

Twitter is doing the same - "Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world." [Tweets still must flow]

Google explained -- "Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or "ccTLD." For example, if you're in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location." [Google Blogger ]

The new Google 2.0

Google 2.0 prepares to come out of the shade, Richard Waters, FT (Feb 1)

I guess it was inevitable - Google would have to go Web 2.0 in the face of the huge success of social networks, and as it built up new services, it would have to promote them over those of others. As this article says, "Google once had a single-minded mission: to pass on its users as quickly as it could to other sites on the internet. No more. The new Google wants you to hang around for a while ... "

Time will tell if users will bond to this new form, and if Google will make even more money from the associated advertising.

Stumbleupon adopts iframes

StumbleUpon Kills Direct Links, iFrames Everything, Brent Csutoras, Search Engine Land (Feb 1)

Stumbleupon has undergone a redesign so that as users stumble through sites that match up to their interests (theoretically - depends on how other stumblers tag what they find) they will stay inside the Stumbleupon frame.

Oh - that's not going to go down well. Many sites have done that and regretted it.

"One particular change that really surprised me was the removal of all direct links pointing back to the content sources from within StumbleUpon.

Instead on all content pages within StumbleUpon, you have a single button saying ‘Stumble This’, which when clicked takes you to an iframed version of the content."

Of interest: Stumbleupon has 20 million "users".

Amit Singhal talks about Google Search Plus

Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Jan 28)

Amit Singhal, Google's search chief, answered questions about Google Search Plus Your World. Mostly, he said

1. users like it even though bloggers have been critical
2. it's only been two weeks - the product is "not complete".
3. Google will never depend on a source again after its experience of losing the Twitter feed and having to close realtime search.

In this article, Danny Sullivan mentions an add-on tool that works with Google to add information from Facebook, MySPace and Twitter to the Google+ features now in Google web search (eg People and Places box). Read more in “Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+

US Government-Related Search

A Roundup Of New U.S. Government Search Tools, Gary Price, Search Engine Land (Jan 30)

For researchers seeking out US government data, this list of very specialized US government-related search engines may be useful.

One on the list is Global Think Tank Directory - it lists organizations that deal with public policy. There are several listed by province for Canada. Find this under North America, and look for a small forward arrow to page through.

Two Note-Taking Apps

Evernote vs. OneNote: Note-Taking Apps Showdown, Michele Mastin, PCWorld (Jan 30)

If you're doing any kind of research - even planning a vacation - these note taking, applications will be handy. Use them for taking notes, collecting materials, organizing information, or managing projects. Use is entirely up to your ingenuity and need.

This article compares Evernote, excellent for web clipping as well as its note taking capabilities, to OneNote, an applicaiton that is included in Microsoft Office or standalone.

"Both note-taking tools are full-featured, with different strengths. Evernote is great as a quick reference tool, since you can add or look up any kind of note from almost any device, but it lacks the depth of organization and integration of OneNote. For more in-depth projects or longer form notes, I gravitate towards OneNote, due to its deeper organizational tools. OneNote’s superior syncing and sharing tools also make it more suited to team collaboration, brainstorming, and whiteboarding, whereas Evernote works well as a shared repository of reference material. Even if you don’t use Microsoft Office, OneNote may be worth the $80 stand-alone price if ink notes, deeper organization, linking, and put-anything-anywhere-on-the-page notes appeal to you."

Google's wdyl

Google Launches “What Do You Love” Search, To Find Google Services, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Jun 28, 2011)

Just found this - if you'd like to search all of Google services at one time - use wdyl.com - What Do You Love.

I typed in friends and expected to get Google+. Not so - but it's fun to see what else Google can come up with from its many products.

Google neglecting search

Google Slammed for Tainting Search to Hype Google+ Social Networking, Jared Newman, PCWorld (Jan 27)

Many are unhappy with the way Google wedded Google Plus to its search, and signs that Google boosts its own properties over others. This article summarizes the points.

One expresses it kindly - "Slate's Farhad Manjoo argues that Google shouldn't be combining social network data with generic search results in the first place. "While my friends are thoughtful and knowledgeable people, their views on the tens of thousands of large and small inquiries that I bring to Google every year are almost always irrelevant."

Danny Sullivan has said Google is neglecting its core mission. He cites one example, but there are many more from the last year in which Google has been withdrawing web search features such as the timeline.

of interest: Google has said nothing.

Google drops the ball

Dear Google: Crappy Results Like This Don’t Give The Impression You Care About Search, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Jan 26)

Danny Sullivan points to results he got on a search for Santorum, the GOP presidential candidate, as one more example that Google has stopped attending to its knitting - specifically the ranking algorithms. Whatever the reason, Google failed on this search, it's sending users to Bing.

Google's title and snippets

How Classification of Page Elements and Search Results May Influence Alternative Titles and Snippets Displayed in Google, Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea (Jan 26)

For many years Google's snippets were mainly keyword-in-context. Today, Google does more massaging of title and snippet as it tries to make sense of the page and present a better result to the user. A recent patent suggests that Google may be going so far as to "classify" it in order to make decisions on title and snippet.

"The patent provides a very detailed look at how Google might go from classifying queries (using a lookup table, or via some other method) to classifying the different elements of a search result such as a title, snippet, and URL in that result. Those classifications might be weighted somewhat by the position that those pages appear at within search results as well."

From Google's posting - "Google’s generation of page titles and descriptions (or “snippets”) is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web. The goal of the snippet and title is to best represent and describe each result and explain how it relates to the user’s query."

Stop online tracking

Five smart ways to keep your browsing private, Rob Lightner, CNet (Jan 23)

Many web users are thinking that too many sites know too much. Anti virus programs and various cleaners help to remove the tracking cookies - but let's stop it before it starts.

This article mentions

+ CCLeaner - one of those tools to clean up afterwards.
+ Your browser - they all have an incognito mode.
+ Really anonymous using a service or proxies.

Depersonalizing Google

Face-off - 4 Ways to De-personalize Google, Pete, Daily SEO Blog (Jan)

It's simple. If you don't want Google to personalize your search results, turn them off. Pete tried several methods and concluded that turning off social results in Google really did turn them off, but Pete was never able to break free from localized results based on IP.

Someone answered that question - "The localization problem can be fixed if you click the "Change location" link and change your location."

Pete steered away from Chrome - because trusting it may be like putting the wolf in charge of the chicken coop. Others said that Chrome could be used to search anonymously.

Another recommended searching google inside proxify.com "a web-based anonymous proxy service which allows anyone to surf the Web privately and securely. "

Bing's social search with facebook

Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing, Bing Community (May 17, 2011)

I wasn't paying attention to Bing's move to social search last year. Bing calls using social networks in ranking results the "friend effect".

Research tells us that 90% of people seek advice from family and friends as part of the decision making process. This “Friend Effect” is apparent in most of our decisions and often outweighs other facts because people feel more confident, smarter and safer with the wisdom of their trusted circle. A movie critic may pan the latest summer block buster, but your friends say it’s the feel good movie of the year, so you ignore the critic and go (and wholeheartedly agree). Historically, search hasn’t incorporated this “Friend Effect” – and 80% of people will delay making a decision until they can get a friend’s stamp of approval. This decision delay, or period of time it takes to hunt down a friend for advice, can last anywhere from a few minutes to days, whether you’re waiting for a call back, text, email or tweet.

Also - Bing starts using Facebook 'likes' in search, AP via CBC (May 17, 2011)

Bing describes social search at http://social.discoverbing.com/

This seems to be only in the United States - not in Canada. The key test is to click on Sign In in the upper right. In the US, you'll see options for Windows Live and Facebook. In Canada, it takes you directly to Windows Live.

Facebook and frictionless sharing

"Frictionless sharing" - exploring the changes to Facebook, Martin Belam, Fumsi (Jan 3)

It's hard to stay on top of changes at Facebook. Is it helping people manage the flood of information or making it worse?

The issue is the Facebook "reading app" which news media outlets have been inserting which invite you to install when you want to read an article. These apps come with "seamless sharing" - or "frictionless sharing" that will post everything you read at that site to your Facebook stream

Martin Belam asks, "So what does that mean for the information professional?"

+ news sources should look into Facebook's uses the Open Graph metadata standard to display shared items
+ watch "audit trails"

Changes at Vimeo

Vimeo Gets Its First Facelift Since 2007, TechCrunch

Video sharing site, Vimeo, is rolling out a new design that puts the emphasis on making videos.

"There are a bunch of other new features, including improved search options, a page for viewing Creative Commons-licensed work, and the ability to upload multiple videos at once. Many of these changes, Mellencamps says, aren’t “huge, sexy features” but rather “a ton of detailed elements that we think just improve the experience overall.” And beneath the visible improvements, Mellencamp says the entire Vimeo codebase has been rewritten, allowing the company to make faster changes in the future."