BookNews Weblog: BookNews (http://www.futureofthebook.com/) is a weblog about books - especially the electronic kind. Seems esoteric - intended for people very interested in digital information issues.
Search Engines: Internet Search Engines Database features directories and search engines (general and specialized) from around the world. http://www.isedb.com/
News: British Pathe has put over 3500 hours of old newsreels online. "Users can download low-resolution watermarked previews from Pathe's website for free. High-resolution clips for PowerPoint-type presentations given before a limited audience can be licensed for one year for £50 (about $78); clips that will be posted on the Web are licensed for £100 (about $157)."
A Peek at History, Piracy-Free by Patrick di Justo. Wired News (Dec 27, 2002)
Internet for Travel: Half of Internet users in the U.S. have used the Internet to make travel arrangements. The PEW Internet and American Life Project noted a 90% growth in use of the Internet for travel in the last year.
Travel Industry Helped by Web, Frequency By Robyn Greenspan. CyberAtlas (Dec 24, 2002)
Yahoo and Inktomi: Yahoo is buying Inktomi - sale is expected to go through by end of Q1 in 2003. What will this mean for Yahoo? Will it use Inktomi rather than Google? Use both Google and Inktomi the way Hotbot does?
Yahoo to acquire Inktomi. Yahoo press release (Dec 23, 2002)
Tara Calishain asks some key questions about the future of Yahoo. Does Yahoo want to serve (and derive income from) webmasters or users? If they care about the users, Calishain recommends that they concentrate on the directory.
Yahoo to Acquire Inktomi. Whither Google? Research Buzz (Dec 24, 2002)
Paul Festa reviews the history of Yahoo and search. Google has supremacy and battle lines are being drawn by the others to survive. Today Yahoo takes Inktomi, tomorrow will MSN or AOL target Fast and Ask Jeeves?
With Google at gates, Yahoo! arms itself by Paul Festa. ZDNet News UK (Dec 24, 2002)
U.S. Government Documents: Marylaine Block writes about removal of documents from U.S. Government web sites in Vanishing Act: The U.S. Government's Disappearing Data in SearchDay (Dec 19, 2002).
Yahoo News: Good news, bad news. Good news - Yahoo will provide for-fee access to past Associated Press articles. Bad news - the articles go into archive status at 15 days and cost $1.50 US each. Yahoo also gets current news stories from Reuters Group, The New York Times, USA Today, NPR and U.S. News & World Report. Yahoo also connects to the New York Times archives where articles cost $2.95 US after 30 days.
Yahoo! to charge for some news searches Reuters in ZDNet UK (Dec 18, 2002)
FAST: FAST now indexes Word documents - to search only these select the file format option on the Advanced Search. It has indexed 2.1 Billion web pages. FAST Enhances Search Relevancy for Its Portal Customers and Millions of AlltheWeb Users; Over 100 Million Users to Now Benefit from Improved Search Experience. Business Wire (Dec 18, 2002)
Google: Google.com.au takes on Australia. Google sneaks into Australia unannounced ZDNet UK (Dec 20, 2002)
Internet Stats: The Internet is becoming essential to daily living. Ipsos-Reid found that in the US 72% of the population went online in the previous 30 days. In Canada, 62% did the same. The Web Continues to Spread by Robyn Greenspan Cyberatlas (Dec 17, 2002)
Search Patterns: Google has released the Zeitgeist for 2002. This is a summary of the top terms and queries searchers placed. There are lots of categories - top women, top men, top brands - for several countries.
CyberAtlas staff summarized the Top Searches of 2002 (Dec 18, 2002) from Google, Yahoo, and TerraLycos.
Danny Sullivan listed several of the articles and sources in The Top Searches in 2002. Search Day (Dec 30, 2002)
Current Awareness: Genie Tyburski has a good article on Surviving Information Overload in ABA Network (Oct 2002) Use filtering services to control spam email, web tracking to monitor pages, newsreaders, and some browser add-ons.
EMail: More e-mail infected with viruses. MessageLabs estimates 1 out of every 200 emails in 2002 had a virus. This is roughly twice as many as a year before. E-Mail Viruses Double by Matt Loney ZDNet UK (dec 16, 2002)
Domains: ICANN will be endorsing three new top-level domain names in the next year - probably "sponsored domains" for commercial interests in .travel, .health, and .news or possibly .union.
An article in Wired News says that domain names for targetting the general audience are plentiful with the addition last year of .info and .biz and the new use of .us by "entities" in the United States. There are about 1 million .info sites registered, mainly in Europe. Dot-biz has 800,000 and dot-us, 450,000.
ICANN to endorse new addresses AP in Globe and Mail (Dec 16, 2002)
ICANN to add three new domains by Joanna Glasner. Wired News (Dec 17, 2002)
Hotbot: Terra Lycos has re-invented Hotbot. Users may search one of four engines - Inktomi, Teoma, Google, or Fast with Inktomi as the default. There are different advanced search options for each. Users can customize the display of search results and choose a "skin" of preferred colours and layout. The home page is very simple and search performance very fast.
Fortunately, Hotbot continues to use the Inktomi search engine and will benefit from new features in Inktomi Web Search 9 such as smart summaries and some interpretation of user intent.
Many will like the easy way to run the same query against each of the engines. Unfortunately there is no help page describing the options and syntax - it is likely that boolean is not supported. Also, while being a useful tool for checking Google, Teoma, and Fast, it does not replace them. To get full use of features, searchers should still go to source.
More changes are promised for early 2003.
Hotbot is Hot Once Again by Chris Sherman. SearchDay (Dec 17, 2002)
Web Search - Hotbot by Gary Price (Dec 17, 2002) Price is impressed with the new Hotbot but lists some useful caveats about using it.
Hotbot searches four by Greg Notess (Dec 16, 2002). Notess identifies what Hotbot/Inktomi does not have - two biggies are boolean and truncation.
Inktomi Expands Web Search Services on HotBot; Terra Lycos Selects Inktomi as Preferred Search Provider for New HotBot Site Business Wire (Dec 16, 2002)
Online News: Wall Street Journal is advertising its Online Journal with an ad campaign that warns readers against free news Web sites. The Online Journal now has 664,000 paid subsribers. The Wall Street Journal Takes a Jab at Free Online Rivals By Nat Ives, New York Times (Dec 12, 2002)
Semantic Web: Eric Knorr sees signs of life in the idea of the semantic web. He notes that Celcorp is putting "Semantic Web" to technologies in organizations like Liberty Mutual and Holiday Inn. This article reviews the concept of the Semantic Web and progress toward realizing it. Some key bits:
- Tim Berners-Lee described Semantic Web as "a web of data, in some ways like a global database."
- Semantic Web provides a "metadata framework on top of the existing Web, where documents and services can be tagged with machine-readable descriptors "
- "for the Semantic Web to work across the Internet, so-called "ontologies" (documents containing rules that describe how related data descriptors can be used) will need to be developed and deployed for a multitude of vertical vocabularies."
The Semantic Web Gets Real by Eric Knorr in ZDNet Tech Update (Dec 13, 2002)
Netscape: New Netscape punctures pop-up ads By Paul Festa,
CNET News.com (Dec 13, 2002) "AOL Time Warner has released a version of its Netscape browser that lets Web surfers suppress pop-up ads, a further sign of declining fortunes for a widely hated marketing format." Netscape 7.01 will block pop-ups! But can it block those annoying ads that crawl over the page you're trying to read?
More on Froogle Thorough description of Google's new shopping search in this article, Google Feels a Little Froogle By Beth Fox, ECommerce (Dec 12, 2002). Mentions that Froggle is a "google-ish" play on frugal (why didn't I catch that?). At present Froggle is limited to US online stores in English though there are plans to expand. The specialized shopping site is said to be an example of "segmented search". Ken Cassar, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, is quoted as saying, "The universe of information that the Web has to offer is simply too vast to be able to effectively handle very specific inquiries efficiently without segmentation."
Article also mentions the new Ask Jeeves shopping channel - ask.com - a partnership with PriceGrabber.com for comparison shopping.
Shopping at Google: Google has launched a new shopping tool called Froogle - froogle.google.com. Either browse the categories or use a keyword search. Data comes from crawling the sites and merchant submissions but there is no paid inclusion. Chris Sherman wrote about it in Online Shopping with Google's Froogle, SearchDay (Dec 12, 2002)
Google also has Google Catalogs for searching the pages of over 5,100 print catalogs.
Search Engines: Bruce Clay has updated his Search Engine Relationship Chart showing flows of paid-placement results, and results from other search engines and directories. Doesn't show a connection between Google and Excite but otherwise well done. http://www.bruceclay.com/searchenginechart.pdf
Hoover's: D&B to buy online data firm Hoover's for $81 mln - Reuters (Dec 5, 2002) Hoover's has been an important online resource for information about companies and industries. It has information on 18,000 companies and 170,000 executives along with access to news and quotes. Some information is free at the Hoover's website - a practice we hope D&B continues.
AlltheWeb: Alltheweb indexes MS Word documents. Select format from the Advanced Search page to search Adobe pdf, Flash swf, or Microsoft Word doc. http://www.alltheweb.com/advanced
Altavista: Altavista supports searching by filetype - either html or pdf - available on the Advanced Search page - http://www.altavista.com/web/adv.
Google WebQuotes: From the Google Public Labs comes a very interesting new twist on Google searches. Google WebQuotes (http://labs.google.com/cgi-bin/webquotes) uses the links and anchor text to get comments about a search from other websites. "Google WebQuotes annotates the results of your Google search with comments from other websites. This offers a convenient way to get a third party's opinion about each of the returns for your search, providing you with more information about that site's credibility and reputation. For example a search on weather underground brings up results where these words are used in reference to the weather underground website, and groups them by additional terms - tropical, Belgium, forecasting etc. Could prove to be very useful tool.
Web Radio: Internet Radio is alive and well. Royalties have not killed it - in fact the law was changed in The United States for webcasters to pay a percentage of revenues rather than a per song royalty. Business Week reports on Web Radio's Personal Edge (Dec 10, 2002) "Stripping off the Top 40 straightjacket, online listeners enjoy their own playlists while hearing new music -- and many are buying what they hear".
Search Strategy Chris Sherman advises searchers to "fill in the blank". Instead of entering - what is the capital of St Kitts?, enter "the capital of St Kitts is ____" . Search engines are good at identifying phrases and often do well on questions of fact. Read Using Search Engines to Fill in the Blank in SearchDay (Dec 10, 2002)
Search Engine Performance Two new articles reflect in different ways the current dependence today on search engines for finding sites. People turn to a search engine for most queries rather than a subject directory. This increases the importance of good search engine optimization.
Web Rank, a search engine optimization company in New Zealand, found that 99% of the top 100 Australian companies had web sites that hurt their chances of being found in some way. Among the reasons, 90% didn't use Title tags well and 65% did not use target words on the home page.
Australia’s Top 100 Company Sites Incompatible With Search Engines Web Rank. Press Release (Dec 9, 2002)
Being found through Google is critical to the livelihood of e-commerce sites especially the small operators who can't afford pay-for-placement ad programs. But Google changes its ranking algorithms month to month and will downgrade sites who use certain tricks considered deceptive. A change in ranking can cause visitors and revenue to plummet.
Sites Become Dependent on Google by David Gallagher. New York Times (Dec 9, 2002)
Both articles show the importance of site optimization. But as more sites practice good search engine optimization, the top rankings will become more crowded. As one person was quoted in the NY Times article, ""It's going to be more and more difficult for small sellers to get noticed," she said. "The free listings lunch may be ending soon."
Searchers who will have to learn to dig deeper to get past the well-funded and optimized sites.
E-Mail at Work: Pew Internet & American Life has released a new study on Email at work (Dec 8, 2002). It's not as bad as was thought - people aren't overwhelmed by email. Instead, on average workers spend 30 minutes handling email, although there are some power users who are on all the time. Twenty-five percent did say they found email distracting and another 20% said email caused misunderstandings.
"... contrary to the perception that wired American workers are buried in email, the large majority of those who use email at work say their experience with email is manageable. They say they spend a modest amount of their typical workday reading and writing email. A portion of those emails probably replace telephone calls or faxes or traditional mail."
Google Supreme: Steven Levy of Newsweek reflects on the how life changed with the arrival of Google. Women and men research their dates by searching Google, journalists and police find people, people buy stuff. "Because of its seemingly uncanny ability to provide curious minds with the exact information they seek, a dot-com survivor has supercharged the entire category of search, transforming the masses into data-miners and becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process."
The World According to Google (Dec 16, 2002) Newsweek.
Search Engine Relevancy: Determining the relevancy of search engine results is often in the eye of the beholder. It's very difficult - perhap impossible - to develop a completely unbiased and equitable test. Danny Sullivan surveys the types of tests and their problems in In Search Of The Relevancy Figure Search Engine Watch (Dec 5, 2002). He does advise people to not limit their searches to Google - good as it is. There are other excellent services that may bring back better results for a particular query or subject area.
Meta Description Tags: Danny Sullivan has retracted his obituary on meta keyword tags used by web page authors to describe the page. There is some evidence that Google and Teoma sometimes use them to describe the page. Google will if the page is light in text. Teoma in the past has used a combination of meta description with snippets from the text. Sullivan now notices that sometimes only the meta description if it matches strongly to the query. Inktomi, who has always used them, will display meta description on paid inclusions, and a combination of Looksmart description, snippet, or meta tag for non-paid inclusions. Details are available at Revisiting Meta Tags Search Engine Watch (Dec 5, 2002)
Perfect Page Test: Danny Sullivan has a followup on the perfect page test he and Chris Sherman ran in which Altavista and Overture did poorly. Both Altavista and Overture have replied - Altavista to suggest that it wasn't the perfect test for relevancy, and Overture to say that its paid listing service should not have been compared to the others. Essentially Sullivan and Sherman showed that paid listings for a search may be of interest to the searcher but don't count on them for bang-on relevancy.
AltaVista, Overture Speak Up About Perfect Page Test by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch (Dec 5, 2002)
Perfect Page Test - original report by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Nov 4, 2002)
Internet Advertising: Expect to see more rich media ads (flash, audio, video, dynamic html) on the Web. DoubleClick found that 25% of the ads in 3rd Quarter of 2002 were rich media and that clickthrough rate is 2.7%. This is considered significant. Rich Media Ads, CTRs Up in 3Q By Robyn Greenspan Cyberatlas (Dec 5, 2002)
Yahoo News: Yahoo reviews the events and happenings of 2002 at Year in Review - yir.yahoo.com. See Tara Calishain's comments -- Yahoo Offers a Year In Review (Dec 4, 2002)
Internet Advertising: StatMarket found that the top four search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL NetFind) generate 8 to 10% of the referrals to e-commerce sites. Paid listings or pay-for-performance have been key in online advertising. Spending on paid listings grew 144% to $301.9 million according to eMarketer.
Study: Top Four Search Sites Dominate E-Commerce by David Morrissey (Dec 4, 2002) Internet Marketing Report
Wondir: Wondir (www.wondir.org) is a new search service that aims "to connect people who have information needs with the people and information that can help them". It is a blend of searching web resources and connecting to a community of experts. "Wondir will provide a unique combination of live human answers, broad metasearch, and deep search of the invisible web." A query may find answers in reference sources - dictionary, encyclopedia, results from a meta-search of the major engines (Google, Alltheweb etc), newsgroups and mailing lists, news articles, as well as suggesting "ask an expert" service. It is the work of the Wondir Foundation, a non-profit organization that is inspired to help people, especially those with fewer advantages, get the information they need.
Chris Sherman wrote about Wondir in The Wondir Search Engine Needs Your Help (Dec 5, 2002) SearchDay.
Quality Checking: The European Commission is concerned about the quality of information at health sites and plans to introduce an EU Standard. Health sites are amongst the most used on the Web but are not necessarily reliable. One study showed that 50% don't disclose credentials and sites tend not to indicate which information is editorial or promotional. The Commission might also consider monitoring sites for compliance.
EU eyes common quality standards for health e-sites By Lisa Jucca (Nov 20, 2002) Reuters.co.uk
Desktop Software Opencola, a Canadian company based in Mississauga, has launched a "personal knowledge manager" to be used by knowledge workers to share research and run meta-searches against internal and external sources.
Opencola Launches Personal Knowledge Manager by Paula J. Hane (Nov 18, 2002) Information Today Newsbreaks
Google: National Public Radio in the USA did a 11 minute segment on Google. See comments by Gary Price and link to Real Audio File. Web Search Google (Dec 1, 2002)
Google: Greg Notess gives us a peek into Google's plan from a session he attended at Online Information 2002 in London. Maybe personalization, "conceptual understanding", fresher database, and "improved usability". Yea for the first three - but I hope they don't confuse everyone by changing the interface. Google Future Plans Searchengine Showdown (Dec 4, 2002)
AOL Time Warner: Some people probably care about AOL Time Warner's disastrous merger. This article claims to give the inside story on how billions have been lost in a bad merger. Basically, Steve Case of AOL and Jerry Levin of Time Warner and their companies were hugely incompatible.
How it All Fell Apart by Johnnie L Roberts in Newsweek (via MSNBC). (Dec 9, 2002)
"Steve Case and Jerry Levin created AOL Time Warner in a marriage of convenience. The inside story of what went wrong".
For Fee Search: Chris Sherman writes, "Don't let the "high cost" of value-added information services such as LexisNexis, Dialog and Factiva scare you away -- all three offer reasonable pay-as-you-go options appealing even to searchers on a limited budget." Mary Ellen Bates in guest writer at SearchDay on "High-Value Online Services Without the High Price". See Ferrrari Searching on a Volkswagen Budget SearchDay (Dec 4, 2002)
Copernic: Tara Calishain reviews Copernic Agent Pro, desktop software for running meta-searches on the Web and analyzing the results. Calishain found the news search impossibly weak but the general web search capability useful for surveying what's available for a question. Copernic Agent Professional in LLRX.com (Dec 2, 2002)
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