January 31, 2005
More Jostling For Market Share
Search sites play constant catch-up by Saul Hansell, New York Times via CNet News (Jan 31)
According to a Comscore Networks' study in November 2004, Google is still strong -- "In November, 47 percent of searches in the world were on sites owned by Google, up from 44 percent a year earlier. Yahoo's sites rose to 27 percent, from 25 percent a year ago." But Yahoo is pulling out all the stops to add products while Google seems to be less focused. Consequently, in the USA Yahoo moved up to 35% from 29% a year earlier, and Google to 38% from 37%.
".. Yahoo is making significant gains, particularly in the United States, with new features that it has yet to introduce to international users. And at a time when Google has stalled in getting some new products to the market, Yahoo has been methodically working on a master list of projects: first, core Internet search, then shopping search, local search and next travel search, according to Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, an Internet news site. Google had been more erratic, he said."
Microsoft is seen to have introduced some innovations for searching but the quality of results may not be as good.
"But Sullivan said that so far Microsoft's results did not have the quality of Google and Yahoo and were more open to manipulation by site owners. Mehdi said that Microsoft's formulas were improved each week and that its main MSN site would soon be ready to replace the search technology from Yahoo."
January 29, 2005
Getting News from Weblogs and RSS
Memo to media establishment: Ignore blogs at your peril By Frank Bajak, AP via MercuryNews (Jan 27) - reports on conference on Blogging, Journalism and Credibility at Harvard University and accounts of changes to journalism.
Of interest:
"The sovereignty of Big Journalism is eroding.
In our business, as my boss, AP chief executive Tom Curley, observed recently, what matters now is not the container but the content. That may sound self-serving from a news wholesaler, but I can tell you that most of the information I process, books and magazines excepted, is in electronic form and delivered to my e-mail inbox via RSS feed.
The best single war story I've seen out of Iraq, a piece on the fight for Fallujah by Knight Ridder reporter Tom Lassiter, I learned about from a blog's RSS feed."
January 28, 2005
Yahoo's Strengths
The Yahoo Factor By Maya Dollarhide, MIT Technology Review (Jan 22) - mainly about Yahoo's latest forays that could show up as search aids in mobile devices.
Of interest: "But Yahoo hopes to hone SmartView, and integrate that into its Web and desktop search capabilities. Recently, a "Real Time" traffic report was added, where people can locate traffic jams, construction sites, speed zones, and accident reports. The service also includes Yahoo! Maps enhancements which include faster panning and zooming, larger views, and turn-by-turn maps with driving directions."
Personalized Search
Personalized Search By Steve Johnson, ChoiceStream (Jan 27) - good overview article showing relationship of personalized search and advertising (of course), and the types of personalization now available.
Of interest: "A recent Personalization Survey conducted for us last spring by Zoomerang found that more than 80 percent of Internet users want Web sites and services to personalize content for them to make their online experience more relevant, more useful and ultimately more rewarding."
Main announcements about personalization of search so far have been from Yahoo!, Google, Eurekster, MSN and Amazon.
Usenet Dead?
Molly Wood at AnchorDesk wrote a Eulogy for Usenet (Jan 27) on the news that AOL would no longer provide Usenet feeds. The electronic bulletin boards of Usenet newsgroups were where the action was in the 1990s, but spam, viruses, and noise took their toll while other forums on the Web and now community blogs became more popular. The newsgroups themselves probably won't die. Google Groups is building on them to compete with Yahoo's Groups. But the whole routine of file transfer and special newsreaders that was Usenet could fall away.
OCLC connects with Alibris
Alibris Offers Access to Books For Sale Through OCLC WorldCat Resource Sharing Service - 50 million new, used, and hard-to-find books can now be purchased through ILL -- Libraries using WorldCat Resource Sharing can order a book immediately through Alibris. [Mentioned in ResourceShelf]
Blog for your company
Enterprise Blogging by Laurel Clyde, FreePint (Jan 13)
"This article, based on a presentation about "Enterprise Applications of Weblogs" at the "Online Information 2004" conference exhibition in London in December 2004
Tagging RSS Feeds at Feedmaker
RSS - A Chat with the Creator of Feedmarker by Steven Cohen, ResourceShelf (Jan 28) Interview with Bruno Bornsztein, creator of Feedmarker, a aggregator for RSS feeds. The nifty thing is that people can classify the feeds using tags.
Getting Answers Not Links
Walter S Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal is a big fan Answers.com, previously GuruNet. Unlike Search Engines, Answers.Com Responds With Data, Not Links (Jan 27) He gives an example of wanting information about Seattle: Answers.com provides a well ordered list of basic information about the city; Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves have ads and a mishmash of maps, news, and perhaps the city's official site. He urges everyone to try it.
Online Shopping Up In Canada
Number of Canadians who are taking up online shopping is picking up. Canadians increased online gift purchases during the holiday season by 59% - up to 3.5 million buyers. In the US the growth was 29%.
Figures are from an Ipsos Reid study reported on by the Globe and Mail --
Canadians out-spend Americans on-line (Jan 27)
"The incidence of adults with Internet access having ever made an online purchase hit a new tracking high of 56 per cent, which is up from 47 per cent this time last year and 39 per cent in 2002. This figure is equivalent to 44 per cent of all Canadian adults having made at least one purchase directly on-line."
People are still buying books (29%), but also clothes (28%), DVDs and movies (25%).
State of Newspaper Business
An Online Rescue for Newpapers? Not unless the pace of revenue growth -- already robust -- picks up. By Rick Edmonds, Poynter Online (Jan 27) Newspapers have been buffeted by declining subscriptions and falling ads, but as this article examines, the online activity has been growing by 30 to 35% and in some newspapers more (Gannett by 60%). But will online return enough revenue? Edmonds crunched the numbers and thought not - at least not in the next five years unless they pick up a good share of the expected growth in local advertising. But hey, with broadband and other players, some yet to appear, anything could happen.
Amazon Adds Yellow Pages
Amazon has added a new and exciting twist to yellow pages listings by including virtual tours of streets complete with photos for 10 cities in the US -- New York - Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Enter key words for the service you need - such as watch repair - and your address or zip code (must be in one of the covered cities). Amazon locates the businesses on a map (as Yahoo and Google do) and also shows a picture of the business. Click on a business for a tour of the area - see the map and 'walk' left or right of the shop. If that isn't the best thing since being able to look up telephone numbers on the Web, I don't know what is. But there is more. There is a click-to-call button that places a phone call to the business and connect them to you on your phone.
Yellow Pages will show as an option on the right for registered users. There's also a lead at the top of the page.
A9 describes its methods and technology in Here’s how we did it A9.com brings Yellow Pages to life by adding 20 million images
Amazon, A9 Give Virtual Search Tour By Tim Gray, Internet News (Jan 27)
Amazon's A9 Launches Visual Yellow Pages Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 27)
Amazon launches a Yellow Pages-like service today By Kim Peterson, Seattle Times (Jan 27)
January 27, 2005
Video/TV Search Hot
Video search is hot judging from the number of review and assessment articles turning up.
Will Video Search Pay Off? By Susan Kuchinskas, Internet News ( January 26, 2005)
"There are three models for indexing and discovering relevant video content: metadata, which Yahoo uses; text generated during the closed captioning process, which Yahoo and Google use; and transcription-on-the-fly, carried out by Blinkx with technology from enterprise search player Autonomy."
Comments on Google Video, Blinkx TV , Yahoo with TV Eyes.
Related: Blinkx 2.0 Adds Smart Folders CLickz (Nov 15, 2004)
Future of Search
Seeking Better Web Searches "Deluged with superfluous responses to online queries, users will soon benefit from improved search engines that deliver customized results" By Javed Mostafa, Scientific American (Jan 24) Sweeping article about the trends in search, starting with a review of the ranking algorithms, personalization initiatives and the potential for full customization that will include location, plus advances in searching for images and music.
Conclusion: "By leveraging advances in machine learning and classification techniques that will be able to better understand and categorize Web content, programmers will develop easy-to-use visual mining functions that will add a highly visible and interactive dimension to the search function. Industry analysts expect that a variety of mining capabilities will be available, each tuned to search content from a specialized domain or format (say, music or biological data). Software engineers will design these functions to respond to users' needs quickly and conveniently despite the fact they will manipulate vast quantities of information. Web searchers will steer through voluminous data repositories using visually rich interfaces that focus on establishing broad patterns in information rather than picking out individual records. Eventually it will be difficult for computer users to determine where searching starts and understanding begins."
AlmondNet Uses Cookies
AlmondNet Debuts "Post-Search" Search Behavioral Ad Network by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch (Jan 26) How many different ways will advertisers use cookies and how much more in ads will Internet users tolerate?
"AlmondNet is unveiling a new program today to deliver advertising across the web targeted to the topics someone has searched on recently, including queries done on major search engines such as Google and Yahoo."
AlmondNet will partner with ISPs to build profiles of search activities by the people connected through that ISP. If a customer searches for cars (example given by Sullivan) and then goes to a site that has AlmondNet ads, AlmondNet will serve up car-related ads. Essentially AlmondNet will be personalizing ads - in itself, not a bad thing.
Article describes other forms of contextual ads delivered today. The cookies are anonymous - supposedly privacy is not infringed upon.
SE Giants Jostle
Search Engines' Amazing Race By Kimberly Hill, NewsFactor Network
(January 26, 2005) More on the jostling by Google, Yahoo and MSN - video search at Google and Yahoo, desktop by all three, and book search by Google.
Yahoo Entertainment
Yahoo heads for Hollywood Stephanie Olsen, CNet (Jan 25) - new group at Yahoo called Yahoo Media Group -- "will encompass Yahoo properties including games, news, sports, finance, movies, and music services Launch and Musicmatch".
People Search - Business.com
Business.com has added a people-search facility using databases from Eliyon of some 22 million names obtained by mining the Web. Enter first and last name. Eliyon extracts as best it can title, name of company, and date of information. I was pleased to see my name in second spot. Click on the name to see the 'full report' compiled from the Web. If you find yourself, you have the option to update your profile; or if you find somebody else and you know the profile is wrong, you can send a note to the person (assuming that the email address is available and correct.)
To view the records you need to use the IE browser - Eliyon's results won't be displayed in Firefox - possibly something to do with cookie settings.
HighBeam Research also has a people search - called Executive Research - also powered by Eliyon. It displays the same list and information as at Business.com. However, at HighBeam you can also search for the person's name and company. And, as a registered user at HighBeam, you can save the profile to your online file or export to Word.
Also see comments by Genie Tyburski Online People Searching Problems in TVC Alert (Feb 1) - She's right - "Trouble is, Eliyon data isn't reliable." You have to know the person fairly well to be able to recognize fact from confusion or incorrect interpretations. Be careful using Eliyon. Verify everything.
gBrowser Rumours
'Plan 9' from Google Commentary: A browser may be just their first step by John C Dvorak, Marketwatch (Jan 26) [registration] Predicts that 2005 will be a bumper year for even more stories about Google many of them centering on will Google issue a browser or not. Best bet at the moment is that Google will do a Google version of Firefox. But will it aim to take over the desktop with an operating system?
Zillman's Academic Guide
Marcus Zillman has prepared a guide to Academic and Scholar Search Engines and Sources. Zillman seems to have a limitless capacity to produce these annotated link collections. Academic and Scholar Search Engines and Sources is alphabetically ordered list, 32 pages long, pdf format.
These lists are always valuable as a starting point, but the annotation may be insufficient (for example, not mentioning that the service is for fee, such as with KeepMedia), and the selections aren't always a fit (Kartoo, the visual meta-search engine, doesn't tap into academic resources any better than any other meta-search engine). Also several of the selections will not be the freshest sites on the Web (Searchability.com, as an example, is only minimally maintained). Aside from these quibbles, people looking for academic sources will find some jewels.
Gerry McKiernan, a "Deep Librarian" at Iowa State University profiled Zillman and Awareness Watch newsletters in Z as in Zillman. Article includes urls for many of his articles and sites.
January 26, 2005
RSS Feed for MSN Search Results
MSN Offering XML Feeds of Web Searches ResearchBuzz (Jan 14) Run a keyword search at the new MSN Search and arrange to have results sent to you through an RSS feed. Details about this "alpha" service are at RSS Feeds for Search Results. Probably more useful for news than web searches.
Ask Jeeves Goes Mobile
I Say, Jeeves, Serve Me Up Some Answers By Carlo Longino, The Feature (Jan 25)
"Ask Jeeves says it will join the growing ranks of Web search firms with plans to launch a mobile service, but there are signs the company's got a good understanding of mobile search." Strength would be in the smart answers it has built up.
Canadian Business Research
Canadian Companies Research Guide from Winspear Business Reference Library at University of Alberta. One page listing of sources of information about Canadian companies through articles, company directories, rankings, annual reports, ownership and stock data. Sources include commercial vendors and databases, print, and Web.
Databases require logging into the University of Alberta. However, you may find some of these - such as CBCA and Canadian Newstand - at the website of your local public library.
Winspear has other guides about U.S. Companies, International, Tracking Corporate History, Business People, and Canadian Stocks.
Mentioned in TVC Alert (Jan 26)
Google Hacking
A new book about using search statements to hack Google and dig out sensitive information has been published by Syngress Publishing, Inc -- Google Hacking for Penetration Testers (ISBN: 1-931836-36-1). The aim is to show security specialists how to protect their servers, but searchers could use the book to pick up some techniques. There are a few examples on the promotion page including one for finding ebooks -- filetype:lit lit (books|ebooks)
Source: Mentioned in TVC Alert.
New book is very timely. A ZDNet article reported that Google hacking trend expected to boom in 2005 (Jan 14)
Firefox as David in fight with Goliath
The Firefox Explosion "It's fast, secure, open source - and super popular. The hot new browser called Firefox is rocking the software world. (Watch your back, Bill Gates.)" By Josh McHugh, Wired (Feb 2005)
Firefox has been the first alternative browser to really challenge IE.
- 10 million people downloaded Firefox since November
- there are 175 extensions
- the two main developers have been "Blake Ross, an angular, hyperkinetic 19-year-old Stanford sophomore with spiky black hair, and Ben Goodger, a stout, soft-spoken 24-year-old New Zealander".
Microsoft has said that its work on Web browsing will be incorporated in the new Longhorn Operating System. In a Microsoft world of PCs the browser would become obsolete, and according to this article, so would some of the de facto standards in use of HTML.
"As part of the transition, Microsoft has created the developer language XAML, an heir to HTML. Until a few months ago, it looked like the shift to Longhorn would give Microsoft control of the Web's de facto standards. Now, with Microsoft's share in the browser market slipping - IE has lost 5 percent in the past six months, almost all of it to Firefox - Web designers can't afford to ignore the standards of Tim Berners-Lee's W3C, which Mozilla has hewed to but which Microsoft has regarded as strictly optional. Which means Bill Gates' troops must now turn back to IE and battle the ghost of Netscape."
Firefox may have a good chance at unseating Microsoft as browser king and keeping the Web open.
Newsreader for Firefox
Another RSS newsreader for Firefox browser -- Wizz RSS NewsReader. Web site has a large screenshot - otherwise not much information.
January 25, 2005
Google Still Leads
Google's Global User Share Rises DMNews (Jan 25) In spite of best efforts of Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves, "Google is the world's most-used search engine, increasing its share from 56.4 percent to 57.2 percent in the past eight months, a new study found."
Google TV Search
Google has a new search engine in beta for searching recent TV shows -- Google Video. Help page says that content is limited tending to a few TV channels in San Francisco, PBS, FOX and CSPAN. Google is indexing the closed captioning text. It's easy to find out when stars of West Wing turned up on Ellen DeGeneres, but you can't play the video.
Also see Yahoo!, Google Thrust Video Search Into Spotlight Clickz (Jan 25) Covers Google, Yahoo, and AOL with Singingfish.
Free Tool For Online Presentations and Co-surfing
Online Collaboration At No Cost - Advanced Reality's browser plug-in allows two or more people in different locations to surf the Web together. By Thomas Claburn, Information Week (Jan 24) Jybe lets you surf the Web with other people - friends, co-workers, clients. It's a plugin that will work with IE 6.0 and Firefox 1.0 on WIndows 2000 and up or Firefox 1.0 on Linux and Mac OS.
Release 1.0 supports:
* Browse websites in real time
* Chat with friends in real time
* Multiple people browsing at the same time - 2,3,4 etc.
* Present online PowerPoint presentations right from the browser
Limitations:
* Only the first browser window is collaborative
* Popups are not collaborative
* Sites with login cookies will not work
* Collaborative data entry is not supported
More is promised.
Meantime WebEx has also introduced some lower cost options for online conferencing.
WebEx Readies Remote Access App "MyWebExPC service will be available in free and subscription versions." Joris Evers, IDG News Service (Jan 24)
"WebEx's free MyWebExPC lets a user control a remote PC through a standard Web browser. The Pro version, priced at $9.95 a month, offers extras such as remote printing, full color support, and enhanced security, including control over which applications can be accessed remotely. It also has a feature that calls a user when logging in and requires the entry of a PIN on the phone before granting access."
Fight Spyware
Spyware Vs. Anti-Spyware Newsweek (Jan 31). Says 80% of PCs in America are infected with spyware that tracks what you do and sends the information to advertisers, or worse, takes over your surfing. Lavasoft offers a free spyware fighter in Ad-Aware but will be selling a boxed version Ad-Aware SE Plus ($39.95 US).
Maporama Covers France
Planning a trip to France? Take Maporama on your PDA or cell phone. Maporama now covers 100% of roads in France. "100% of the French road network is now covered with all criteria necessary for navigation (name and types of roads, building number, points of interest etc.) for the 36.500 cities and villages."
NEW FULLY ATTRIBUTED COVERAGE OF 100% OF THE FRENCH ROAD NETWORK! Press Release (Jan 25)
gbrowser.com
Firefox Engineer Takes Google Job by Cory Kleinschmidt, Traffick.com (Jan 25) - more fuel for rumour that Google is developing a browser.
Saand.com
SAAND.COM By JUDITH PEREIRA, Globe Technology (Jan 22) - reviews Saand.com, a search engine for finding accommodation in places with sun and sand - Caribbean, Hawaii, and Latin America. Has many search options but needs more properties. Hawaii is limited to a few choices on the Big Island. Caribbean has only 6 islands - no Barbados, no St Lucia!
Scirus v Google Scholar
Scirus Offers Comments About Google Scholar Search Engine Watch Blog (Jan 24) - excerpts from a newsletter by Scirus about Google Scholar -- "As far as we know, Google Scholar does not cover the broader scientific Web, but instead focuses only on articles and books. Although the products may appeal to similar audiences they serve a different purpose."
Also see Getting "Scirus" About Scholarly Content By Paula J. Hane (Dec 2004)
Travelocity Adds Features
Travelocity has created a new tool set for travellers looking for deals on flights - Flight Navigator -- " Flight Navigator gives consumers unheard-of-until-now information such as: fare and seat availability, flight and fare details/offers, as well as numerous options for saving money by comparing dates and airports - all in addition to Travelocity's already great flight deals." Features seem to be available at travelocity.ca also. However, never trust just one flight finder - Travelocity may not list all the flights available or show the best prices.
Press release has one of the longest titles ever written -- Travelocity's Flight Navigator Guides Travelers to Information Never Before Offered Online; Industry-First Tools from Number of Seats Left to Fare Notes Give Travelers More Control During Their Flight Shopping and Buying Experience CBS Marketwatch [registration] (Jan 24)
Organizing Personal Digital Content
The growing market for organizing -- Commentary: Tomorrow's content may be home grown by Bambi Francisco, CBS Marketwatch [registration] Sees a huge growth in personal digital material through email, documents, photos, music and video that will spur acquiring tools for organizing information. Of the desktop search tools - Blinkx, Yahoo, Google and Ask Jeeves, Francisco liked Yahoo's the most, and picked Google's Picasa for organizing digital photos. In a digital world, she finds, "In a digital world, there is no delineation between video, text, audio and voice. It'll be delivered by anyone. What does it matter who's bringing this information to me or giving me the platform to exchange information on?"
New Thomas
THOMAS: New Congress, A Few Changes by Peggy Garvin, LLRX (Jan 17) Reviews the changes to Thomas for finding US legislation.
Information Seeking
January issue of Information Research has Papers presented at ISIC 2004: the 5th Information Seeking in Context Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 1-3 September, 2004
Of interest Assessing Website quality in context: retrieving information about genetically modified food on the Web by Claire R. McInerney and Nora J. Bird - developed the Website Quality Evaluation Tool as an instrument for evaluating the credibility of a website on a topic - in this case genetically modified food. Model looks at bias, update-access interval, commitment, and metatags.
January 24, 2005
Exalead Search
Exciting new search engine in Exalead from France.
+ 1 billion pages, expected to increase to 2 billion in the next few weeks.
+ can set to display thumbnails
+ can have auto word stemming
+ in English and French
+ domain search
+ title
+ proximity search
+ shows related terms
Experience a whole new way to search the Web with Exalead's new service Press Release (Dec 2004)
Searchers Still Naive
Internet users are still naive when using search engines. A report from Pew Internet and American Life and earlier from Consumer Reports WebWatch show that searchers don't distinguish between paid and unpaid listings. According to the Pew report only 38% of searchers were aware of the difference between paid and unpaid listings and 47% of those said they can always tell which are which. Also, searchers tend to stick to one engine - 44% regularly use one and 48% use two or three. The real kicker is that 92% say they are fairly confident about their searching abilities, and 68% think search engines are an unbiased source of information.
Search Engine Users: Internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting – but they are also unaware and naïve by Deborah Fallows, Pew Internet Life (Jan 23, 2005)
In Search of Disclosure: How Search Engines Alert Consumers to the Presence of Advertising in Search Results Consumer Reports WebWatch (Nov 8 2004)
Also see Survey: Searchers are Confident, Satisfied & Clueless by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 24)
Google Word Limit now 32 words
Google now allows up to 32 words in a query in a Web search. Google Blogscoped commented on the change Google Raises Word Limit to 32 (Jan 22) This does not apply to Google News. Groups, Froogle or Scholar - only Web Search.
Google Increases Maximum Number of Query Terms Search Engine Watch Blog lists all the other changes we'd like to see at Google starting with truncation and proximity.
AOL with FAST
Google bypassed in search deal AOL chooses Norwegian firm for niche service By Robert Weisman, Boston Globe ( January 21, 2005) AOL chose Fast Search and Transfer to revamp its local search - a crawl of the Web that focuses on addresses. Previously AOL had gone in with BizRate and Kayak for shopping and travel search capabilities.
Ingenta Premium
Ingenta Upgrades Flagship Web Service EContent (Jan 21) - Premium services for libraries -- "IngentaConnect Premium combines elements of Ingenta services, such as email alerting and custom-built library gateways, with new features including one-click subscription activation management, searching by subscribed content only, customized library branding and advanced statistics."
My LexisNexis
LexisNexis Announces Customizable 'My Lexis' Start Page EContent (Jan 21) LexisNexis is launching a New Customizable Start Page, ‘My Lexis’ for small law firms, corporate counsel, tax professionals, and the US federal government.
January 21, 2005
MSN Newsbot Canada
Hooray - there is a MSN Newsbot Canada that can show the most popular stories depending on the numbers of people reading them, and also adjust what it shows you according to your choices.
MSN Releases Australian and Canadian Versions of Newsbot Search Engine Watch Blog
AOL Search
Everywhere the buzz -- AOL enhances search function AP Online (Jan 20) AOL Search will pull in special content on a query - shopping on product searches, WebMD for health - these are the AOL Snapshots. There are several more types aimed at Entertainment -- (AOL Search Toolbox). The article says AOL has added clustering using Vivisimo's technology, but this won't show up on the public site until next week.
Much more news about the changes in AOL Search: Playing In the Big Leagues Now, SearchDay (Jan 20)
AOL unveils expanded search, new partners by Dawn Kawamoto, CNet News (Jan 20)
January 20, 2005
Google Tips
Googling Better by Mary Ellen Bates (Jan 2005) - covers the very useful ~ for synonyms and define for definitions. Also recommends Personalized Google.
My MSN Has RSS (YES)
MSN Adds RSS Aggregation and Directory By Brice Dunwoodie, CMSWire (Jan 19) Announces that Microsoft's My MSN portal of personal pages will accept RSS feeds and that Microsoft has created a RSS directory and will be supporting a blogger, a la Google. However, no sign of this information at http://www.microsoft.com/ yet, and of course, no mention of it at the Canadian version of My MSN done in partnership with Sympatico.
Genie Tyburski provides instructions on how to add feeds to your MSN page -- My MSN Supports RSS which probably work for the US MSN.
Addendum: Andrew Barrow at Spittoon.biz (wine, beer, and spirits in the UK) did a better job than I in sorting this out.
MSN does have RSS Syndication directory with mainly feeds from MSNBC News. And there is a Getting Started page about RSS that has information about using My MSN as a newsreader. (Although those instructions do not work with SympaticoMSN.) And lastly there is information for bloggers who want to be picked up by MSN -- Guidelines for Publishers. And, best of all, clicking on the My MSN button on Spittoon.biz does add that feed to my SYMPATICO MSN page.
So for Canadian users of MSN, it's a partial. If you use Sympatico as your home page, keep an eye open for the MY MSN+ button at the blogs you visit.
January 19, 2005
Factiva's Reputation Management Service Stil R&D
Factiva to drop IBM's WebFountain Mark Chillingworth, Information World Review 1 (Jan 17) - Here's a surprise - Factiva felt it had to drop IBM's Web Fountain for its text mining "Insight for Reputation service". They said that Web Fountain was too slow in refreshing content. Insight for Reputation is still in the "R&D phase."
Google as a US Telephone Directory
Googlefone: Fast Way To Use Google's Phone Book Danny SUllivan, Search Engine Watch Blog - tips on using Google for finding phone numbers for businesses and people in the United States. It's even easier using Googlefone.
Dogpile Bits
Dogpile may have a better idea of when your question is best answered by the yellow pages thanks to its application of IntelliFind(TM) technology. According to the press release - "With this launch, IntelliFind now supports the integration of yellow pages content on Web search results pages when relevant to a user's query. The feature is currently in beta. Whenever IntelliFind identifies that the likely intent behind a query is to find information on a local business, Dogpile now returns yellow pages listings in a box at the top of the results set. With this new functionality." But this only works for a particular business. I get yellow page results when looking for QFC Seattle but not for florists Seattle.
It also claims to be better at matching on website. If you enter white house it brings back an exact match on The White House -- www.whitehouse.gov.
Dogpile Search Engine Builds On Its IntelliFind Technology With New Features Business Wire (Jan 18)
January 18, 2005
Online Ads
Online Ads & Search: Looking Back, Looking Forward by Greg Jarboe, SearchDay (Jan 17) - Growth of online advertising is outpacing other media. But withint that online advertising there may be some shifts from increased cost-per-click on paid listings, and a slowing of advertising related to local search (though one would have thought that would start to take off with the local search facilities of the search engines.)
Of interest:
"According to Scevak, six out of every seven search engine queries results in a click on organic listings and only one out of seven clicks on paid listings. "
"According to a recently published research paper by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), 81.8% of the $4.087 billion spent last year on search marketing programs in the U.S. and Canada went to paid placement, while only 12.0% went to organic search engine optimization. Another 4.4% was spent on paid inclusion."
If people are ignoring the paid listings then companies should be putting their money into optimizing their web sites - not in buying key words.
Search Toolbars
Looking for Mr. Goodtoolbar by Paula MacKinnon, Information Highways (Jan/Feb 2005) - quick survey of the most popular toolbars as well as desktop search tools along with brief mention of Firefox, the browser that comes with search tools.
Firefox Plans
Firefox 2.0 by End of 2005 Cory Kleinschmidt, Traffick.com (Jan 17) Firefox is reported to have a plan for upgrades through 2005. Might Firefox become enough of a wedge to end Microsoft's control over how content is presented on the Web? Will my bank stop being so IE-centric?
MSN Search Out of Beta
Outta Beta by Andrew Goodman, Traffick (Jan 17) MSN Search brings up the new search engine now. Goodman commented that MSN may be showing fewer sponsored sites for a while as it reduces its use of Yahoo's Overture and phases in its own.
In Canada, people wanting to use the Canadian version of the new engine should go to http://beta.search.sympatico.msn.ca/
My Hoover's for Customizing Business Research
Hoover's Launches My Hoover's Suite of Customization Tools and Features EContent Magazine (Jan 18) - Hoover's Online, the research centre for company and industry information, is adding many new customization tools for its subscribers through the new My Hoover's.
Google Photo Software
Google Releases Photo Organizing Software AP Online via CBS Marketwatch (Jan 18) Google has released software developed by Picasa for organizing photos on home PCs.
+ can detect photos as they are added to a computer
+ has several editing features
+ can save versions and reverse changes
+ captions are automatically attached to the photo file
Also see Photo Search: Google Picasa 2 Vs. Adobe Photoshop Album 2 by Danny Sullivan, Search Day (Jan 18) - full review of Google Picasa capabilities vs those of Adobe Photoshop Album 2. Important article for digital camera buffs.
January 17, 2005
HighBeam Research - Free Week
HighBeam Research is offering free access to its eLibrary of over 3,000 premium sources for magazines, news, and research tools from January 24 to 28, 2005. Try it out - www.highbeam.com. Register and then search the Library.
"HighBeam(tm) Research, Inc., operator of an online research engine for individuals (www.highbeam.com) that fills the gap between free search engines and high-end information services, today announced that it will celebrate its first anniversary by providing free access to its service from Monday, January 24 to Friday, January 28, 2005. The company also announced that is has reached several important milestones during its first year of operation." From Press Release. HighBeam Research Announces Anniversary Open House. (Jan 17)
January 15, 2005
Clustering Results
Some bits are turning up about clustering search results including a paper written about why and how to do it -- Learning to Cluster Web Search Results, Microsoft Research Asia. Paper finds that current clustering approaches don't produce good labels, and they propose a new method that uses and ranks "salient names".
"Our method is more suitable for Web search results clustering because we emphasize the efficiency of identifying relevant clusters for Web users. It generates shorter (and thus hopefully more readable) cluster names, which enable users to quickly identify the topics of a specified cluster. Furthermore, the clusters are ranked according to their salience scores, thus the more likely
clusters required by users are ranked higher."
Other experimental bits are mentioned in Web Search Clustering from Microsoft (and other Clustering Tools) Search Engine Watch Blog (Jan 11)
OCLC Tries Visual with Antarctica Systems
OCLC is determined to have us finding library books by searching online. They are testing a new visual search interface using the map views of Antarctica.net for finding eBooks -- http://ebooks.antarctica.net. This is a pilot only that will end in April 2005. Database has about 200,000 books.
See Gary Price's comments -- Data Visualization (Jan 12)
MSN Search Gets More Traffic
MSN's Web search picks up steam By Stefanie Olsen, CNet (Jan 14) MSN Search i s drawing more of its search results from the new MSN indexes rather than Yahoo. MSN has been receiving more traffic -- "In November, MSN procured 16.5 percent of the search volume, up from 15.8 percent the month before, according to ComScore Networks. Over the same period, Google slipped slightly from 34.8 percent to 34.4 percent."
There are no suggestions as to why traffic has increased. Might have been because MSN changed the look of the search page and the display of results early in 2004 when they dropped Looksmart. The new search features and the database are at the beta search site .
January 14, 2005
At Home Media Center - Apple v Google
Apple v. Google: A Matter of Timing By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, Baseline in PC Magazine (Jan 13)
Starts with Apple's iPod Photo, a "media center" machine, and moves to iLife, "iLife, Apple's pretty "seamless" software suite that allows the average person to manage huge digital playlists of music, create and sculpt large libraries of digital photos, develop and edit digital movies, and even build professional sounding songs from scratch." He predicts that the Mac mini will develop into a "digital content manager". The clash with Google will be as both try "to act as the spigot and control point of choice of nontechnical humans everywhere for handling the flood of digits coming onto home screens. Google will support its thrust through profits on advertising. Apple will support its thrust through profits on hardware. But they will meet in the middle."
"In any case, the two companies will be competing to be in control of the next generation of digital media life, when entertainment and information from in-home and remote hard drives, as well as broadcast and cable signals, are blended onto the same screen."
Customer Satisfaction with Search Engines
Yahoo & MSN Closing the Google Gap By Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 13) Reports on a study done by Keynote of "customer experience ratings" with Ask Jeeves, Google, Lycos, MSN Search and Yahoo Search.
More searchers would use Yahoo or MSN as their primary engine, and more users of each intend to continue to use those engines. No figures on Google other than it is "still getting high rates of customer satisfaction and loyalty".
See full press release -- Yahoo! Search and MSN Search Close the Gap with Google, Says Keynote (Jan 13)
Of interest: "Keynote studies, which measure both user perceptions and actual search results, have revealed that search engine success is based in large part on the presentation of search results and brand affinity. Sites that users rank well in terms of presentation and brand, also rank well in perceived quality and success of search. Keynote has found that actual search results returned by the leading five search engines, when measured objectively, do not differ significantly. In fact, Lycos, Ask Jeeves and MSN perform as well as Google and Yahoo! when actual user success in conducting complex searches was measured."
January 13, 2005
Mr Sapo's All-in-One
What name will they think of next? MrSapo.com is an all-in-one kind of search service. Choose your category of search - Basic (ie Web), Images, Audio/Video, Academic, News, Weblogs; enter your keywords; and then select an engine from the list. See the results from that engine and then click on another. It's quite simple. Mr Sapo has an extensive list of engines, though they are not all engines I would recommend and there is no guidance given for using them.
Also see Useful Meta-Interface Search Engine: MrSapo ResearchBuzz (Jan 12)
Best of Business Lists
Montague Insititute Review keeps a page of The collected wisdom of the world's information experts - excerpts from discussion boards for information professionals including the Buslib listserv. Has topics for managing information, organizing information, tips and techniques, and where to find it - several business topics. Unfortunately page doesn't show the date of last revision. [Thanks to RC for the listing.]
MyMSN and RSS
MSN tests new blog, search features by Stephanie Olsen, CNet (Jan 11) MSN is copying Yahoo in its plans to add features to MY MSN for searching and syndicating blogs.
"In partnership with Moreover Technologies, Microsoft's Internet division will add features to MyMSN, its personalized Web service, that will let users find blogs and syndicate content using the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) format, according to company representatives."
January 12, 2005
RocketNews Adds USA TV News
RocketNews has added news content from 4 US television networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.
From the press release - "Rocketinfo's database includes all of the world's leading news outlets including Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, the New York Times, BBC and many other well-known news sources. In addition, the Rocketinfo database covers thousands of smaller specialized publications as well as content from niche content providers such as trade journals, industry portals and specialty magazines. "
Major U.S. TV Broadcasters Content Added to Rocketinfo Database Market Wire (Jan 11)
Mentioned in RocketNews Adds Local Television News Content Search Engine Watch Blog (Jan 12)
Three Search Aids
Three Cool Search Gizmos By Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 12) - Three good search gadgets - jux2 browser button for running a search at the Jux2 meta-searcher at comparing results, Whois Source for checking on domain ownership, and Printer Friendly for finding the print link on a page. Save time - use them all.
Google Digitization and Privacy
Paranoid or Prescient? Daniel Brandt is concerned about Google Print. Daniel Brandt of Google-Watch is very concerned about the degree to which Google tracks people's information habits. He worries that Google's agreements with libraries to digitize books will extend that even further. The USA is the land of the Patriot Act under which the FBI and the CIA can access records kept by public libraries and private corporations - such as what digitized books people read. It can affect people outside of the United States since so many multinationals are US-based. "Brandt would like libraries that contract with Google for access to their collections to force Google to protect the personal privacy of the reading public. This would require Google to cease recording IP information and other identifying information gathered by the single unifying cookie in relation to library searchers. " Hard to know if Brandt is paranoid or prescient.
Article has some points about the personalization of search. Of interest: "With the advent of personalized search, it is expected that marketers will tap into an individual's unique information consumption habits to determine the most cost effective ways of advertising to that individual. Data mining for marketing purposes is hardly new in our society though personalization of search makes that process infinitely more efficient."
Creating the National Digital Library of Canada
National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary by MICHAEL GEIST, Toronto Star (Jan 10) [Registration]
Canada did very well during the last decade to extend Internet access in Canada. Michael Geist proposes that the next great leap be to create a comprehensive national digital library -- "The library, which would be fully accessible online, would contain a digitally scanned copy of every book, government report, and legal decision ever published in Canada." The benefits to education and to creativity would be enormous. In light of the recently announced project by Google to digitize books the proposal is not impossible.
But two potential copyright reforms could present considerable obstacles. First, the federal government is considering "creating a new licensing system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to accessing online content." Second, the Canadian Heritage Ministry is looking into extending the term of copyright to 70 years after death rather than the the current 50.
Let's join Geist in opposing both of those reforms and persuade Parliament to open up content.
"As Parliamentarians return to Ottawa, they should be encouraged to seize the opportunity to establish a national vision for the Internet that will again propel Canada into a global leadership position."
January 11, 2005
TravelOffers.ca for Canadians
Hoping for some time in the sun this March break? Canadians have a new tool to use to find best travel offers in TravelOffers.ca . It looks for "the best deals on flights, vacations, and other travel products from various providers and we present them through an unbiased guide of amazing travel specials". Looks pretty good for picking up airline seat sales and vacation packages. There is a newsletter featuring the top deals. If you like it, tell your friends.
The Next Ten Years
What does the future hold for the Internet? 66% of the experts polled in the recent study done by Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon University predicted "At least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10
years on the networked information infrastructure or the country's power
grid."
"In addition, there was notable agreement among the 1,286 experts in this
survey that in the next 10 years the internet will be more deeply
integrated in our physical environments and high-speed connections will
proliferate - with mixed results. They believe the dawning of the blog
era will bring radical change to the news and publishing industry and
they think the internet will have the least impact on religious
institutions."
Report: Internet Evolution -- http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/145/report_display.asp
Experts: Devastating U.S. Cyber-Attack Within 10 Years by Rod McGann, CLickZ (Jan 9)
Internet Nasties
The Deadly Duo - Spam and Viruses - 2004 Year-End Recap By Rob McGann, Clickz (Jan 11) USA is the number one source of spam followed by China and Korea. In viruses, the Trojan Downloader.GK and the Netsky worm were the nasties.
Checking the Pulse of Weblogs
Intelliseek to watch superbowl 'buzz' Business Courier (Jan 10) Look what can be done with blogs -- "Cincinnati-based Intelliseek said it will conduct a real-time analysis of messages and opinions expressed in millions of Internet Web logs, or blogs, message boards, online communities and sports enthusiast sites to see if ads were creative enough to trigger discussion. The company will rank buzz by volume, emotion, appeal factors and penetration among influential consumers."
Intelliseek runs BlogPulse - an "automated trend discovery system".
Of interest -- What was hot in the blogosphere in 2004?
New at MSN Search Beta
A couple of new things you can do at MSN Search spotted by Gary Price -- MSN Search Beta Results Via RSS & Encarta Link Search Engine Watch Blog (Jan 10)
Yahoo Desktop
Yahoo Launches Desktop Search by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 11) - Yahoo joins a crowded desktop-playing field with Yahoo Desktop Search using technology from X1. It indexes more than 200 filetypes. Sherman finds it similar to WIndows Explorer. He found it worked well for indexing files on his computer but that web search wasn't well integrated yet. Also, it doesn't index cached web pages. (That would eliminate it for me. )
Does email and attachments in Outlook or Outlook Express (no other email client!), Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, text, HTML, ZIP and over 200 other file types. Doesn't do Web browser history.
Setting Up News Feeds
Finding News Faster - XML-Based Feeds in Research by Genie Tyburski, Virtual Chase (Jan 11) - Presentation on using RSS feeds (and ATOM) in research. Describes feeds, how to search feeds, how to create them, and some points on avoiding information overload. Lots of good tips.
Healthology and iVillage
iVillage Inc. Acquires Healthology, Inc., Expanding iVillage's Online Video and Information Offerings PR Newswire via CBS Marketwatch (Jan 10) Content about health at iVillage, The Internet for Women, will likely get a boost through the newly acquired Healthology.
From the press release: "Healthology produces one of the largest libraries of original, streaming video health programs and physician-authored articles on the Internet via a network of Web sites. Currently, the library consists of over 1,200 streaming videos and over 2,000 articles and transcripts on health-related topics primarily in the Women's Health, Healthy Aging, General Health and Men's Health categories. Healthology is also a leading syndicator of health content on the Web, actively distributing its content to over 4,500 Web sites, including leading news media organizations, online consumer portals, health foundations and medical associations."
January 10, 2005
Favourite Search Tools
Free Search Tools From Google, Amazon, and Yahoo PC World's roundup of favorite desktop search tools includes toolbars for A9, Google, Yahoo. Also Copernic Desktop Search and the 550 Access Toolbar for logging into accounts and filling out forms. These are all for Windows and some toolbars are only for IE. The A9 toolbar is available for IE and Firefox.
Wikipedia's Growth and Future
Wikipedia Faces Growing Pains by Daniel Terdiman, Wired News (Jan 10) Wikipedia, the free (and free-for-all) online encyclopedia, has grown to 1.1 million entries. Anyone can add and edit entries. Some knowledgeable people do - and so do some cranks.
"But with that growth, questions about how credible Wikipedia is, whether it can be respected by the academic community and how it might change are more important than ever. And as Wikipedia continues to expand, at about 7 percent per month, many wonder if the project can stay true to its core principles of openness and co-creation."
Faster PDF Pages
Speeding Up Acrobat Reader by Chris Sherman, Searchday (Jan 10) - recommends a utility from TNT-Bookblack.co.uk for speeding up display of pdf pages through Acrobat Reader.
For Investors
Rita Vine picked up an interesting analysis of companies and trends in the search industry done by Safa Rashtchy written for Silk Road Weekly (Jan 3). he foresees very good growth in the industry in 2005 - perhaps returns of 20% largely due to consumers spending and using more. He recommends 7 core companies among which are Yahoo and eBay but not Google.
Generally -- "Overall, we expect Yahoo will move more toward content aggregation and even content creation, while MSN will position itself to be more of an application for higher end users, and Google will focus on search, speed, and delivery."
See Rita's summary at An Internet Analyst's Top Trends for 2005
Public Library of Science Adds Journals
PLoS Announces New Community OA Journals Weekly News Digest - Newsbreaks (Jan 10) " The Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org) announced plans for its next suite of open access journals—PLoS Community Journals. The three new journals (PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, and PLoS Pathogens) are modeled after successful discipline-based journals published by scientific societies."
Maps and Directions Online
Overtaking MapQuest a Challenge for Yahoo Chris Gaither, LATimes (Jan 10)
Yahoo has been adding dynamic features to its map service. This is called SmartView -- "SmartView, a free feature that lets users look up addresses, then select categories of services to appear as yellow icons on the map. Clicking on them brings up more information about the business, including the address, phone number and a link to results of a Yahoo Search query on the name."
Although Yahoo's service is attractive, MapQuest (owned by AOL) is well in the lead for number of users.
"While 15.6 million people visited Yahoo Maps in November, up 9% from a year earlier, MapQuest drew 33.1 million individual visitors, a 27% gain over the same period, according to market research firm ComScore Media Metrix."
MapQuest is offering downloads of color maps and directions to mobile phone owners (at $4 / month).
At the present Google uses Yahoo Maps and MapQuest but it may be developing its own too. It "bought a start-up called Keyhole Corp. that uses aerial and satellite photos to let users zoom in on particular places. Combined with Google's local directories, Keyhole could be the next generation of navigation services, analysts say."
January 09, 2005
Internet Radio - Clear Channel
Giants' new plans for Net radio by John Borland, Cnet (Jan 7) Clear Channel may compete head on with AOL, MSN and Yahoo for Internet Radio.
"By contrast, Clear Channel can take advantage of both the national and the local strengths of offline and online radio, Harrison said. The 1,200 radio stations owned by the company will serve as independent gateways into a network of online services, each with their own identity and "attitude," he [Eric Ronning, consultant] said."
January 07, 2005
FexIT for Business
FexIT.com Launches New Generation of Intelligent Web-Searching for Business> PR Newswire via CBS Marketwatch [subscription] (Jan 6) From Iceland comes FexIt -- "a new website that combines the comprehensiveness of a business directory with the power of a Web-search." There are five components:
+ international directory of 278,900 business websites
+ fexSearch - a metasearch engine that picks up from Teoma, Netscape, Lycos, Wisenut, Hotbot. Offers 4 modes: intelligent, comprehensive, thorough, and fast. Apart from fast having fewer results, differences between the modes is not clear and there is no Help page.
+ fexWORDS - terms and acronyms. There are 14,071 terms - but wifi isn't one of them.
+ fexNews - business headlines. Has news by country and by topic and provides XML feeds. There was news from Canada on Jan 6 but not the United States! Suspect that FexIT is working on increasing sources.
+ Business in the News -- prepared searches on the database for popular topics such as The Desktop Search Battle.
Promising especially because of the business terms and directory.
Gigablast Reaches 1 Billion
Gigablast Hits One Billion Pages PR Newswire via CBS Marketwatch (Jan 6) - Gigablast is bigger and fresher. Release describes the new indexing services for webmasters: Dedicated Site Search (DSS) and Custom Topic Search (CTS).
January 06, 2005
Better Image Searching
Search Looks at the Big Picture by John Gartner, Wired (Jan 6)
"A group of European researchers is developing technology that could vastly improve image searching by identifying the components of an image. The group, which includes the Xerox Research Centre Europe and universities in France, England, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland, has developed software that can recognize everyday objects in digital images, according to Christopher Dance, a senior research scientist at Xerox."
Danny Sullivan Reflects
Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search By Danny Sullivan, SearchDay (Jan 6) - Danny Sullivan predicts that 2005 will be the year of consumer search. More and more, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves are in the business of connecting consumers with products.
Looking back - yellow pages is the place for paid inclusion, not Yahoo Web Search; several developments in personal search; vertical search grew (targeted searches for weather etc); and confusion over contextual ads.
Yahoo Home Entertainment
Yahoo taking aim at the digital living room Reuters via Mantra (Jan 6) Yahoo plans to "to deliver Web-based content and services to personal computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP Media Center software, which allows users to play music and movies and to view digital photos via television screens."
"Steve Boom, Yahoo’s senior vice president for broadband access and bundled services, said the Microsoft deal will enable users to access music, movies, photos and Internet-based services from the television using a remote control."
Tips from Jan Dempsey
Six tips to hone your searches by Jan Dempsey, The Post-Standard (Jan 5) -- presents several valuable "principles of searching":
+ look for authoritative sources
+ try to find primary sources
+ use a library
+ use several search engines
+ use advanced search features
+ visualize results.
Health at MSN and Yahoo
Web Portals Beef Up Health Sections By Shankar Gupta, Media Daily News (Jan 5) MSN and Yahoo are expanding the health channels at their portals.
MSN Health and Fitness will have the Mayo Clinic's health care information site, Harvard Medical School, HealthDay, and iVillage Inc., "a leading women's health Web site".
Yahoo has health news. It promises better searching. "Yahoo!'s key focus for its beta health site is searchability, and on the beta site, the search function is prominently featured. "With this new site, you're going to see search, you're going to see more personalization, and you're going to see more integration of content and community ...".
Search Advice for the New Year
Chris Sherman made some Search Resolutions for the New Year - SearchDay (Jan 5). I agree that it would be a good thing to purge unused search tools.
January 04, 2005
Top 100 EContent Companies
EC100 List Fourth annual EContent 100 - "list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry" .
Covers blogging, classification and taxonomies, content management, knowledge management, content creation, content delivery, digital rights management, intranet and portals, Mobile content, and search engines and technologies.
Companies selected in the search technologies category were: anacubis · Autonomy Corporation, plc · Convera Corporation · Copernic Technologies, Inc. · Endeca Technologies, Inc. · Fast Search & Transfer · GlobalSpec · Google, Inc. · Onfolio, Inc. · Thunderstone Software LLC · Topix.net · Triplehop Technologies · Verity, Inc. · Yahoo!, Inc.
Google and Yahoo News
Forecast 2005: For Newspapers, Competition Too Big to Ignore "Newspapers better be prepared to gear up for 2005 innovations" by Rick Edmonds, Poynter Online (Jan 3) Those innovations are coming from the internet and specifically Google and Yahoo.
Of interest >> "Google and Yahoo go first among the new forces in news for three reasons. They have boatloads of capital to invest in new ventures and acquisitions. They have strong existing news aggregation products, increasingly able to become the personalized "Daily Me," so long a staple of thinking about the-newspaper-of-the-future."
Online Reference Sites
Best Free Reference Web Sites 2004 Sixth Annual List compiled by RUSA Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the American Library Association.
Selections for other years are listed on the Mars Pub page.
See The Best Online Reference Sites by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jan 4) for a sampling of sites and additional recommendations.
Thunderbird for Email
First Look: Thunderbird 1.0 a Winner "Mozilla's upstart e-mail program makes a strong case for dropping Outlook." Dennis O'Reilly, PC World (December 23, 2004) - has spam filters and protects against javascript being executed in a message.
Gurunet Morphs Into Answers.com
Answers.com is the lastest version of the answer machine from GuruNet Corporation. This time the instant reference service is supported by advertising revenue on keywords rather than subscriber fees. Answers.com boasts information on over a million topics, "drawn from a database of over 100 reference sources." Wikipedia is one of those sources. Answers.com is accessible on the Web from any browser. It will still be possible to Alt-CLick on any word for instant lookup using 1-Click Answers, a small software download available for Windows and Mac OS X.
GuruNet Launches Answers.com Press Release (Jan 3, 2005)
While it is always nice to get something for free, this change may mean some loss in quality and definitely in features.
+ Wikipedia is not a reliable source of encyclopedia-type of information (though this had been added to GuruNet too).
+ Answers show on one long page at Answers.com rather than the tabbed window set provided by Gurunet.
+ GuruNet had a very handy Directory in the left panel. Answers.com has buried the directory at its web site (Answers Directory).
+ Web search facility for Answers is only through Google. GuruNet also uses Yahoo and A9.
+ GuruNet users could add more search engines to the GuruNet set.
+ GuruNet could translate a page.
Also reviewed by Gary Price -- GuruNet Becomes Answers.com and Is Now Available Free! SearchEngineWatch Blog (Jan 3)
Answers.com will be useful for quick lookup of definitions and facts as GuruNet has been. But I'd like to see a list of the reference sources Answers.com is using. Also, at this point we don't know how annoying the sponsored links will become.
Gigablast Sitesearch
The new sitesearch at Gigablast can be used to search your web site - just need to add it the site to Gigablast. Can set this up as the search engine for your site.
Search Engine Gigablast Rolling Out New Features ResearchBuzz (Jan 3, 2005) --
Browsers, Toolbars, RSS
Revisiting Past Technologies By Greg R. Notess, Online (Jan 2005) - looks back at browsers, toolbars, bookmarklets and RSS to note changes over time. Finds Firefox browser tempting but not toolbars. Recommends using either Bloglines of My Yahoo for picking up some RSS feeds.
"While 4 years ago switching browsers may not have been tempting, the current crop from Mozilla have some compelling advantages. Revisiting toolbars, on the other hand, still failed to convince me to make them a regular part of my Internet tools. Bookmarklets have proved extremely useful, greatly speeding up some tasks and making many Web pages much easier to read... Subscribing to some feeds in Bloglines or My Yahoo! is an easy way to sample RSS, and for those who frequent numerous news sites each day, these tools can be a real time saver."
I agree with switching to Firefox browser, but also recommend using some selected toolbars depending on need. Firefox has many extensions that are extremely useful. In the toolbar line, Google Bar is essential and the A9 toolbar is very useful for its online bookmark manager.
Adware in Audio Files
Protect Yourself From Audio Adware "Not all files on peer-to-peer networks are genuine. Here are tips to help you dodge the fakes." Andrew Brandt and Eric Dahl, PCWorld.com (Dec 29, 2004)
January 03, 2005
Real-Time Traffic - US Cities
Useful for people in the US with wireless hand devices -- Yahoo Offers Real-Time Traffic Reports SearchDay (Jan 3)
"The company enhanced Yahoo Maps to display real time traffic conditions including speed and congestion information on major roads, as well as construction information and accident reports. You can turn traffic information on or off with a new control box that appears on the right side of a map display."
Firefox RSS Newsreader
There is another option for Firefox users wanting to read RSS feeds. Instead of using the Live Bookmarks, users can install Sage, a newsreader extension. Sage "integrates with Firefox's bookmark storage and Live Bookmarks". Feeds can be organized into folders and are displayed in a side panel on the left.
Give Sage Some of Your Thyme Traffick.com (Jan 3) Also mentions Pluck for IE.
Google on 60 Minutes
Andy Beal at WebProNews was watching television and caught Google Featured On CBS' 60 Minutes. He took some screenshots (29) and linked to the CBSNews.com story -- Defining Google
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt CEO and John Battelle, commentor extraordinare, were some of the people interviewed. Show touched on Google's image -- innovation, Internet, and trust, advertising revenue, history of development, new products, and challenges.
Among the new ideas
-- machine translation
-- cell phone search
-- TV and video search
Ultimate Mega-Base
Round Up the Unusual Suspects! by Barbara Quint, Searcher Magazine (Jan 2005) - Examines implications to libraries of Google Scholar and Yahoo!/OCLC's toolbar and the opportunities these present.
Yahoo's OCLC toolbar taps into OCLC's full collection of 57 million WorldCat library records. "The structure of the toolbar looks like it would allow Yahoo! to expand the segregation of library-style material to other sources, including all the access introduced by its Content Acquisition Program, e.g., OAIster, a special collection from Getty, Project Gutenberg, etc."
Quint sees that "we are present at the birth of the ultimate mega-bases for locating the content which, up to now, resided on our [library] shelves, but has begun to veer off into the open Web or some more proprietary digital venue. "
Information professionals can influence Google, Yahoo and the vendors to improve coverage and reliability.
January 02, 2005
Firefox Tweak
Make Firefox run faster on a Broadband connection -- Firefox Tweak from Future Step (Dec 28, 2004)
Google vs Library Databases
Googlizers vs. Resistors By Brian Kenney (Dec 15, 2004) Library Journal -- Thrust of discussion at the Pennsylvania Library Association Annual Conference, October 27, in King of Prussia, on "Googlizers and Resistors: Librarian's Role in a Googlized World".
"For starters, Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines raise questions about expensive, proprietary databases. While the latter deliver precise and high-quality results, users may find them too complex and not be willing to learn how to work with them. But can librarians ever accept providing the public with "good enough" results as opposed to the "best quality" results that are so much a part of our professional mantra?"
Firefox and Other Alternatives
Firefox Spread Leads to Design Scrutiny, Built-In RSS Feeds by Mark Glaser, Online Journalism Review (Dec 7, 2004) - about alternative browsers in general (ie alternative to IE) and Firefox's capabilities in particular. Applauds Firefox for building in RSS feeds as "live bookmarks" - and so do I.
Research Buddy for Firefox
Students and researchers will like the extension for Firefox 1.0 brower - a tool that will save a clip, file it in a folder, and create the correct citation.
Research Buddy 1.01, Saves references to webpages in a bibliographical reference format
Google Scholar OpenURL
Users of Google Scholar will be interested in this Firefox extension to check if your university library has the article. University must have an OpenURL resolver. Tool is written for University of Alberta - must tweak code to make it work for others. Bookmarklet is also available. Google Scholar OpenURLs -- http://www.ualberta.ca/~pbinkley/gso/
Mentioned in EdTechPost, Google Scholar & OpenURL Firefox Extension (Dec 2, 2004)
Using Bloglines
If your resolution in 2005 is to explore RSS feeds, start with the Bloglines, the web service. This tutorial shows how to add feeds.
Halavais, A. C. (Oct. 25, 2004). Bloglines Step-by-Step. A Thaumaturgical Compendium. Retrieved Jan. 03, 2005
http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=872
January 01, 2005
E-Books at Libraries
E-Books: Challenges and Opportunities John Cox, National University of Ireland, Galway Ireland, D-Lib Magazine (Oct 2004)
"Abstract: E-books are commonly perceived as offering great potential for learner support but also as struggling to compete with print due to poor on-screen presentation, restrictive licencing and limited range of titles offered. The experience of a group of Irish university libraries shows that, with the right combination of product and subjects, e-books can thrive among students and faculty, while librarians can create more dynamic, relevant and flexible collections than for print. Subscription management is demanding for libraries, however, and licencing issues remain highly problematic, representing a formidable obstacle to full exploitation. "