Autonomy positions itself for content wars By Maija Palmer, FT.com (Aug 28) -- Autonomy, noted for its technology for handling unstructured content, is working with the Chinese to create a service for searching news and video. Prior to this Autonomy had been working with Blinkx for video search.
"Where Google and Yahoo rely on having video clips manually catalogued and tagged so that they can be searched using key words, Autonomy uses voice recognition software – also used by the US Department of Homeland Security to eavesdrop on terrorists – which automatically catalogues every spoken word in hundreds of thousands of hours of footage."
Blogging about the Joneses by Elinor Mills, CNet News (Aug 26) - Zabasearch, a search engine for personal information, is going to introduce ZabaBlog where people can write about other people. ZabaSearch collects address, birthday and other public information on people in the United States and links to for-fee background-check services.
Men are Media Hogs By Enid Burns, ClickZ Stats (Aug 26) - New report from Forrester Research shows that men spend more time on the computer and the Internet than women (6.7 hours online for men v 5.3 for women), and they do different things. Survey was of 5,000 US and Canadian individuals.
"On the Web, men tend to surf for news, magazines, finance, job and career information. They also visit discussion boards and comparison shop. Online activities for women skew more toward utility; they get movie information, play games, share photos, and use online phone directories."
Libraries offering audiobook downloads AP (Aug 26) - More public libraries in the US are offering e-books.
"Vendors such as OverDrive Inc. and OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc.'s NetLibrary have licensing deals with publishers and provide digital books using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Audio format, which includes copyright protections designed to help audiobooks stand apart from the often lawless world of song swapping."
Gmail Opens Up in More Ways Than One Traffick.com (Aug 26) - Can now send email from GMail using any other email address you have, and with a hack, pick up email from a POP3 account. Posting says that GMail is open to everyone now - but not quite - you can get one if you have a US mobile phone (don't ask), otherwise, have a friend with a GMail account send you an invitation.
Google's Grand Ambitions "Its lips are sealed, but its moves rattle everyone from Microsoft to eBay" BusinessWeek ONline (Sept 5)
" First, Google confirmed that it had quietly acquired mobile-phone software startup Android Inc. Then came the surprising news that it would add $4 billion to its cash war chest with a secondary stock offering. And then on Aug. 24, the search giant announced it was getting into the instant messaging and Internet telephony businesses. No wonder tech watchers from Silicon Valley to Bangalore are all wondering the same thing: What the heck is Google up to?"
Google prompts Skype to hustle By Chris Oakes International Herald Tribune (Aug 26) Skype, the Luxembourg-based VoIP company, is responding to Google's move into voice by introducing SkypeWeb and SkypeNet by which others can "build Skype voice and instant messaging communications into their own products or pages".
Skype is the largest of the VoIP services with 51 million registered users but not all are regular users.
Many new online exhibits mounted at Collections Canada.
August 26, 2005
Tales from the Vault!: Canadian Pulp Fiction, 1940-1952
www.collectionscanada.ca/pulp/index-e.html
[http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/pulp/index-e.html]
August 18, 2005
Virtual Silver Screen is Macromedia's site of the day for August 17, 2005
www.collectionscanada.ca/silverscreen/index.html
[http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/silverscreen]
August 17, 2005
Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown
www.collectionscanada.ca/ufo/index-e.html
[http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/ufo/index-e.html]
Backcheck: A Hockey Retrospective
www.collectionscanada.ca/hockey/index-e.html
[http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/hockey/index-e.html]
Backcheck: Hockey for Kids
www.collectionscanada.ca/hockey/kids/index-e.html
[http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/hockey/kids/index-e.html]
New Google Talk Offers Instant Messaging & Voice Chat Danny Sullivan, SearchDay (Aug 24) - full and thorough review of Google's IM client, Google Talk. Includes comparison chart of features to AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. Covers what you need to do to get Google Talk - specifically Google EMail.
What Blogs, Podcasts, Feeds Mean to Bottom Line By Lisa Vaas, eWeek (Aug 25)
+ "average consumer of blogs, RSS/XML feeds and Podcasts is male, earns big bucks and, in the case of Podcasts, is a youngster"
+ "In a June survey of some 4,000 Internet users, Jupiter found that over the past year, only 11 percent had read a blog monthly or more frequently."
+ 7 percent of survey group have used podcasts
+"30 percent of companies with $50 million or more in annual revenue have deployed RSS feeds, according to the report, while another 28 percent have indicated they intend to offer RSS feeds this year."
Companies are slowly adopting RSS where it is clear that they have users who are RSS savvy - Continental Airlines has a RSS feed to promote vacation packages.
All in all this is still a small segment
Google Scholar is now 8th in a ranking of education sites by Hitwise in its August 2005 newsletter. Hitwise is an online measurement company serving marketers.
"Hitwise data show that the official site of Google Scholar experienced an increase in market share of US Internet visits by 1,228 percent (week ending July 30, 2005 versus week ending May 28, 2005). The site has climbed among 'Education' websites - from number 473 (week ending May 28, 2005) to number 8 (week ending July 30, 2005). "
But report goes on to say that Google.com is responsible for over 90 percent of the visits.
Fascinating series by Dave Sifry of Technorati of the State of the Blogosphere August 2005. Read the series at the Technorati Weblog. Search on the tag for blogosphere.
Part 1: Blog Growth - at the end of July Technorati was tracking 14.2 billion blogs, double from 5 months previous with the first spike in February and March. About 55% have had a posting in the last 3 months and about 13% are updated each week.
Part 2: Posting Volume - chart shows a steady growth in daily postings and at the end of July 2005 was at 900,000 per day. This is about double that of January 2005. New or improved free blog spaces (MSN Spaces, AOL Journals, Blogger, and Live Journal) as well as blogging add-ons in many other tools are fueling the growth.
Part 3: Growth of Tags - people seem to love tagging (categorizing) by terms that mean something to them. In a social space on the Internet, such as Technorati, the resulting system is called a folksonomy. By the end of July 2005 about 30% of new postings each day have tags. A video shows changing interests in the blogging community through the tags being used.
Part 4: Spam and Fake Blogs - spam and fake blogs are created by automated programs as space for ads. They are a pestilence in the blogosphere and everyone is trying to do something about it.
Part 5: The A-List and the Long Tail - shows the most influential blogs according to links to sites.
Technorati and Newsweek by Dave Sifry, Technorati (Aug 25) - Newsweek has introduced a Blog Roundup in cooperation with Technorati that shows the "most blogged about articles in Newsweek in the past 7 days". See the section on at Newsweek or go directly to Blog Roundup for more.
Shirl Kennedy at ResourceShelf recommends the 21st Century Information Fluency Project from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy as a learning tool about Information Literacy.
"Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment. As teachers and librarians develop these skills and teach them to students, students will become better equipped to achieve their information needs."
More On The Index Size Debate by Danny Sullivan, SEW Blog (Aug 25) - preview to a larger article Sullivan is writing that will show that size of the search engine database no longer matters and that it "isn't even a good surrogate for comprehensiveness".
There is a point in all things at which bigger befuddles. Search engines, in my opinion, passed that at about 5 billion.
Local Search Seeks Depth, Gets Personal By Enid Burns, ClickZ News (Aug 25) - Social networking may be changing yellow pages into the neighbourhood centres for posting opinions on local services. The two main ones are Insider Pages and Judy's Book with coverage for many cities in the United States. But portals are doing this too. Yahoo members can add reviews to the Yahoo Local postings - on restaurants, at least, Yahoo has check boxes to help users categorize the eaterie; Amazon invites businesses and customers to update business profiles in the A9 yellow pages.
AOL News Joins the Big League of News Search Engines by Greg Jarboe, SearchDay (Aug 25) AOL News is viewed by 16 million people, more than double Google's audience. Service has some featured searches.
To my eye, main sources are Reuters and AP. Press releases are abundant and collected into one section at the bottom of the page.
However, AOL News has nothing close to the variety of sources that Yahoo News and Google News have, nor the clustering or categorization capabilities, nor the alerts or RSS feeds. If looking for stories on the lumber trade dispute related to NAFTA, AOL News had only three stories from Aug 24 from Reuters and AP. Google had at least 12 from several sources, and Yahoo News, 18.
If AOL News has such a large audience it must be because of the AOL user community, not because it is better than other services.
Heightened awareness in KMWorld (Aug 24) - New capabilities for federated search and alerts in Inxight's SmartDiscovery Awareness Server 5.2 - "designed to derive insight and intelligence from hundreds of high-value information sources through a single interface".
Of interest: "alert module in SmartDiscovery Awareness Server includes the ability to set up e-mail and landing page alerts based on changes to a specific document or Web page or the appearance of newly available information of interest in deep Web, Internet, news, internal systems or other sources. Results can be shared with others via e-mail, or formatted for printing and reading offline."
Inxight has a flash presentation on SmartDiscovery and an archived web seminar on the Power of Federated Search and Alerts.
Browser's anti-phishing filter coming early - "Microsoft says it will release one for current Explorer version" - Seattle PI (Aug 24)
Microsoft will be issuing a "preliminary version of its new "phishing filter" sometime in the coming weeks as a free add-on for its MSN Toolbar in the current Internet Explorer 6 browser."
This will be a good reason for adding the MSN Toolbar to your set.
Rocketinfo Partners with Viapoint Corporation to Provide News Search Adapter Press Release (Aug 24) - Rocketnews is partnering with Viapoint to use the Viapoint Smart Organizer for making "it easier to organize files, emails and news content by saving desktop and web content from searches into Viapoint virtual folders."
"Navigating Through the Maze of International Education Resources on the Internet" By Cynthia Padilla, Freepint (Aug 25)
"There is a plethora of international education resources on the internet, including data and statistics, publications, news, curriculum and policy reports, and research organizations. The challenge is organizing your search so that you can find the most relevant material for your particular task."
How Do the Search Engines Stack Up? By Enid Burns, Clickz Stats (Aug 18) -- more market share numbers about search engine for July, this time from Hitwise. Many searches are for buying things -- "Google sends 10.68 percent of its traffic to the shopping and classifieds category, Yahoo! Search forwards 11.24 percent of traffic, MSN routes 10.65 percent, and Ask Jeeves 15.05 percent."
Has usage and time data for the major search tools including image search. Most time on average (14:06 minutes per session) is at Yahoo Images.
Mamma.com and Copernic Technologies Sign New Letter of Intent EContent (Aug 23)
Mamma.com, the Montreal-based metasearch engine, is looking again to buy Copernic.com, the desktop search engine, that had been based in Quebec.
Google planning IM service, report says Reuters via ZDNet (Aug 23)
"Google is set to introduce its own instant-messaging system, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. Such a move would mark an expansion by the Web search leader into text and also voice communications."
Start-Up Unveils Searchable, Wiki-Ready, Do-It-Yourself Web Kits by Gavin O'Malley, Online Media (Aug 23)
"FUSING TWO WEB TRENDS, SEARCH personalization and consumer-generated content, a fresh Internet entrant named Jeteye Inc. will announce the beta launch of its shared search platform. The company, started by Internet pioneer David Hayden, is based on wiki-ready Web kits dubbed "Jetpaks." "
Take the tour at www.jeteye.com -- "Jetpaks are digital packages of collected links, comments and images that are searchable and sharable."
Search Engines Find Stolen Identities By Thomas Claburn, Security Pipeline (Aug 19)
"During the first six months of 2005, more than 50 million identities were lost or stolen in a series of high-profile data breaches across the United States. Thanks to search engines, many can be easily found.
For example, fed a few abbreviations associated with personal and financial information, a Google search returns links to a wide variety of Web sites. Most are harmless. A few, however, lead to page upon page of sensitive personal information including Social Security numbers, credit-cards numbers, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, bank-account numbers, logon names, and passwords. "
ResearchBuzz Tara Calishain discovered a source list for MSN Newsbot - http://newsbot.msnbc.msn.com/s/publishers.aspx. It has hundreds of sources listed including many Canadian online source - Globe and Mail, globetechnology, Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Star, Torontoist, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Business Journal, Edmonton Journal - tending to pick up at least one newspaper from the provincial capitals and sometimes speciality sources.
Ask Jeeves Unleashes More Smart Answers by Gary Price, SEW Blog (Aug 23) - lists what's new at Ask Jeeves in the way of smart answers, a feature Ask Jeeves added in April 2003.
"One of the things I like about Smart Answers is that in many cases you'll not only get the basic facts listed at the top of a web results page but you'll also find direct links to additional sources of info. These types of links really have the potential to save the searcher time, effort, and aggravation."
Some of the new "smart answers" are for people in the US looking for facts about their states, cities, area codes and television programs. The program CSI will have a profile but not the Canadian Da Vinci's Inquest. Other smart answers include quick facts on World Nations from the CIA World Factbook, ISBN, mammals, planets, periodic table of elements.
A Closer Look at Yahoo Audio Search by Gary Price, SearchDay (Aug 23) - Very thorough review of Yahoo Audio Search - "... a one-stop, comprehensive service that allows the user to search, find, and access both open web audio files (via a Yahoo crawl) AND audio files from numerous music/audio (fee-based) services ... ". Price describes in detail what you can do and what defects to be aware of. Article also mentions other specialized music databases.
Employer background checks: Protection or violation? by Mark Terry, Bankrate.com (Mentioned in TVC ALert) (Aug 22)
Article describes the types of background checks and employer in the United States and conduct on a potential employee and identifies the sources. Among them: Criminal records (not online), Department of Motor Vehicles, Civil court records, worker's compensation, credit history.
Amazon.com to offer photo service with Shutterfly Reuters (Aug 22)
"Web retailer Amazon.com on Monday said it would offer online photo developing services through a partnership with leading Internet photo service Shutterfly as it targets a fast-growing market."
Will Google ever get into music? Commentary: Google Tunes, why not? by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch [requires subscription] (Aug 23) -- " For all of Google's innovation and desire to organize the world's information, it seems the search giant should find a way to manage our digital music libraries."
Downloading music and searching for music-related terms is very popular, and music services attract big audiences. Article has some figures on searches and downloads. "Music indexing seems an obvious extension of Google's content-aggregating activities. After all, music is widely searched, downloaded, listened to, and bought on the Web"
Alacra Opens E-Commerce Site for Business Professionals by Paula J. Hane, Newsbreaks (Aug 22)
New (in beta) - " Alacra Store (http://www.alacrastore.com), an e-commerce Web site that taps into 30 of Alacra’s premium content databases to provide pay-per-view access to a wide range of content from top business publishers, including CreditSights, Datamonitor, D&B, EIU, Freedonia, Leadership Directories, Snapdata International, and Thomson Financial. Available content includes company profiles and financials, credit research, economic data, market and investment research, and news."
Reports on how this service is being received by searchers and information professionals.
Portal race goes local and global by Spencer Kelly, BBC Click ONline (Aug 19)
"In the second of Click Online's series looking at competition among the big portals and search engines, Spencer Kelly reports on how the battleground is going global, in more senses than one." -- lots on satellite images, maps and the competition in the local search sphere.
Friday Book Excerpt: More on Perfect Search by John Battelle's SearchBlog (Aug 19) - preview of final chapter of book about search - Search Everywhere.
ComScore: Google, Yahoo! Still Dominate Search; MSN Gains Ground
by Gavin O'Malley, MediaPosts (Aug 22)
comShare stats for July show that Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask Jeeves, and InfoSpace are "tightening their hold" on the market. While the search market grew in the US with 22 percent more searches, "The pack's share of total searches increased from 98.5 percent in July 2004 to 99.4 percent by July 2005, according to comScore's monthly qSearch analysis. "
+ Google 36.5
+ Yahoo 30.5
+ MSN 15.5
Google Maps and Virtual Earth, Mashed and Flashed ResearchBuzz (Aug 11) -- "Flash Earth ( http://www.flashearth.com ) takes information from Google Maps and MSN's Virtual Earth, and mooshes them together in one flash- based interface."
E-Gang - Eight Masters Of Information Edited By Elizabeth Corcoran, Forbes (Aug 18) - This seventh E-Gang review by Forbes presents "the Masters of Information--those entrepreneurs and companies figuring out how to separate the gold from the gravel on the Web."
+ Barry Diller, IAC/InterActiveCorp which now owns Ask Jeeves.
+ Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield - created Flickr for sharing photos
+ Jeffery Jonas - IBM Entity Analytics
+ Ellen Siminoff - Efficient Frontier for picking keywords for online ads.
+ Peter Norvig - Google's director of search quality
+ Jimmy Wales - father of Wikipedia. It has 2.2 million articles in 100 languages.
Entry about Peter Norvig mentions clustering - "Now Google's statisticians develop algorithms that look at how closely one query links to another and how groups of queries interact. Studying word "clusters"helps determine whether a search term like "Blondie" means the comic strip or the punk-pop band from the 1980s. Norvig's crew also aims to accelerate results by learning which irrelevant words (like "like") to discard when indexing a Web page."
Google Updates Desktop Search - New feature called Sidebar gives users access to e-mail, news, and more - Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (Aug 22)
Google Desktop 2.0 is in beta. New features are:
+ "Sidebar that gives users access to e-mail, news, weather, photos, stocks, and syndicated Web site feeds"
+ Quick Find
+ toolbar for users of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail client
+ searches more files.
Also Google tool watches as you work, BBC News (Aug 22) - "Google's desktop search software is being overhauled to become a digital helper that reacts to what users do."
Of interest: "In its latest audience figures, ComScore reveals that in July 2005 11% of all US searches were carried out via toolbars and 51% of all those queries were launched from users of Yahoo's toolbar.
But Google still rules when it comes to searching via browser. ComScore found that 36.5% of all US searches were conducted via Google in July 2005. Yahoo had a 30.5% share and MSN a 15.5% slice. "
Also Google bypasses browser to search PC drives, Web Reuters via Yahoo News (Aug 22) offers additional analysis --
"Google is moving beyond "Coke Classic" - the basic experience of searching the Web through the browser for which it is known. In ways not always apparent to the user, Google is seeking to control more of a users' computer experience, the way Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online do."
But this is a competitive field. AOL just introduced new AOL Instant Messenger that "mphasizes e-mail, radio, Internet phone-calling, text messaging with mobile phone users, even Web-based TV." Yahoo also has a "sidebar" "which manages music, photos and instant messenger conversations alongside whatever Web page Yahoo users are viewing. "
Users may have a difficult time choosing from among these, and multiple tools may clash with each other.
Lastly, Google Enhances Desktop Search by Gary Price, SearchDay (Aug 22) - very full description of how to install and what you can expect to see.
Google Desktop 2.0 is available from http://desktop.google.com/. Requires Windows 2000 or XP.
Reading (and Writing) Blogs - Tips for tyros and old pros; plus Bass's upcoming blog - Steve Bass, PCWorld (Aug 17) - has articles, tools and examples of weblogs and RSS.
The World on Your Desktop "Google Earth, MSN Virtual Earth combine satellite images with local search information". Dennis O'Reilly, PC World (Sept 2005) Found Google Earth to be flat-out fun".
Refers to First Impressions: Google's Amazing Earth Posted by Harry McCracken, PCWorld (June 27)
Google Registers "Movie" Related Domains SEW Blog (Aug 16) Gary Price noticed that Google registered domains for movie reviews and showtime. Will Google and Yahoo have more movie ticket purchase options on the showtime results pages? Is Google going to have a movie information site? See Gary's other questions.
On-line swapmeet makes waves on the Net by Amy Carmichael, Canadian Press via Globe and Mail (Aug 21)
"The on-line swapmeet phenomenon craigslist.org is exploding into the hottest space to rant, job shop, house hunt and meet people."
Popularity of the Craigslist as a place to put up classified ads is spreading in Canada. People love it because postings are free, there are no cookies, email addresses are not sold to others, and spammers are controlled. Sites are self-policed to remove offensive ads.
"Postings on the Vancouver page are up 500 per cent over last year from 4,500 to 28,000, making it the busiest craigslist site outside of the U.S."
Montrealers are using it too and there will soon be a French-language version.
Blog Search Engine Threatens Ban of Blogger Blogs by Lisa Vaas, eWeek.com (Aug 17)
"Mark Cuban—self-dubbed "blog maverick" and owner of both the Weblog search engine IceRocket and the Dallas Mavericks—has warned that those who use Google's free Blogger service under the Blogspot domain may soon be kicked out of IceRocket's search engine due to the insufferable amounts of blog spam the free service produces."
Insufferable is the right word. Another word is splog - spam added to comments on blogs. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are working on fighting splog by not indexing it, but what about Google (who owns) Blogger doing something to stop it from being posted?
Google Has Your Data: Should You Be Afraid? - Part Two Jack M. Germain, NewsFactor Technology News (Aug 18)
"From Google's viewpoint, once users grant consent by using Google's services, the collected data is beyond the user's reach forever. Google states that it might store and process personal information collected on its site wherever it wants. "
Diving deep into the Web by Michael Bazeley, Mercury News (Aug 17)
At Glenbrook Networks, the Komissarchik father and daughter team are developing a search engine that will do "custom data extraction" from databases that standard search engines can't touch.
"Komissarchik and her father, Edward Komissarchik, say they have figured out how to analyze the forms on Web pages and understand the type of information the sites are looking for. Then, Glenbrook's Web crawlers use artificial intelligence to walk themselves through sometimes complex Web forms, answering questions, such as the location of their desired job, in the same way a human would."
Whither the Weather Resources for the Week at ResourceShelf (Aug 18) Can there be any subject more talked about than the weather? Shirl Kennedy has compiled this short list of national weather/meteorological service sites for countries around the world.
Google Releases Blogger for Microsoft Word By Deborah Rothberg, Microsoft Watch (Aug 18) - blogging just got a lot easier for people who use Blogger - they can publish directly from inside Microsoft Word 2000 or higher.
There have been many favourable reviews (says Microsoft).
""What makes this tool so attractive to those who like to ensure their copy is properly spelled and punctuated is the ability to push the 'Publish' button on the toolbar and see their work actually posted on their blog," opined Chris Richardson, a contributing writer for WebPro News."
Triple-X: a brief history of a dirty domain By Molly Wood, CNet - brief and troubled history. The Bush adminstration opposes approval by ICANN for the .xxx top-level domain as the designation for "adult" content, somewhat on the ground that it would make it too easy for kids to find the "red-light district". But industry and government have gone back and forth on this matter - does .xxx make it easier to find the material or easier to block it out or both? And would the suppliers and publishers even use the .xxx domain?
Google -- an innovation machine - Commentary: Institutionalizing search for creativity by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Aug 18)
Many are saying Google is overvalued, but reading Bambi Francisco's list of Google's accomplishments is impressive. A survey of 1000 executives by the Boston Consulting Group placed Google as seventh most innovative company, well ahead of other search engine / portal competitors.
"These innovations range from the practical to the peculiar. They consist of technologies that allow us to search TV content, inside books, and our messy computer desktops. Other map and satellite technologies let us search for a cab by honing in on the actual location of a taxi en route, and even our homes' blurry rooftops from up above."
The Rise Of RSS by Tom Taulli, Forbes (Aug 17) - says that RSS is mainstream now. Quotes Jim Moore, a co-founder of RSS Investors, who sees "opportunity in infrastructure products, such as those that will allow better filtering, search, scalability and security. "
Product development is still lively. Rojo Networks has launched a new RSS reader, which "goes beyond just tracking and reading RSS feeds. That is, it allows users to interact with their feeds. You can set up a list of contacts and send them articles. You can tag articles so Rojo can better determine relevant content for you. It also can measure the "buzz" in the community of its users, determining the most popular content. "
Canadian Internet Subscriptions Hit Plateau by Jack Kapica, Globe Technology (Aug 16) TNS Canadian Facts, in its annual study, found that 73% of Canadians have internet access, 64% of those have high speed. Broadband is evenly split between cable and DSL. But growth has stalled in part due to limited service to small communities and price resistance.
Study had some figures on what Canadians do on the Internet.
+ 74% read news
+ 97% e-mail
+ 82% "surfing for personal interest or general knowledge"
+ 41% comparison shop but only 34% buy.
+ 30% download music.
Summary of report is also available from this press release - Internet Penetrates More Deeply Into Canadians' Daily Lives [pdf].
Screw Size! I Dare Google & Yahoo To Report On Relevancy Danny Sullivan, Searchday (Aug 16) - Sullivan is at the end of his rope with the recent spate of "who's biggest" between the search engines - specifically Yahoo and Google. "Who's biggest really doesn't matter, as I and others have written so, so, so, so, so many times before. " It's relevancy that matters. To which I and many others would add syntax, search aids, display, placement of ads, spam and duplicate removal, freshness and much more. That Yahoo is making a big deal out of 19 billion pages - and doing so without offering proof - is evidence that Yahoo is not putting the searcher first.
SLA Western Canada Chapter's Summer issue of Wired West has several articles about sessions at the SLA 2005 Conference.
Of interest to searchers:
+ Gary Price - The Newest and the Best from One Who Knows - Arden Matheson - update on search tools
+ Researching Listed & Private Companies Globally: A Guide & Model - Jane Moxon - about a pre-conference course.
+ Mining the New Web for Information - By Christina Zeller - Mary Ellen Bates session about RSS and Weblogs and other newish things.
+ Canadian Pharmaceutical Information Sources: Find Information for a Small Market - Sandra Wong - session by Ms. Maude Lethiecq-Normand from Pfizer Canada.
Searching Quality Content with Yahoo by Mary Ellen Bates, The Virtual Chase (AUg 16) - Bates finds several advantages to the new Yahoo Search Subscription service by which you can search a portion of premium sources: select the sources (Factiva, LexisNexis and 7 others), do a free search and get the citation, option to buy the article at a reasonable price.
Google's Lead Over Yahoo! Narrows in Latest American Customer Satisfaction Index; Analysis by ACSI E-Business Sponsor ForeSee Results Says Google and Yahoo! Engaged in Dogfight at the Top, But Don't Count Out AOL, Ask Jeeves Business Wire via Marketwatch (Aug 17)
Latest report from University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report on e-business websites shows high customer satisfaction with Google and Yahoo.
+ Google again received a higher score (82) in the e-business sector and gets the lion's share of searches.
+ Yahoo moved up from 78 to 80 and is nipping at Google's heels.
+ AOL is slowly climbing - now at 71
+ MSN is lagging - 75
+ Ask Jeeves, like AOL, has been doing better - now at 72 and improving its e-business position.
Consumers Want Personalization -- and Privacy By Sean Michael Kerner, ClickZ (Aug 16) - People want more personalization but don't want to state their preferences. Choicestream, in its second annual study into this, surveyed 923 adults in the United States.
+ 80% interested in personalized content.
+ Young people are interested in recommendations for music (47%), and older (including over 50) are somewhat interested in news, books, and Web search (26%)
+ 59% were willing to provide personal preferences, down from 65% in 2004.
+ 46% were willing to provide demographic information, down from 57% in 2004.
Factiva Still Seeking the Bubble “Reputation” by Barbara Quint, Newsbreaks (Aug 15)
"The new service covers more than 11,000 active Web sites, 4 million blogs and message boards, and the full array of Factiva’s 9,000-plus full-text sources, including online media, radio, and television transcripts. The blog and open Web content come from an agreement with Intelliseek, Inc., a Cincinnati-based concern. Content passes through a reputation analysis tool, along with text mining and visualization developed at the newly formed Factiva Reputation Lab. One expert who has tracked the field for years commented that Factiva’s effort this time has a strong chance to succeed."
It doesn't come cheap - " Reputation Intelligence start at $225,000 and run to approximately $300,000."
Amazon.com Unveils Photo-Mapping Service AP via Yahoo News (Aug 16) - Amazon's A9.com has been photographing businesses in US cities and adding the photos to its yellow-pages service. See a picture of the shop and of nearby buildings. Amazon uses Mapquest for its mapping.
"A9's maps will display photos from 22 cities: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Denver, Detroit; Fargo, N.D.; Houston; Los Angeles, Miami; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento, Calif.; Salt Lake City; San Diego; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; and Washington D.C."
Rupert Murdoch seeks dysfunctional search engine by Andrew Orlowski, The Register (Aug 16) - Rupert Murdoch of Fox News is said to be looking at Blinkx and Technorati. Orlowski says it's not likely and finds problems with Blinkx for audio / video search and desktop, and with Technorati for being focussed on gimmicks.
Debating the size of the Web by John Markoff, International Herald Tribune (Aug 16) - Yahoo's announcement that it had indexed 19.1 billion documents has sparked another debate over how large the Web is. Researchers at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications ran some searches against Google and Yahoo to try to ascertain size and concluded that on average Google returned 166.9% more results than Yahoo. So what gives? In the end, no one knows - could be the way the engines count.
Google Slows Library Project to Accommodate Publishers by Barbara Quint, Newsbreaks (Aug 15) - More details about Google suspending digitization until November. Google is not conceding that it is infringing on copyright - it's just trying to rejig the agreements and negotiate some new ones.
"Over the last several months, publishers have begun opposing the Google Print for Libraries program (http://print.google.com) and grumbling litigiously about copyright issues. After consulting with the publishing community, Google has responded to the opposition. It now offers what appear to be two carrots but what may actually turn out to be one carrot with a string attached and one carrot that could become a stick."
Google Slows Library Project to Accommodate Publishers by Barbara Quint, Newsbreaks (Aug 15) - More details about Google suspending digitization until November. Google is not conceding that it is infringing on copyright - it's just trying to rejig the agreements and negotiate some new ones.
"Over the last several months, publishers have begun opposing the Google Print for Libraries program (http://print.google.com) and grumbling litigiously about copyright issues. After consulting with the publishing community, Google has responded to the opposition. It now offers what appear to be two carrots but what may actually turn out to be one carrot with a string attached and one carrot that could become a stick."
Corporate Blogging Gaining Momentum By Jeanette James, EarthWeb (Aug 2)
"Like email and instant messaging, blogging is becoming yet another conduit of corporate information and, just like its cousins, one that needs to be controlled and monitored."
Turning the concept of search on its head By Michelle Johnson, Boston.com (July 25)
"Watson, software produced by Chicago-based Intellext, does the searching for you. It runs in the background as you work, analyzing your documents and looking for relevant information. The results (clickable links) are continuously delivered in a side panel on your screen. Watson goes to work when you open a Microsoft Office application such as Word or PowerPoint, or the Internet Explorer browser."
Search engine race gets personal by Spencer Kelly, BBC News (Aug 12) - Yahoo widgets, personal pages, personal search, video, email - many features to attach us to one portal. Which shall it be?
"When you fire up your browser, do you go straight to a search engine, like Google, or do you go to a portal, like Yahoo or MSN? Spencer Kelly finds the battle for the number one spot is playing into our hands."
Google Map tinkerers go in many directions by Jeffrey Kelley, TimesDespatch.com (Aug 14) - it's absolutely amazing what people are doing with Google Maps.
The Toronto SLA Courier newsletter for Summer 2005 has several articles about the SLA 2005 conference in Toronto.
Of particular interest:
Swing Dances and Smarties: Volunteer Adventures at the SLA Toronto Hospitality Booth by Greg Barber
The Future of Search: Observations from SLA 2005 Conference by Gwen Harris
Session: Mining the New Web for Information: RSS feeds, blogs, social networks and more by Daniel Lee - report on Mary Ellen Bates' presentation.
SLA 2005 - Conference Presentations & Handouts Available on the Web by Stephanie Hilson
A Conversation with OurMedia Co-Founder, J.D. Lasica by Christina Pika, ResourceShelf (July 28, 2005) - Journalist J.D. Lasica has ambitious plans for OurMedia, a project to provide free storage space to anyone for personal-media publishing.
"In March 2005 we launched Ourmedia.org, hewing to that vision of free storage. Some 20,000 people signed up to become members in the first two months. We're a nonprofit educational community with the goal of helping to enable the grassroots media movement, which is now in full bloom. Members have published thousands of truly astonishing works -- home videos, podcasts, student films, independent movies and more."
Librarians' Internet Index is being redesigned - "websites you can trust". Take a peak at http://lii2.wested.org/cs/lii/print/htdocs/home.htm
Péter's Digital Reference Shelf - August features Journal Citation Reports - for finding influential journals by subject category, and London Review of Books - in depth reviews of books for $42 / year.
Net threat rising Consumer Reports (Sept 2005)
"Use the Internet at home and you have a 1-in-3 chance of suffering computer damage, financial loss, or both because of a computer virus or spyware that sneaks onto your computer. That’s one of the unsettling conclusions from our 2005 Consumer Reports State of the Net survey of online consumers."
Don't be scared off, but according to ConsumerReports.org the Internet is much more hazardous for surfers than it was even 5 years ago. Report offers "good online practices" and a list of recommended software for antivirus, antispyware, and antispam.
Chris Sherman's New Book, Google Power, is Now Available by Gary Price, SEW Blog (Jul 21) - comments from Gary Price about his colleague's new book - Google Power.
Top five engines attract nearly all search traffic by Antony Savvas. COmputer Weekly (Jul 21)
From Comscore Networks for second quarter, 2005:
- Google 37%
- Ask Jeeves 6.1% up from 3.1%
- AOL 9.2% down from 12.9%
- Yahoo and MSN 30.4% each.
Multimedia search sorts messy web by Jo Twist, BBC News (July 22)
"Finding video and audio on the net is getting easier as more companies look to automated ways of delivering specific content to people's computers."
Blinkx is way ahead in multimedia search compared to Google and Yahoo because it uses "smart voice recognition technology to scan video and audio it finds on the web:.
Thinking Outside the Search Box by Mary Ellen Bates, SearchDay (Jul 27) - Super sleuth Mary Ellen Bates worked through a search on trends in the UK market for Internet phones using many different Web resources.
Google Delays Book Scanning Copyright Concerns Slow Project, By Yuki Noguchi, Washington Post (Aug 13)
"... Google postponed further scanning of copyrighted books from libraries at Harvard University, the University of Michigan and Stanford University until November. Until then, copyright holders can opt out of the scanning by contacting Google directly, the company said."
Also Google Print put on pause by Andrew Orlowski, The Register - describes the disputants and the issues. Concludes - "So as we've seen with digital music, this is a compensation issue, rather a copyright issue. The most convincing way Google can demonstrate good faith is to share the revenue. "
OCLC and Amazon: A Connection Revealed by Chuck Hamaker, Newsbreaks (Aug 9)
Amazon appears to be getting information from OCLC, the cataloging and bibliographic service.
"... OCLC content provides a depth that was missing from what is becoming the world’s premier publicly available book database. When comparing records in the Amazon and OCLC WorldCat databases in narrow subject areas, it appears the records OCLC provided to Amazon cover older book titles (19th and early-to-mid 20th century English-language titles were readily identifiable). "
MyJeeves 1.2 Released, SEW Blog (Jul 29) MyJeeves has enhanced its personal information management tool in version 1.2 to add a tagging function (which rustybrick says isn't as good as MyYahoo's) and to support uploads of personal photos.
Endeca Announces New Search and Analysis Solutions EContent (Aug 12)
"Endeca, a provider of Guided Navigation, Search, and Analysis solutions, has announced the availability of new Government Search and Analysis Solutions. Built on Endeca's search and Guided Navigation platform, the solutions are designed to help government agencies deploy retrieval capabilities for public-facing Web sites and internal information management applications."
Search-Stravaganza Rebecca Lieb, Clickz (August 12, 2005) - reports on "break-all-records, mother of all Search Engine Strategies (SES) conferences" - mainly about verticals "dancing with verticals.
"Local, meet Maps. Maps, meet Shopping. B2B, meet People. Vertical search's different disciplines seem eager to take a few tentative steps out of their cocoons to meet their neighbors. Though the verticals were never intentionally siloed, there seems to be a lot more thought directed at how they can be interlaced"
Yahoo! Local Trumps Google in Local Search By Sean Michael Kerner, Clickz ( August 12, 2005 )
People are flocking to Yahoo Local for local search (at least in the US) but Google climbs in overall search.
"Yahoo! local (local.yahoo.com) drew 4.4 times the number of visitors as Google Local (local.google.com) in July 2005, according to a new report from Hitwise."
"Overall, Google continues to dominate all the major search engines with a 59.2 percent share of all searches in July 2005. That's a 14 percent increase over July 2004. Yahoo! Search came in second at 28.8 percent, and MSN Search placed third with a 5.5 percent share. Google, Yahoo! Search, and MSN Search represented a combined 93.5 percent of all U.S. Internet searches in July 2005."
Doing a Vertical Search By Susan Kuchinskas, Internet News (Aug 9) - as search engines index more of the web (Yahoo at 19 billion), there is also a move to speciality or vertical search engines. Article mentions the Looksmart suite for education, and KnowIt for business and technology people.
Web Increasingly Cluttered By Sites Full of Paid Links By Leslie Walker, Washington Post (Aug 11) - my sentiments exactly - "Everywhere I turn online these days I stumble over junky sites that do little more than clutter up the search results at Google and Yahoo." She's talking about the link directories that turn up as paid listings and even more annoyingly as "organic".
Another development is to write for the Web to attract the search engines and hence the advertising. This is what happens at ArticleInsider.com run by InfoSearch Media Inc. "The articles were written under contract by more than 200 writers and were commissioned specifically to get listed in search engines, according to chief executive Steve Lazuka."
But the shocker is "content scraping" -- "software programs that grab snippets of text from a variety of different Web sites and reassemble them into sentences on particular topics to help flesh out garbage Web sites."
Why Yahoo Bought Konfabulator by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Aug 10) -Get ready for widgets from Knofabulator that will do dozens of useful little things for lookups, news feeds, system utilities and much more. See the catalog at the Konfabulator Widget Gallery. There are widgets for PC and Macs.
"Trends in business information, provision and use"By Pam Foster, Freepint (August 11) - reports on trends in business information that have been drawn from the VIP publications. On the one hand, information companies are giving away some content, and on the other, search engines (Yahoo specifically) are providing ways to search for premium content. There has been lots of attention to Asia. Meantime the European online market is slowing down. Lots in this article.
Search Engine Watch is producing a daily podcast on search news at The Daily SearchCast. Get instructions there on subscribing, hearing it "live" at 11:30 am EDT, or listening to archives at WebmasterRadio.FM. Good digest that is a bit chatty -- one more thing to fit into the day. WebmasterRadio.FM works best through Internet Explorer.
Google Maps and the travel sector Pandia Search Engine News (Aug 6) - interesting posting that refers to Eye for Travel, a travel distribution letter, and the popularity of Google Maps. There is a competitor in MultiMap that has been losing market share to Google.
Google Maps has a new hybrid view that overlays the map data over the aerial views. New "Hybrid View" From Google Maps SEW Blog (July 23)
And you can View Google Maps & MSN Virtual Earth Side-By-Side at SEW Blog (Jul 29) at http://www.jonasson.org/maps/
Youthful surfers make waves among Canada's advertisers by Scott Deveau, Globe Technology (Aug 9)
"Canadian youth are now spending more time surfing the Internet than vegging in front of the TV, an Ipsos-Reid poll released Tuesday says."
+ On average, Canadians are using the Internet 12.7 hours a week -- 46-per-cent increase since 2002.
+ "television retains the No. 1 overall position for media consumption among all age groups at 14.3 hours a week." But, "The gap between hours spent in front of the television as opposed to the Internet has dropped to 1.6 hours from 4.5 hours a week only three years ago."
+ "no particular news Web site has emerged as a national leader".
Microsoft Launches MSN Virtual Earth by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Jul 25)
"Microsoft has released a beta version of Virtual Earth, a web-based application that combines local search with maps and aerial photography."
MSN Virtual Earth is at http://virtualearth.msn.com/. It seems aimed at helping people do local search in the United States - finding places and businesses and having the choice of a flat road map or an aerial view. You can zoom in and out of US locations but the controls are clutsy. It's very poor for other parts of the world, allowing some roaming but no detail.
Wendy Boswell is the new guide for websearch.about.com. She has prepared an A to Z list of search engines and directories.
State of the Blogosphere, August 2005, Part 3: Tags Dave Sifry on August 04, 2005. Tags: Blogosphere - explains tagging of blogs as seen at Technorati. Almost a third of postings carry tags or categories. Author doesn't comment on quality.
Google Adds RSS Feeds EContent (Aug 9)
"Google has added a new feature to Google News that enables users to receive Google News results as RSS or Atom feeds in their feed reader of choice. "
Recaps the four ways users can get Google News feeds.
More information at Google News - About Feeds.
Google still ahead in the search engine race Pandia (July 20)
" ECommerce Times reports that Google's market share for search is increasing. In the second quarter of 2005 Google's US market share was 37.6 percent of all US search queries, compared to 35.9 percent in the first quarter. This equals some 5.65 billion queries."
Marketers Curious About Jeeves' New Bag by Kevin Newcomb, Clickz (Aug 2) - Ask Jeeves is offering a new auction-based paid-search program.
"The ads will appear on search results pages on the Ask Jeeves site, as well as on its syndication network. That network includes several properties owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, which completed its acquisition of Ask Jeeves last month."
In Search of Intelligent Search by Michael P. Voelker, Intelligent Enterprise (Aug)
"Frustrated searchers, take heart: Consolidation is the trend in search, and it's beginning to help organizations achieve cohesive information intelligence. This trend is illustrated by two main developments. First, the data query and content search worlds are converging to give businesses a single point of access to structured, semi-structured and unstructured information. And second, organizations are attempting to resolve the "search-engine glut" problem either by consolidating results through federated access to existing search applications or by providing a single search solution across the enterprise."
Q and A With New Shopping Search Engine Become.com, Part 1 by Shari Thurow, Clickz (Aug 1)
Thurow is a shopper and likes Become.com. "It makes online shopping easier by separating researchers from buyers. Senior Director for Product Search Jon Glick, formerly senior manager of Web search at Yahoo!, talks about Become.com in a two-part interview."
Jon Glick explains how Become.com is different -- "JG: Unlike other comparison-shopping sites, Become.com provides users with a fully integrated research and shopping experience. We help people conduct Web research to help determine the right products for their needs. We then let them easily move between looking at Web resources like buying guides and expert reviews, and traditional comparison shopping."
Yahoo's Flickr Adds New Features SEW Blog (Aug 8) - Flickr now shows the most popular photos and can cluster them on a search by the terms (tags).
I tried a search on Ontario . Clusters were appropriate: canada, toronto, kingston, hamilton, lakeontario - but oh my the pictures are mixed up. A stencil of Bill Murray tagged with the term Toronto? It came from toronto graffiti. There was also a beautiful photo of Malinge Lake in the Rockies tagged as Toronto.
Microsoft execs reunite to save AOL by Andrew Orlowski, The Register (Aug 9)
AOL is trying several things to halt the continuing loss of subscribers including wireless and mobile networks - or so it is rumoured.
Yahoo Expands Its Search Engine Index by Michael Liedtke, AP via Yahoo News (Aug 8)
"Yahoo said its index, boosted by a recent upgrade, covers 20.5 billion online "objects," comprised of about 19 billion documents and 1.5 billion images."
"By comparison, Google said it tracks 11.3 billion objects. That figure consists of the nearly 8.2 billion Web pages that Google proudly touts on its home page and 2.1 billion images, with the remainder of material coming from its group discussions."
See comments by Gary Price at SEW Blog - Yahoo Announces Total Size Count -- reminds people to use advanced search features to improve precision of queries.
RSS Search & Add Option Now Available For Google Personalized Home Page Gary Price at SearchDay (July 26) - had to fiddle with Google's Personalized service to make it work with RSS.
Thinking Outside the Search Box by Mary Ellen Bates, SearchDay (July 27) - uses a variety of search approaches and tools to find informatin on VOIP. Good example of a search task.
The college library of tomorrow by Stephanie Olsen, CNet (Aug 3)
"Last December, Google started on a wildly ambitious and somewhat controversial plan to digitize the collections of some of the world's largest university and public libraries in an effort to make hard-to-find books accessible by the click of a mouse."
The 1911 Canadian Census Online Research Buzz
If you want to use the 1911 Census you'll need to know the geographic area. It's not searchable by the person's name. These are images of the pages. The handwriting is very difficult to read. Shows surname and given names in a family, month of birth, country of birth, racial or tribal orgin (many Irish and Scotch), religion, employment, insurance held, education and language. There can be more than one set of pages per town. There is a very serious danger of spending too much time looking for names.
Forbes Directory has a Website review for Yahoo 360 - Yahoo's Weblog space.
"Yahoo finally opened Yahoo 360 up to the public in June 2005. Unlike Google's standalone Blogger, Yahoo 360 integrates blogging with social networking, so that you can find blogs written by friends of friends, or even their friends, as well as sharing photos and profile information. You can also make your blog (which will be located at 360.yahoo.com/YOURUSERNAME if you activate the "simple URL") readable only by friends of friends, hiding it from the general public."
Real-Time Transportation Finders by Gary Price, SearchDay (Aug 8) - Mainly features NextBus.com as a way to find out when the next bus will arrive in some states in the US. NextBus has real-time maps.
But there is also MyBus.org for King County / Seattle, Washington and also Trimet for Portland, Oregon.
"Local Search, The Search Engines and Yellow Pages" By Duncan Parry in Freepint ( July 28)
"In this article I'll outline some of the local search tools available today, some of the advertising opportunities and speculate on future developments." Describes activities at Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves along with Yellow Pages in the US and UK.
Search Engine Results Continuing to Diverge by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Aug 2)
Another study by Dogpile of overlap of search engine results shows that there is very low overlap on the first page (first 10 results). At the lowest, Google had 66% of unique results, and Ask Jeeves, 73.9%.
"The implications of these findings are significant for both searchers and marketers. Searchers relying on a single search engine are missing a vast swath of web content that they could easily find simply by trying their queries on other engines. And marketers targeting a single search engine in their optimization efforts are effectively abandoning a potentially huge amount of traffic from other sources"
Jupitermedia is selling Search Engine Strategies shows and and Clickz.com network of sites that includes Search Engine Watch to Incisive Media plc (INM.L), based in the UK.
Search Engine Watch, SES Shows Sold By Jupitermedia SEW Blog (Aug 2)
Jupitermedia Press Release -Aug 2, 2005
Searching More of the Opaque We Mary Ellen Bates (July 2005) on Yahoo's recently announced search service for for-fee materials - Yahoo Search Subscription. She warns that Yahoo's service is limited compared to having a full subscription to the particular service, such as Factiva, LexisNexis and others.
How to View 26,000 Operas at Once by Anthony Tommassini, New York Times (July 31) - Metropolitan Opera makes its database about operas at the Met available for free. Go to metopera.org, select Met History from the toolbar and click on Launch Database.
From the Metropolitan Opera: "Search through this up-to-date chronicle of every Metropolitan Opera performance since 1883 for complete information on all performers, operas and ballets at the Met. The Database also includes photos, designs, reviews, statistics, and chapters on great events in Met history."
Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool? By Susannah Gardner, Poynter Online (July 14)
"Blogs are one of the hottest publishing tools around, but picking blog software can be confusing and frustrating. Use this primer to get a feel for what's available and what will work best for you." - Covers the jargon and the tools. Also has comments from readers.
Mix RSS Feeds, Put Them on Your Site ResearchBuzz (Aug 3) Use FeedDigest to create a mixed RSS feed for your site.
Web Search Hits The Streets by Wendy Widman, Forbes (Aug 3)
"Mobile search is poised to become the next big offshoot of the profitable pool of Internet search. The numbers are there: The U.S. has 180 million cell phone users compared to 125 million PCs. The only hitch is that U.S. cell phone users are still relatively uncomfortable with using their phone for anything but making calls, largely because the phone's small screens make searching the Web difficult, at least compared with big handhelds such as the Palm Treo and Research in Motion's (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people )BlackBerry. "
Has tips for SMS - short messaging service.
References an article - Find A Hotspot From Your Cell Phone by Fahmida Y. Rashid (July 21)
Online Travel: Smarter Search Options "Travel sites can help you snag a great deal. Just don't get taken for a ride." by Anne Kandra, PC WOrld (Aug 2005) - recommends starting with the big three - Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity because they are good a delivering targeted results.
Free Tool Makes You Anonymous on the Web "Tor, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, uses "onion routers" to remove the IP address from outbound data packet headers." By Andrew Brandt, PC World (Aug)
"... a free tool named Tor from Electronic Frontier Foundation can close this privacy loophole. Tor--a World Class Award winner last month, and available at tor.eff.org--strips the identifying IP address from the headers of each data packet that leaves your computer, by bouncing the packet through a special network of computers called "onion routers.""
Yahoo! Search Debuts Audio Search, the Largest Audio Index on the Web Today; Offers Users the Most Extensive and Open Audio Index on the Web With More Than 50 Million Audio Files Including Music Downloads, Podcasts, Spoken Word and More, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Aug 4)
"Yahoo! Audio Search provides access to a variety of audio files including podcasts, music downloads, albums and spoken word such as newscasts, speeches, and interviews, as well as other audio related information including music videos, album reviews, artist images and artists websites. Yahoo! Audio Search is currently available through Yahoo! Next at http://next.yahoo.com as well as http://audio.search.yahoo.com."
Also see review at SEW Blog - Yahoo Releases Audio Search Engine by Gary Price (Aug 4) -- was impressed but hopes for improvements.
Who's Using RSS By Sean Michael Kerner, Clickz ( August 2, 2005 )
"Only two percent of adults in North America say they use RSS (define). That's compared with five percent of teens and young adults aged 12 to 21, according to research in a pair of new reports on marketing and RSS from Forrester Research. Forrester Research Analyst Charlene Li notes the RSS user numbers don't include users who unknowingly use RSS, such as via a portal like My Yahoo! for example."
Google now a hacker's tool - "Google's massive database contains information that wasn't intended to lie unexposed on the Web, and hackers are using it as a resource for intrusion" By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service (Aug 2)
"Combining well-structured Google queries with text processing tools can yield things like SQL (Structured Query Language) passwords and even SQL error information. This could then be used to structure what is known as a SQL injection attack, which can be used to run unauthorized commands on a SQL database. "This is where it becomes Google hacking," he said. "You can do a SQL injection, or you can do a Google query and find the same thing.""
MSN Search Is the Newest Dog in the Pile in Microsoft Watch (Aug 2) - Infospace added MSN Search to its set of search engines at metasearcher Dogpile.
"Displaying search results from Google, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and MSN Search, alongside each other, Dogpile also shows "best of all search engines" results that are a mixture of all 12 of the search engines with which Infospace contracts. Others include About.com, FindWhat and LookSmart.
"The big four search engines cover 98% of the indexed web," said Bowman, and were therefore their first priorities for inclusion. "After that, it starts to get vertical so we look at what's relevant to our consumer network.""
Copernic Desktop Search Version 1.6 Officially Released; Searches Emails, Files, Music, Pictures, and Videos Directly From IE and Firefox Browsers Business Wire via Marketwatch (Aug 4)
"Copernic announced today the official launch of its new and improved desktop search product, Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) version 1.6. This production release, launched after five weeks of extensive beta testing, contains important enhancements to the company's flagship product."
"CDS 1.6 works with Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP and Internet Explorer 5.0 or later. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/. More information about what's new in CDS is available on the product Web site."
Factiva Launches Most Sophisticated Reputation Intelligence Tool Available Empowers Executives to Discover Opportunities and Threats from Blogs, Message Boards, Online Media, Radio and Television Transcripts and Mainstream Media - PRNewswire
"Reputation Intelligence, a powerful new tool that for the first time empowers executives to monitor known issues and discover emerging opportunities and threats from across the mainstream media, radio and television transcripts and consumer-generated content, including blogs and message boards, in one solution. It also enables executives to create effective reputation and brand management strategies that tie to business objectives and drive competitive advantage."
AOL Offers Personalized Home Page, RSS Feeds by Chris Sherman, SEW (July 28)
AOL has gone personal with a My AOL Portal that includes adding RSS feeds.
"In launching the My AOL portal, AOL has taken another step toward demolishing the "walled garden" of content the service has been known for. Over the past year, AOL has completely overhauled its web search capabilities, rolled out specialized local, shopping and travel search engines."
Sympatico to raise on-line speeds by Jack Kapica, Globe Technology (Aug 4) - Subscribers to Sympatico's Ultra service in Ontario and Quebec will see increased line speeds.
"Under the plan, residential speeds will increase from 4 megabits per second to 5 mbps, and business or dedicated services will go from 4 mbps to 6 mbps."
Informed Librarian Online Launches ILOSearch EContent (Aug 5)
"The Informed Librarian Online has announced the launch of ILOSearch, a new database index of articles from library periodicals designed to help library professionals keep up with their professional reading. The index now contains 36,600+ documents dating back to January 2003, from over 300 different library journals, newsletters, magazines and Web zines. The indexing is current through the last day of the previous month. Searches can be limited to an individual title, a particular subject collection of journals, or a date range."
Majority of Users Get to Web sites Via Search, Survey Says EContent (Aug 5)
"A recent BURST! Media survey of 13,000 Web users, 14 years and older, finds that most of them navigate to the Web sites they visit through search engines. More than half (56.2%) of respondents said that when at home they use search engines to get to Web destinations. Other ways respondents use to get to Web sites include typing in the site's URL/bookmarks (28.0%), and links from other sites/advertisements (16.1%)."
Search engines are certainly a very easy way to find a well known site and will be a very fast method when you know the exact name. Saved searches through the personal versions of Yahoo and Google may help in relocating urls. Both reduce the need to keep extensive and unwieldly bookmark lists.
NewsGator Introduces NewsGator Enterprise Server EContent (Aug 5) -- "NewsGator Enterprise Server is a new product for aggregating and reading RSS content within the enterprise. "
Diversity Among Photo Sites Is in the Frills By Sacha Cohen, The Washington Post, Sunday, August 7, 2005 --- there are many net services for sharing photos but how do you chose?
"But among five of the most popular photo-sharing sites -- Kodak EasyShare Gallery ( http://www.kodakgallery.com/ ), Shutterfly ( http://www.shutterfly.com/ ), Snapfish ( http://www.snapfish.com/ ), Webshots ( http://www.webshots.com/ ) and Yahoo Photos ( http://photos.yahoo.com/ ) -- a few key differences emerge in such areas as their prices, how you can upload photos and what sort of photo-based gifts you can create."
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