Internet News

Special Report on Social Networks

Big Brother Is Reading Your Blog, by Olga Kharif, Business Week Online (Feb 28)

"These days, social networkers are concerned about protecting their privacy, not only from predators and scam artists, but from nosy employers and campus authorities."

Niche Networking by the Numbers -- "Cyberspace is full of community sites to help you plan a trip, get a job, or make a friend. Here's a rundown", By Alex Halperin

Social Networks: More Bubble Than Profit? -- "Sites like MySpace and Tagged generate millions of visits by users, some fanatical. But that does not a business model make".

More on Ask

The news centers are still abuzz about Ask.

Marketwatch has a video of an interview with CEO Steve Berkowicz in which he explains why Jeeves Gets the Boot - the reasons for rebranding, the number of tools Ask now offers that go beyond search, and its success in 2005 to improve marketshare.

Leslie Walker of the Washington Post in Jeeves, You're Fired - Humanized Search Now as Passe as the Butler Himself (Feb 28) grieves for Jeeves and remembers the time when " searching online still intimidated most people." Barry Diller , CEO of IAC/Interactive Corp, gave some indication of the future for Ask at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York.

+ Ask is building its own search advertising technology.
+ Will be introducing "Ask Pass" loyalty program this year - "to reward frequent searchers on Ask.com with discounts and special benefits at scores of other Web properties owned by IAC or its partners. Those include LendingTree, CitySearch, Ticketmaster, Match.com, RealEstate.com, Evite and Expedia."

EFF Warns About Using Google Desktop

EFF: Don't Use Google Desktop, By Ryan Naraine, eWeek (Feb 10) -- EFF's argument for not using the new feature through Google Desktop of sharing files across computers.

CompWisdom for computing topics

Rapid Intelligence, the creator of the excellent NationMaster for statistics, has launched a new topic-based search engine, CompWisdom. (Feb 22)

From the press release: "CompWisdom provides useful and meaningful results, which are relevant to the topic of computing, programming and the Internet. Its advanced search technology categorizes pages from the World Wide Web and saves them to a growing database of websites. Every result that one can see at Compwisdom is a clean summary which is readable from beginning to end."

Although the topical specialty is computing, quality of results on general searches such as "lady jane franklin" or canadian confederation is quite good. It's nice to read complete sentences and be better able to judge the relevance of a result. But the results set is very small - under 50. This would not be sufficient for some searches. Syntax is limited to quotation marks to mark a phrase.

This new search engine is promising - worth a try on a first search especially if your topic concerns computing, programming or the Internet.

Silobreaker for global news

Silobreaker Launches Current Awareness Service, Newsbreaks (Feb 27)

" Silobreaker (http://www.silobreaker.com), a current awareness service focused on the understanding and analysis of global instabilities, announced its formal launch into the U.S. marketplace following its introduction into the European market last year." It uses 10,000 sources, extracts meaning and clusters results, and provides many methods for drilling into the information.

Blogs can reduce overload

Information Overload: Blogs As Content Navigators, Information Filters, Trusted Niche Guides, by Robin Good (Feb 10) -- Good begins by reviewing the literature about overload, starting with Neil Postman's view that the telegraph was the beginning of bombardment by information. Essentially we are overwhelmed on all fronts. Good suggests that we can reduce overload by using others who are "navigators of information", specifically bloggers.

"They [blogs] cannot compete with the reach of major websites but they can add richness and cater to a micro audiences with narrowly defined needs and who have highly specific interests."

Fortuitously for me, Good gives the iPodLounge (http://www.ilounge.com/) as an example of a specialty source of information that cuts noise and load to something more manageable and useful.

No one who has ever searched Technorati would think that blogs reduce information overload, but people who have found two or three good blogs in their subject area will appreciate the point.

The New Ask.com Is Ready

It's official - Jeeves has left the building. Ask.com has a crisp new front page of a clean box and a list of search tools in a toolbox on the right. You can re-arrange these to suit personal preferences or add and remove from a list of 20 tools. Among these tools is MyStuff, the very useful online bookmarking tool previously called MyJeeves.

Maps have been greatly enhanced. There are three views: street, aerial, and mixed. Landmarks such as parks and buildings are shown on the street and mixed views. There are directions for driving and walking, and the results can be bookmarked, linked to or emailed. You can easily create an itinerary of up to 10 locations. Most remarkable feature is the Play Button that starts a visual display of the directions, turn by turn. Amazingly, this works for Canadian cities and towns as well as American. Link to this map of the University of Toronto. However, Ask.com can't recognized Canadian postal codes.

However the Local search is strictly for businesses in the US.

Ask.com claims to have "the fewest ads of any major search destination on the first screen of results. " These are very well marked at the top and bottom of the page. If there are "editorial" results from the encyclopedia or smart answers, they will show above the sponsored listings.

The encyclopedia search mainly uses Wikipedia, although the press release said Houghton Mifflin and Columbia are also sources.

There is an Ask.com Desktop Search which can be used through a desktop application or a browser. It works with Windows 2000 or XP, and will index images, music, video, pdf, zip, Microsoft Works 2000 and above, and Outlook email.

The end result is a much more attractive search engine that could easily become a favourite, even for Canadians.

Ask does a Google - Question: 'Where's Jeeves?' By Elinor Mills, Silicon.com (Feb 27)

Ask Looses Jeeves, Gains New Features, by Chris Sherman, Searchday (Feb 27) - Sherman was impressed with the changes.

Ask.com has more information and some videos at The News Market - http://www.thenewsmarket.com/ask

Podcasts and Public Broadcasting

Public radio uneasy with podcasting, By Frank Barnako, MarketWatch (Feb 24) - Local stations of NPR in the United States are worried that the NPR Podcast Directory will make it too easy for listeners to pick up programs directly, bypassing the local station.

This an other aspects of Internet broadcasting are being discussed at the 2006 Public Broadcasting New Media Conference in Seattle.

Finding Music

Resource-of-the-Week at Resourceshelf featured web resources for the music fan. (Feb 16)

Internet Archive Bookmarks

View the bookmarks other people have made for the Internet Archives' music, movie and book collections.

Historic Film on the Web

Places where you can find historic film and video content are described in a posting at the ResourceShelf (Feb 24). It opens with the announcement that Google will be digitizing historic film from the US National Archives and making it available through Google Video.

The Google Cookie

How Much Does Google Know About You? "If you think your search keywords are private, think again." by Andrew Brandt, PC World (Feb 21) -- Google sets a cookie on the computers of its users that doesn't expire until 2038. It doesn't know your name but it does have the IP address. This is the information the U.S. government wanted from Google.

Article links to another PC World article on cleaning your machine -- Take Charge of What Web Sites Know About You (Feb 17)

Google Blogs

Google Launched Google Research Blog, SEW Blog (Feb 22)

"Philipp Lenssen located a new Google Blog, at googleresearch.blogspot.com , which will be a blog written by some of the smartest people at Google." Apparently Google has over 100 blogs.

Changes at Lycos

Lycos Looking Forward, an Interview with COO Brian Kalinowski By Jim Hedger, Search Engine Guide - February 16, 2006

Contrary to speculation, "Lycos is not getting out of search, exactly, it is simply changing the way it approaches the search engine marketplace as consumer use of search engines evolves."

"The firm’s focus is shifting towards “… consumer created and specialty niche content”. ... “Web2.0 search is the primary vehicle for navigation and discovery. Lycos is not the general purpose [search] destination of choice but it will always offer competitive commercial search and specialty search for niche content.”"

Of interest: Lycos.com uses results from Ask.com; Lycos.ca uses Google.

"The area Kalinowski identified as Lycos’ primary target is niche content created by independent producers. Lycos wants to become a, “… destination for not only consumers but for producers and creators where they can market and promote the goods they create.” "

Changes to MSN Search

Microsoft redesigns MSN Search page The service takes a step closer to becoming Windows Live Search, By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

Microsoft is redesigning MSN Search to blend in better with "Live". In mid-year it will become "Windows Live Search". Already MSN Virtual Earth is Windows Live Local.

The new look is a "simple search bar in the middle of the page, surrounded by white space. The font and design of the words on the page and the bar are the same as what is found on http://live.com, the home of Microsoft's Windows Live beta." Search algorithms have been tweaked some as well.

This is an improvement over the blue box that somehow made entering a query and choosing an option seem intimidating. The new look also applies to Sympatico Search. Search Builder still takes a click to bring up. Frankly, this is actually Advanced Search. I'm surprised their redesign didn't rename it to something people would recognize.

Good news for Canadians is that Sympatico MSN now has a very good local search for Canada showing business listings, web results, and a zoomable MapPoint map.

Farewell to Jeeves

You can say your farewells to Jeeves at the Ask.com site where you'll see Jeeves' retirement desk. Read a bit about the search tools and vote on what Jeeves should do next. One thing you'll notice - search is not an option.

Ask Jeeves began as a question-answering service that found answers in editorially created and selected databases. At the time in 1996 it was very good. It really could answer the question - why is the sky blue? how long is the River Nile? People who were uncomfortable with engines like AltaVista felt at ease with Jeeves. Word about Jeeves spread quickly. Then it began to falter, maybe around 2001: the answers weren't as good, it got its search results through a metasearch, and sponsored listings dominated the page. Two or three years ago it changed from answering questions to delivering answers, being among the first to introduce smart answers - definitions, weather, conversions, celebrities, directions and distances. It also improved greatly after purchasing Teoma and adopting the Teoma search engine and database. The next latest improvement were in the changes made last year for zooming into related results. It seems a shame to kill a brand image. The Jeeves character still seemed appealing and somewhat comforting but maybe it doesn't play well in hard edge search.

Jeeves Retires, by Chris Sherman, Searchday (Feb 20) - An account of Jeeves' 10 years on the Internet.

New RSS Users Ignore the Orange Button

50 Million US & UK RSS Users Do Not Know They Use RSS -- How to Reach Them, in Marketing Sherpa (Feb 20) -- There could be 75 million business people using RSS in the US and the UK but only 17 to 32% know what RSS is. Seems that these people are likely ignoring the XML orange button and using MyYahoo and MyMSN buttons. For these new users - "No matter which, it's the newsiness of the content that makes RSS compelling to them, not the whiz-bang coolness of RSS itself." Article has further advice on exploiting this for marketing purposes.

Podcasting Spreading

Podcasting: Behind the Hype - Could podcasting revolutionize the music industry?, Narasu Rebbapragada, PC World (Feb 17) -- Podcasting is very much in the early adopter stage, but number of feeds are growing as are the listeners. Apple ITunes can help one find music podcasts; Podzinger is good for finding spoken word.

Article suggests that the California company, PodShow might succeed at connecting artists with podcasters independent of the commercial networks. See its directory PodCast Alley.

Some broadcasters are producing mp3 podcast files. the NPR Podcast Directory is especially recommended.

In Canada, CBC has begun producing podcasts. See the list and signup for the newsletter at http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/.

TV Ontario has podcasts of some shows such as Diplomatic Immunity.

Guide to Firstgov.gov

The Government Domain: FirstGov becomes First in Government Search By Peggy Garvin, LLRX.com (Feb 15, 2006) - Guide to searching FirstGov, the official portal for the U.S. Federal Government. FirstGov now uses the MSN Search engine and Vivisimo technology for grouping results.

Bookmark the NewsSearch Portal

The NewsSearch Portal (http://www.nieuwsbronnen.com/newssearchportal/) is an excellent all-in-one international news search page with web tools for news search, alerts, video, radio, news photos, podcasts, RSS feeds. There is also a section for desktop software for news searching. Wim Wylin in Belgium is the creator and keeper of this magnificent page. It likely went online in 2005.

CI Tools

Got Competitive Intelligence? Tips, Tools, Techniques for the Savvy Marketer by Donna Cavallini and Sabrina I. Pacifici, LLRX.com (Feb 2006). Updated guide to resources for researching companies, people and markets and for monitoring news and trends. Legal resources listed are for the U.S. Excellent for people doing business research, prospecting, and competitive intelligence. Powerpoint presentation.

Mojeek Search

Have it your way with the Mojeek search engine , Pandia Search (Feb 8)

Mojeek is a new search engine with its own crawler. Pandia find it promising because of its personal search.

"Mojeek Personal Search lets you create your own topical or personal search index. You can add and remove unlimited number of domains. With publishable links, you can also share your index and provide the service to your site’s visitors."

Webmasters may be interested in this for site search.

Mojeek is the work of Mark in England.

Success of Yahoo News

Why old media dreads Yahoo News, by Jon Friedman, Media Web, Marketwatch

Yahoo News, through the ideas of its general manager, Neil Budde, has become possibly the most popular of online news sites.

"The key has been Yahoo's ability to capitalize on the revolutionary ways that people now "consume news" (to borrow one of Budde's favorite geek-speak phrases).

Once, things were so simple in the ways that Americans obtained their news. We read the morning paper over breakfast and then watched Walter Cronkite during dinner. Today, of course, people get their news in bits and pieces (if not bits and bytes) throughout the workday, as they check their email and do searches. "

And for this market, Yahoo News offers variety, entertainment, and currency.

"In the past year, Yahoo News has redesigned its site, struck video deals with CNN and ABC News and added such well-liked blogs as Huffington Post and Gawker. Yahoo even forged an agreement with NASA to provide coverage of the Space Shuttle Discovery launch."

Getting Past the Chinese Wall

Scaling the firewall of digital censorship, by Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail (Feb 17) - A project in development at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto may make it possible to break through the firewalls erected by repressive countries for curtailin information flow. Psiphon is designed to not "leave dangerous footprints on computers. In simple terms, it works by giving monitored computer users a way to send an encrypted request for information to a computer located in a secure country. That computer finds the information and sends it back, also encrypted."

About Google Earth

How does Google Earth work? - Short cuts bring the globe to your screen without crashing your computer. By Declan Butler, Nature.com -- Somewhat explains how Google Earth works.

Growth in Local Search

Local Search to Grow to $13 Billion by 2010, Marketing Vox (Feb 16)

"The Kelsey Group predicts that the global market for local search, including online Yellow Pages, will grow at an annual rate of 30.5 percent in the next five years, reaching $13 billion in 2010 from the $3.4 billion in 2005, report MediaPost and ClickZ."

Air Travel Tips

Stuck in the middle with who? by Rafe Needleman, CNet (Feb 15) -- Check out the plane before you book your ticket, Needleman describes several web sites that will give you the information you need.

+ Seatguru.com helps with seating

+ AirLiners has pictures.

+ Air Introductions is about social networking while flying

People just wanna have fun

The Web: Just for Fun by Enid Burns, CLickZ (Feb 17) -- New study from PEW Internet and American Life shows that people are going to the Web just to surf for fun. People who have broadband are more likely to do this than those with dialup.

"Roughly 40 million people go online for fun on a typical day. The majority of surfers in this category are men (34 percent); 26 percent of women go online with no clear purpose.

Young adults are the most likely demographic to consume the casual Web. Thirty-seven percent of 18 to 29 year-olds go online for fun on a typical day. Thirty-one percent of those age 30 to 49, and 24 percent of adults over age 50, are likely to brows the Web for enjoyment rather than function. "

See Growing Numbers Surf the Web Just for Fun for the full report at PEWinternet.org.

Technorati Blog Search

Filter By Authority is Added to Technorati Search at SEW Blog (Feb 14) - Technorati added an authority slider to help searchers restrict results to weblogs that have many incoming links. The better linked the weblog is, the higher the "authority". The slider appears on the first page of results.

Exalead Workgroup Search

Workgroup search, KMWorld (Feb 15)

Exalead has announced a new enterprise search product for small businesses - exalead one:workgroup 4.0.
"The new solution is built on the company's unified technology platform--exalead one:search--and offers users a way to access unstructured information no matter where it resides."

Exalead also updated its desktop search software, exalead one:desktop Professional Edition.

EMail vs RSS

E-mail Postage Stamps? Up with RSS, Traffick.com (Feb 15) -- Cory at Traffick.com strongly argues for RSS as a better solution to spam than permission-based email. There is no spam with RSS. People subscribe to the feed or they don't. He asks eBay and PayPal to get their users to convert to RSS.

Good as this sounds, Cory is overlooking that email programs have some advantages over RSS newsreaders not the least of which it is easier to read and save email messages than RSS items.

This may change somewhat with RSS readers being embedded in the browser - as will be the case with IE7. Article mentions that "Microsoft is taking the high road on this by adopting Mozilla's RSS icon as the standard, and pushing RSS hard in Windows Vista. "

Answers.com add legal

Answers.com has added to its resource collection a legal encyclopedia containing biographies and definitions. The biographies are mainly for US legal personages and some historical figures like Jean Jacques Rousseau (French) and Sir Francis Bacon (England). No Canadians that I can spot.

Mentioned in ResourceShelf.com

In Defense of Google Books

University of Michigan President Distresses Scholarly Publishers, by Miriam A. Drake, Newsbreaks (Feb 13) - Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, said in an address to the annual meeting of the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division (http://www.pspcentral.org) of the Association of American Publishers that the Google Book Library project is "...legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society".

HarperCollins Free E-Book

Ad-Supported Free Books Arrive, by Paula Berinstein, Newsbreaks (Feb 15) -- HarperCollins Publishers has published "Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own", a busineess book by Bruce Judson, on the Web - free to view and supported by advertisements. Book is at the author's site http://www.brucejudson.com/. It's a page turner and there are ads on every page. Unclear if this experiment will pay off.

Firefox Performance

Is Firefox dropping the ball, like Netscape in 97?, Posted by Richard MacManus, ZDNet Web2Explorer (Feb 15) -- There are a few complaints about Firefox 1.5. Seems it has a memory leak and will eat up CPU cycles. Ah - that is what has been happening with my computer. Meantime IE7 is on the way.

EFF Alarmed about Google Desktop

Google Desktop Fears Overblown?, by Chris Sherman, Searchday (Feb 15) -- Electronic Frontier Foundation feels that the new Google Desktop that allows for searching across a person's computers is riddled with privacy concerns. Sherman considers this an over-reaction. Everything must be initiated by the user - it's not automatic. He does counsel users - "Think carefully before enabling the program's advanced features, but take disingenuous claims like "Google copies your hard drive" with a substantial block of salt."

In Defense of Google Print

The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis by Jonathan Band, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce (Dec 2005) - Band describes the two parts of the Google Print project - Print Publisher Program and the Print Library Project - and copyright aspects surrounding "fair use".

Concludes in Google's favour - " The Google Print Library Project will make it easier than ever before for users to locate the wealth of information buried in books. By limiting the search results to a few sentences before and after the search term, the program will not conflict with the normal exploitation of works nor unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of rightsholders. To the contrary, it often will often increase demand for copyrighted works."

E-Mail Misunderstandings

E-Mail Misunderstandings, "When electronic communication generates more questions than answers, it's time to re-evaluate our habits." by Jill Geisler, Poynter Online (Feb 14)

"E-mail, when it is effective, keeps people informed, expedites work and connects people across distance. But too often, e-mail leaves us with too many questions, and those questions cause problems."

Names eight problems that can arise from things like the tone of the e-mail, the lack of a reply. who gets copies, practice of adding attachments. Good reminder.

Web Searching Climbs

Search Engine Traffic Soars, "Google remains the site of choice for most surfers, market researcher says." Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service via PCWorld (Feb 13)

Online searching soared in the US, moving up to 5.1 billion searches in December, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

"Google not only ranked first out of approximately 60 search engines, it also widened the gap between itself and number two Yahoo by grabbing 48.8 percent of all search traffic in December, or nearly 2.5 billion searches, up from 43.1 percent during the same time a year earlier."

Towards Niche

A Search Engine For Every Subject. "Google and Yahoo rule, but a flock of upstarts is offering new ways to find info". Business Week ONline (Feb 20)

There has been a boom in startups that are seeking to change search from one-box one-million hits. Instead people might use specialized engines.

"Instead, people may use several different search engines, each tailored to a specific task. One might specialize in blog postings, another in video clips, and a third in general information. The shift may look like the evolution of TV, from a world dominated by the Big Three networks to one in which hundreds of cable channels specialize in topics from cooking to history. "People are looking for targeted, specific information that search engines can't provide," says Michael Yang, CEO of Become.com, a search engine focused on Internet shopping."

"Social search" is one angle. But niche engines that have a narrow focus is another that is being used for shopping, real estate, health, and several others.

MySpace Community

MySpace rises as new online star, by Anick Jesdanun, BUsiness Week ONline (Feb 12)

MySpace, a web social centre mainly used by teens and 20-somethings, gets 2.5 times the traffic of Google. Young people keep in touch through blogs and photos.

"Instead of using e-mail and instant messaging, Olszanowski keeps in touch with many friends simply by posting bulletins on her personal MySpace page, known as a profile. There, friends can send her a private message or post a public comment; they can see her photo album or read her Web journal, called a blog"

Yahoo's My Web 2.0 Adds Features

Yahoo improves My Web 2.0 Pandia (Feb 11) -- Yahoo has improved MyWeb2 so that users can search everyone's tags (as can be done with del.icio.us), and people add a My Web 2.0 feed to their site.

More information in the Yahoo Blog - My Web 2.0 Update

Psych Database; Visual Thesaurus

Peter Jacso reviewed PsycArticles Direct, and Visual Thesaurus in the Digital Reference Shelf (Feb 2002)

+ PsycARTICLES Direct has full-text articles from American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. Can search for free and view abstracts. Full-text costs money. Jacso gives some background about the database and a thorough analysis of contents. Concludes that PsycARTICLES will be very good for people who don't have access to the full PsycInfo database.

+ Visual Thesaurus shows words in a presentation of hubs and spikes and is enriched by many other features for locating words. There is a modest subscription cost. Jacso makes some comparison to free thesauri services such as the Free Dictionary.

Tools to Tailor

Mossberg Positive About Rollyo and PubSub, Rollyo Adds New Firefox Search Bar Feature, SEW blog (

+ Rollyo - roll your own search engine for a collection of sites you choose. Can also use others' "searchrolls". SEW points out that you can only enter the top level domain.

+ Pubsub alerts you of new content that matches your keywords. It reads 23 million weblogs, more than 50,000 internet newsgroups and all SEC (EDGAR) filings.

Law and Cyberspace

First Monday for February 2006 covers law and cyberspace.

Law and Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace
by David R. Johnson and David G. Post (originally published in May 1996)

The Great Debate — Law in the Virtual World
by David G. Post and David R. Johnson

Virtual Borders: The Interdependence of Real and Virtual Worlds
by James Grimmelmann

Dispute Resolution Without Borders: Some Implications for the Emergence of Law in Cyberspace
by Ethan Katsh

The Life of the Law Online
by David R. Johnson

Grey Literature

Shirl Kennedy lists "gray lit repositories" in the Resourceshelf Resource of the Week (Feb 9) These are some sources for whitepapers, technical papers, or working papers.

Comparing Instant Messenger

Instant Messengers Grow Up and Go to Work Laura Blackwell, PCWorld Test Center (Feb 2006) - compares MSN Messenger, Qnext, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Trillian Basic.

"All conveyed text ably, and all promised Voice-over-IP telephony. Many had more exotic features as well.

Of the five programs that made our chart, Microsoft's MSN Messenger led the pack. We found this application's video smooth, though a little pale; its voice transmission was clear and noise-free. It also permitted faster navigation than similarly full-featured programs did, thanks to an array of clear, identifiable icons."

Video Matching Technology

Google Takes a History Lesson - "Search company is funding research into technology that will enable search within historical documents." by Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service via PC World (Feb 10)

Google is working with the Dublin City University (DCU) on a technology that will read digital image documents. There has been a trial using George Washington manuscripts but the project will also look at Irish manuscripts.

Searches and Share Statistics

Online Searches Grow 55 Percent Year-Over-Year to Nearly 5.1 Billion Searches in December 2005, According to Nielsen//NetRatings - Google Sees Five-Point Gain in Search Share Rankings, PRNewsire via Marketwatch (Feb 9)

"Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, today reported that the total number of searches in the U.S. conducted across approximately 60 search engines grew 55 percent year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005 (see Table 1). There were 3.3 billion searches conducted via search engines in December 2004."

Google has 48.9% of the search share, Yahoo 21.4% and MSN 10.9%.

Airfare in the US

Great if you need a flight in the United States - New Airfare Search Engine on Google Maps - Searches multiple airports and destinations simultaneously for the ultimate lowest fare to the top 50 U.S. destinations Where can I go, and what's the cheapest way to get there?, PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Feb 9)

"Click on "My Airport Map" on http://www.farecompare.com, and a map of the U.S. displays the lowest fares from both major and regional airports nearest you to the top 50 destinations across the country. To get from New York to Cincinnati, you can fly American Airlines for $299*. Or, you can fly from Hartford, CT to Columbus, OH on Northwest Airlines for just $118. The map shows all these options in an easily readable format."

RocketNews Update

Expanded RocketNews.com Portal Re-Launched, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Feb 9)

Claims that "The updated look and feel of the Rocketnews.com portal is easier to read and navigate. The portal provides the ability to browse and easily find targeted current news or weblog content on any topic. Users can also create their own RSS newsfeeds for use in the Rocket RSS reader or any of the many other RSS readers available online. Several other exciting new tools and services will be introduced in the coming months."

RocketNews picks up 16,000 news sources and 70,000 RSS and weblog sources.

On Searching

Search in the Future - Tara Calishain's hopes for search in the future.

Yahoo News Alerts

Yahoo Now Offers RSS Feed Monitor as Part of Yahoo Alerts ResearchBuzz (Feb 5) - Now keep up with news, weather etc by using the RSS feed from Yahoo Alerts http://alerts.yahoo.com.

Blinkx for Video Search

Blinkx eyes up video search market by Graeme Wearden, ZDNet UK (Feb 8) - Interview with Suranga Chandratillake, CEO of Blinkx.

-- Sees an end to desktop search: "Desktop search is a pretty boring business to be in. It's becoming commoditised, and it will be a non-industry within the next 12 months. That functionality is getting built into the operating system now. It's very hard to persuade users to download extra tools when the operating system does the job so well."

-- Has a deal with TV News Network ITN to put video online : "The deal with ITN that we're announcing this week is our first source of revenue. We'll be pursuing similar relationships with other content partners. We'll also be looking at distribution. Now we have the content, we need to raise our profile."

Google Desktop Beta 3

Google adds new frills to Desktop search - Beta 3, better than ever? - By Elinor Mills, Silicon.com (Feb 9)

Describes the features of latest release of Google Desktop.

"Google is adding new features to its Desktop search program, including further customisation of the Sidebar and the ability to send information directly to a friend's desktop, search on multiple computers at once and lock the search function with a password."

New Search Engines

Cos. Tackle Online Searches at Conference by Matthew Fordahl, AP Via Yahoo News (Feb 9) DEMO Tech Conference saw three new search engines analyse content.

- Plum "lets users group Web pages, e-mail, music, pictures and files from their desktop computers into online collections that can be kept private or made public for others to find."

- Kaboodle for shopping

- Riya for searching photos.

Ask Gary Price

Congratulations to Gary Price - Gary Price Leaves Search Engine Watch For AskJeeves By Nathan Weinberg, Inside Google (Feb 9, 2006)

Gary will be joining Ask Jeeves to help develop products and to liason with libraries and educational communities for product use and design. This will be good for Gary, Ask.com and librarians. The AskJeeves blog describes the job as "he will be a close consultant to our product managers as they identify resources and implement them", and "will represent Ask in reaching out to important information constituents such as the librarian and education communities". He'll be leaving Search Engine Watch. but will keep up ResourceShelf and his speaking on the conference circuits.

Gary's announcement on the ResourceShelf

Finding Academic Articles

Finding Articles Online by Mary Ellen Bates, Tip of the Month (Jan 2006) - List of resources on the web that can be useful for research in the academic, scholarly and sci-tech areas. Includes Google Scholar, Scirus, PubMed, CiteSeer, OAIster.

Google Winter Olympics Shortcut

Just in time for the Winter Olympics! Follow countries and athletes through the new Google shortcut - Winter Games Sports Search. Done in collaboration with NBC Olympics.

Try this Google search for Canada figure skating.

Canadians might also go directly to CBC's Torino 2006 to follow the events.

Google Desktop For Transferring Files

Google's Offers New Search Feature by Michael Leidtke, AP via Las Vegas Sun, (Feb 9) Google Desktop will enable users to transfer files from one computer to another by using interim storage at Google. But files must be held for 30 days. What if a government wants to look at them?

"To enable the computer-to-computer search function, a user specifies what information should be indexed and then agrees to allow Google to transfer the material to its own storage system. Google plans to encrypt all data transferred from users' hard drives and restrict access to just a handful of its employees. The company says it won't peruse any of the transferred information.

Once another computer participating in a user's personal network is turned on, Google automatically transfers the information so it's available to be searched. "

Google Tools on New Computers

Forget browser wars, prepare for toolbar wars, CNet News (Feb 7) "Fighting for icon space on the desktop is so 2001. The new frontier on a virgin PC is the browser, and Internet companies like Google are jostling for space on the browsers of new PCs." That's right - Google is talking with Dell about putting its toolbar, desktop search and a Google-designed Dell home page on new computers. Google already has partnerships with HP, Sony, Apple, Toshiba, and Gateway.

Kosmix Search

Kosmix has issued several press releases to announce use of their new search technology. Kosmix categorizes results to produce "a multi-dimensional view of search results" - basically breakdowns by subject / topic and by type of page. It is somewhat similar to Northern Light's folders. Kosmix applies its technology to verticals or subject areas. It opened with a health search, and now has alpha trials of travel and politics as subject areas.

Kosmix Health is the most advanced of the verticals. Categories distinguish between basic information and expert, men and women, blogs and message boards.

The health search, according to the press releases, has been picked up by the HealthCentral Network, Healthia, and HealthBoards.com.

Categorization for US Politics is limited to liberal, conservative and libertarian. This makes for an interesting view of results for middle east, but surely other categorizations would apply too, such as weblogs versus news sites.

It is possible to find something on Canadian elections although not the one in 2006 - suspect that the index is not fresh enough.

Kosmix Travel will be a boon for people planning a trip. Categories for travel guides, user reviews, hotels, travelogues, hotels and a few others make it easier to pick out an interest and browse more efficiently.

But Kosmix is still a crude search instrument. There is no syntax: it looks for all words entered. You cannot require a phrase or exclude a word or limit to a language.

From the press release: "Kosmix has created a fundamentally new approach to search based on the development of patent-pending algorithms and technology that present a multi-dimensional view of relevant search results. The company was founded in 2004 by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, who also co-founded Junglee, a provider of database technology for helping consumers find products on the Internet, which was acquired by Amazon in 1998. Kosmix has filed more than 10 patents and has indexed more than 3.2 billion URLs and counting. Based in Mountain View, Calif., Kosmix is privately funded. "

Tag Clouds

In search of the perfect Tag Cloud, WordWorks (Jan 2, 2006) - examines the visualization of tags being done with tag clouds at several services such as Technorati, del.icio.us, flickr, and others. Finds "pitfalls of using tagsclouds from a usability perspective".

Canadian History

Northern Blue Publishing specializes in publishing Canadian history. Its latest project is to put the History of Canada online. This website is companion to their print text, Canada, Our Story, Our People.

See Canadian History Goes On-line, Globe and Mail (Feb 7)

Northern Blue Publishing also produces web portals and web magazines on Canadian history covering the military, sports, business, aboriginal, and people.

GMail Chat

Google to Unveil New Chat Feature, by Michael Leidtke, AP via ABC News (Feb 7) Google is adding instant messaging capabilities to its email program, GMail.

"The new chat feature to be unveiled Tuesday will provide users of Google's Gmail service with a list of contacts drawn from past e-mail exchanges and then signal who's available for online conversations."

New features is fully described in Google Integrates Chat with Gmail by Chris Sherman, Searchday (Feb 7)

Exalead is Bigger

Exalead Web Search Engine Reaches 4 Billion Web Page Milestone "
Powerful 64-Bit Indexing Technology Accelerates Indexing of All Web Content", PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Feb 6)

Exalead, an excellent search engine with advanced search functions, has grown its index to 4 billion and expects to double that to 8 billion by July 2006.

Press release describes Exalead's capabilities:

"Based on real-time statistical linguistics, statistical semantics and entity extraction technology, Exalead's Web search engine offers a wide range of advanced query capabilities and linguistics features. These include: spelling suggestion, phonetic search, fuzzy matching, proximity search, word stemming, search term highlighting, multi-language search, automatic phrase detection and translation. Additionally, Exalead offers personalization options on its home page, shortcuts and personal bookmarks. A smart preview feature lets users browse results with ease."

"Often, the Web page one is searching for does not contain the terms of the original search query. To help solve this challenge, Exalead's patented navigation system automatically generates a table of contents for each query by recording the information's structure. Users can then refine their search by clicking on hyperlinked categories and related topics, or by geographic location, author, format, or even language."

Web 2.0 Tools

New, Improved Web "Ready for the next online revolution? Powerful tools help you work, search, communicate, and share data your way--usually for free." by Scott Spanbauer, PC World (Feb 2006)

"Here's a sampling of the most useful and interesting sites and services of what some call Web 2.0. All promise to deliver the best Internet experience yet. (Many of these are run by fledgling companies or by individuals, so surfer beware.)"

SeaMonkey Internet Suite

First Look: Free SeaMonkey Internet Tool Suite Is Solid by Dennis O'Reilly, PC World via Yahoo News (Feb 6) - Not sure that the world needs this, but volunteer developers have built a new suite of Internet tools based on the old Netscape set. SeaMonkey is "a free program that combines the Mozilla Navigator browser with an enhanced version of the Netscape Messenger e-mail client, the ChatZilla IRC (Internet Relay Chat) program, and an HTML editor and other tools for Web developers."

Internet TVEyes Search

TVEyes makes Internet TV searchable, Pandia (Jan 31) TVEyes , using the Podscope search engine, indexes the sound track of TV programs. It says it picks up Internet television from United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Al Jazeera. (However, a search for Stephen Harper didn't pick up any Canadian sources.)

Reviewed in Searching Television News by Gary Price, SearchDay (Feb 6)

Charging Companies for sending e-mail

Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail by Saul Hansell, New York Times (Feb 5)

AOL and Yahoo are going to start charging companies money to deliver their email messages. Senders must agree to send only to people who have agreed to receive this email.

"AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam."

This could change the economics of the Internet.

"In a broader sense, the move to create what is essentially a preferred class of e-mail is a major change in the economics of the Internet. Until now, senders and recipients of e-mail — and, for that matter, Web pages and other information — each covered their own costs of using the network, with no money changing hands. That model is different from, say, the telephone system, in which the company whose customer places a call pays a fee to the company whose customer receives it.

The prospect of a multitiered Internet has received a lot of attention recently after executives of several large telecommunications companies, including BellSouth and AT& T, suggested that they should be paid not only by the subscribers to their Internet services but also by companies that send large files to those subscribers, including music and video clips. Those files would then be given priority over other data, a change from the Internet's basic architecture which treats all data in the same way."

Trends in technology for 2006

Search engines to be key technology in 2006: Report by Jack Kapica, Globe Technology (Feb 1)

Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions 2006 sees search as being an increasingly important technology as digital content increases.

"The reason for the rising importance of search engines is the increase of the volume of digital content on-line — as much as 20 billion gigabytes in 2006 alone. Search tools will be needed to sift through such a volume of data. Searches will also extend to include data held on devices such as PCs, mobile phones, digital cameras and personal video recorders."

Expect changes -- "Technology will change people's behaviour, in the same way MP3 players now enable owners to carry their entire music collection wherever they go, game consoles created a new leisure category, and mobile devices and broadband connectivity have made working at home a reality, Deloitte says."

Internet Explorer 7 beta

Attention all Windows XP users - Microsoft releases IE 7 beta to public (by Alorie Gilbert, Cnet, Jan 31)

"The latest version works only with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and includes many of the features Microsoft has been touting for months. Among them are new security and privacy protection capabilities such as mechanisms designed to combat phishing attacks, spyware and other threats."

Finally, shrink-to-fit printing, tabbed browsing, and RSS subscribing.

Web 2.0 Expanding

So, what's next? Why, Web 2.0, naturally - Latest buzz is about making sites more interactive, less static by Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chroncile (Jan 30)

Is Web 2.0 a real change in the Web experience or a marketing gimmick? User involvement - reviews, ratings etc - have been in use for years. Article points to some distinguishing features that are more widespread but suggests that term has been diluted. Does list several "next generation", "Web 2.0" websites.

The Big Three

Web's Big 3 Jockey for First, By Leslie Walker, Washington Post (Feb 2) - It's all about Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. "Google is way out in front, with hints of tiring. Yahoo is a distant second, but gaining. Microsoft is the only other runner still on the track -- several lengths behind, no less -- but the aging champion won't quit."

Wink for searching the tagosphere

You don't have to belong to a social bookmarking service to benefit from the bookmarks and tagging that other people do. Wink searches the Tagosphere -- Digg, del.icio.us, Furl, Slashdot, or Yahoo! MyWeb and others. At Wink you can also create search sets and share them.

AOL Quick Answers

AOL's "(Quick) Answer" Feature On Web Results Pages in SEW Blog (Jan 29) AOL delivers quick answers from open web sources like Wikipedia, CIA World Factbook, IMDB.

Gazetteers

Searching for a Sense of Place By Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Feb 1) - online gazetteers for finding information about places.