Internet News

Google Answers Closing

Replies End From Google Answers -- Google shuts down ad-hoc online consulting service. by James Niccolai, IDG News Service -- Just as Yahoo and Microsoft are ramping up on free-for-all answer services, Google ends its service where the people doing the answering got paid. Go figure. The surprise is that Yahoo Answers is so popular and that Google Answers wilted.

"[Dabby] Sullivan said Google Answers never achieved the success of Yahoo Answers, which managed to generate more of a "community" feel among its users. Yahoo Answers is free, and questions can be answered by any registered user. Google said its paid service offered better answers because they came from hand-picked researchers."

Frasers for Canadian B2B

Frasers Industrial Web Search -- Canada has a search engine for Canadian suppliers of industrial products and services thanks to Rogers Media.

Literary Crimes - Google Book Search

Google Book Search Catches Victorian Plagiarists by Phil Bradley, SEW Blog (Nov 22)

Paul Collins, in using Google Book Search, found that Victorian writers stole frome each other -- "Dead Plagiarists Society" "Will Google Book Search Uncover Long-Buried Literary Crimes?"

Future for podcasts

What Podcasting Revolution? -- More people are downloading audio feeds, but few do it regularly, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project -- by Catherine Holahan, Business Week Online (Nov 27)

Further to the PEW study into the downloading of podcasts -- how long will it be until podcasting is widely accepted and will become attractive to advertisers?

"McCrery [Mark McCrery, founder of PodTrac] believes that subscriptions will rise as more people ferret out high-quality podcasters. "We do see a lot of sampling," says McCrery. "But we also find that a high percentage of audience members tend to listen or watch the same podcast. There are some podcasts that are getting to be must-listen or must-watch."

""Podcasting is still in its infancy," says Pew's Madden. "It is unlikely that it is going to usurp traditional media. It is more likely that it will become one of the many different ways that we get content in an increasingly mobile environment.""

Most popular podcasts are produced by traditional media outlets - radio, television.

Firefox Search History

Microsoft Live Search Suggestions Stealing Google Queries? Or is it Firefox?, SEO by the Sea (Nov ) - Bill Slawski finds that Firefox keeps a search query history that any search engine can tap into - as it appears both Google and Live do.

Podcast Downloanding

PEW Internet and American Life looked at podcast downloading (Nov 2006) - "Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time. However, few internet users are downloading podcasts with great frequency; just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day."

Survey was done in August and does show roughly a doubling in use since April when 7% of people reported they had downloaded a podcast.

Interestingly this is not limited to young people. Percentage of those over 50 rose from 10% of users to 16%.

Avatars in Social Networking Space

The metaphysical economies - Commentary: Express yourself by shopping on Cyworld by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Nov 28) - there's a digital life with avatars developing in social networks - shades of Snowcrash. South Korea leads in this --

" On Cyworld, South Korea's most popular social network, 20 million members represented by their avatars are buying products. An estimated $300,000 in real money is spent each day on Cyworld, which is owned by SK Communications, a subsidiary of South Korean wireless carrier SK Telecom. "

Such 3D social networks exist in the United States - Wallop, There.com and Second Life - and Cyworld has opened a U.S. site. It is targeting late teens and young female adults. This is a dressup world.

"Even though the endgame is to meet new friends and stay in touch with old ones, much like all the other social networks, on Cyworld, one is immediately faced with decisions on how to decorate their avatars and spaces. I felt as though I was dressing up a doll and a dollhouse. After perusing the vast selection of choices from aqua pageboy hairstyles to cargo pants to bullet-proof vests, minime ended up looking nothing like me at all as I dressed her up with a pink cowboy hat, straight black hair, pink avatar glasses, a white-collared blouse and blue shorts. Minime was looking rather, umm, silly."

Google Book Reader

Google Updates Its Google Book Search, ResearchBuzz (Nov 25) - describes new way to browse with the Google Book Reader.

Yahoo News Feed

Turning a Yahoo News Search into a Real-Time News Ticker, ResourceShelf (Nov 24) -- instructions on how to set up a real-time news feed, with images, from Yahoo News.

Mobility and Podcasting

The Coming Age of the “Cellcast” or “Mobilcast”, ResourceShelf (Nov 25) - oh no - something else to master - Cellcast or Mobilcast.

"It’s likely only a matter of time that many users will be able remove the step of downloading audio/video content and then playing it on an iPod/MP3 player. Already happening and we think likely to increase in usage will have users simply streaming (and then saving the content it they like) material to their mobile device or laptop/desktop computer."

Meta-tags Back

Revenge of the meta-tag!, SEOMOz.org (Nov 17) - those metatags and descriptions can be important in getting indexed at all.

Newspapers Partner with Yahoo News

176 Newspapers to Form a Partnership With Yahoo, By MIGUEL HELFT and STEVE LOHR, New York Times (Nov 20)

"A consortium of seven newspaper chains representing 176 daily papers across the country is announcing a broad partnership with Yahoo to share content, advertising and technology, another sign that the wary newspaper business is increasingly willing to shake hands with the technology companies they once saw as a threat.

In the first phase of the deal, the newspaper companies will begin posting their employment classified ads on Yahoo’s classified jobs site, HotJobs, and start using HotJobs technology to run their own online career ads.

But the long-term goal of the alliance with Yahoo, according to one senior executive at a participating newspaper company, is to be able to have the content of these newspapers tagged and optimized for searching and indexing by Yahoo. "

Changes in Google Book Search

Google Book Search Update By Haochi Chen, Google Blogscoped (Nov 22) - some changes to the Information and Viewing pages.

BlueOrganizer

BlueOrganizer 3.0: Instant Vertical Search and Tagging, TechCrunch (Nov 20)

"BlueOrganizer is a Firefox plug-in for social bookmarking/tagging that emphasizes use of standardized and automatically determined terms of categorization instead of only the terms that a user thinks of to categorize a web page. It’s a smart semantic based tool that syncs with Del.icio.us, offers dazzling contextual search and is already bringing in revenue."

Posting has some screenshots and some very interesting comments - mainly from people who express doubt about usefulness.

Web Search Alert

Now that I've discovered Slideshare, I have used it to put up the slides from a presentation I did to librarians and interested others in Toronto at a CASLIS meeting. The topic was the current state of web search. There has been very little change in web search as we think of it at Google and Yahoo (with the notable exception of the new interface for Live.com and improvements at Ask.com and Exalead.com). But there are huge changes arising from social search - social bookmarking especially, and the availability of online video, and growth in academic / scholarly tools. The links do work in this presentation - watch for the pointing arrow and finger. Unfortunately, the speaker notes are gone.

SlideShare for presentations

Slideshare.net is a place for sharing presentations. People upload their PowerPoint or OpenOffice presentations, tag them, open them to comments, and look at presentations by others. It's very Web 2.0. At present all presentations are public.

You can get a view of the kind of content through the tag clouds for Popular Tags. Web 2.0 is strong. The cloud will change as other discover and start loading in their presentations.

Those tagged library are quite good. Greg Notess has loaded three about web search that he delivered to Internet Librarian 2006 Conference.

Slideshare is based in Mountain View, California (USA) and New Delhi (India). It was founded by Rashmi Sinha, Jon Boutelle and Amit Ranjan.

Home and Abroad uses Maporama Maps

HOME & ABROAD SELECTS MAPORAMA WEB SERVICES TO HELP CUSTOMERS PLANNING THEIR TRIPS Press release (Nov 20)

"Maporama International, the European leader of geocentric services, announced today that Home & Abroad , Inc. is using Maporama Web Services to enhance its web-based travel planning and booking application. Maporama Web Services provides interactive directions capabilities, allowing end-users to spot quickly one or several destinations and to select directions based on transportation mode (driving, walking)."

About Home & Abroad : "Founded in October 2005, Home&Abroad next generation travel-planning and purchasing tool for online consumers, online travel agencies, bricks-and-mortar travel agencies, GDS services, hotels, and more.'

Google Book Viewer

New Google Book Viewer by Greg Notess, SearchEngineShowdown (Nov 22) -- details with screenshots of Google Book's new book viewer.

SiteMap for News Sites

Google adds indexing tools for News portal - "Publishers and webmasters will use a site map to indicate the articles they want Google News to index" By Juan Carlos Perez and Mike Barton, InfoWorld (Nov 21)

"This means that publishers and webmasters will be able to specify through a site map the articles they want Google News to index. A site map is a file that webmasters and publishers put on their sites to guide search engines' automated Web crawlers in properly indexing their Web pages."

NIH Senior Health - Brilliant

Something brilliant - a health site for seniors with adjustable text, audio text reading, and contrast controls. This is the NIH Senior Health site (http://nihseniorhealth.gov/). It may be intended for seniors but absolutely everyone can benefit. This is web design as it should be and is especially applicable to e-learning.

This website was developed by the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

Mentioned in Senior Service: Aging Learners Are Just Like the Rest of Us, eLearn (Nov 2006)

Blogs and News Alerts for Research

Leveraging Blogs, RSS, News Alerts and Different Search Engines to Expand Your Research -- "Sabrina I. Pacifici outlines the techniques of a successful strategy and identifies a range of reliable resources that will contribute to the task of customizing your research objectives and maximizing results and services."

http://www.llrx.com/features/expandresearch.pdf

Using RSS to Create and Enhance Current Awareness Services -- "
Jason Eiseman's guide demonstrates how adding RSS to your technological arsenal can enhance the current awareness services you provide, as well as your ability to effectively manage organization-wide information."

http://www.llrx.com/features/currentawarenessrss.htm

Answers.com gets answers from Yahoo?

Briefs #3: Answers.com Adds Content from Yahoo Answers, ResourceShelf (Nov 20) -- This can't be good in my view. Yahoo has started to show results from Yahoo Answers in its search results, and Answers.com is also taking some. Gary Price says "caveat emptor". Indeed!

Also mentioned are several other sources that Answers.com says it is using.

Notice from Answers.com -- Answers.com Adds Human Insight From Yahoo! - Answers - they explain the change as -- ""The phenomenon of the 'wisdom of crowds' has taken on extraordinary momentum, as evidenced by the meteoric growth of Yahoo! Answers..."" Calling it wisdom is a huge stretch.

Newspaper Archive

NewspaperARCHIVE.com Offers Free Memberships, New Tools, Newsbreaks (Nov20)

"NewspaperARCHIVE.com announced that it is now offering a more interactive Web site to the online research community. New features include user forums, a My Archive tool that enables subscribers to share interesting newspapers with friends and family, as well as a home page with headlines from this day in history."

The newspapers are mainly those in the United States. Search the articles and download, for a fee, a copy in pdf format or order a full-size reproduction.

Private Company Information at Hoover's

Hoover’s Expands Private Company Coverage, Newsbreaks (Nov 20)

"Hoover’s, Inc. (http://www.hoovers.com), a D&B company, announced the imminent expansion of its private company coverage with the release in early 2007 of additional data for the top 250,000 private companies in the U.S. ranked by total sales. This release will more than triple the number of private company records in Hoover’s database."

Sullivan on State of Search Engines

Sullivan Pubcon Keynote, Part 2 by ANdrew Goodman, Traffick.com (Nov 21) -- about things that concern Danny Sullivan.

"Privacy issues for users are at the forefront of Sullivan's concerns about how search companies affect the larger community. Despite search engines' sometimes excessive use of our personal data or other companies' copyright material, Sullivan saw the lawsuits by Belgian newspapers as extreme. By "getting their way" and getting Google to remove their headlines and snippets from Google News, these newspapers also succeeded in making themselves completely invisible, as Google soon found a way to make sure none of their content appeared in Google Search, either."

Search Engine Market Share Statistics

comScore Releases October U.S. Search Engine Rankings, PR Newswire via Marketwatch (Nov 20)

"comScore Networks today released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In October 2006, Google Sites captured 45.4 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining 0.3 share points from the previous month. Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 28.2 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (11.7 percent), Ask Network (5.8 percent) and Time Warner Network (5.4 percent)."

[Added Nov 22] Google Takes Nearly Half of Search Shares for October , Enid Burns, Clickz (Nov 22)

"Internet users conducted over 3 billion searches on Google in October, accounting for 23 percent year-over-year growth for the search provider. That's according to the "October U.S. Search Share Rankings" data released by Nielsen//NetRatings."

Internet for Science

Pew Internet and American Life finds that people, especially young ones, use the Internet for science.

"Fully 40 million Americans use the internet as their primary source of news and information about science and 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept.

As a primary source for science information, the internet is second only to television among the general population. For Americans with high-speed internet connections at home, the internet is as popular as TV for news and information about science. And for young adults with high-speed connections at home, the internet is the most popular source for science news and information by a 44% to 32% margin over television.

The national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in collaboration with the Exploratorium http://www.exploratorium.edu benchmarks how the internet fits into people's habits for gathering news and information about science.

For the full report, please visit:
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/191/report_display.asp"

Also How We Use the Internet for Science Research by Chris Sherman, SearchEngineWatch (Nov 21) -- good summary

Health Vertical Search

Healia and Kosmix: Search engines for health information., Pandia Search News (Nov 19) - presents Healia and Kosmix Health as vertical search engines for health information.

Popurls - fun

Keep your finger on the pulse of the Web with Popurls

"Popurls is a single page that gives you a view of the most popular sites on the Internet right now. It collects RSS streams from some of the most popular sources of all kinds of news online."

Popurls pick up links from social news and bookmarking sites - the "hivemind" as Pandia says.

SearchEngineLand

Danny Sullivan’s new blog - Search Engine Land - will be up December 11, Pandia (Nov 19)

Danny Sullivan has started his own blog on search engine news and marketing, and he is joined by Chris Sherman and Barry Schwartz from SearchEngineWatch.

"According to Danny & Co the new site will present “original content covering developments in the search space, daily blog posts, the daily email newsletter SearchCap, as well as a SearchCap Monthly."

The blog is called SearchEngineLand. (I could swear that blue colour is the same as Danny used years ago when he was Calafia.)

Watch the air go out of the tires at SearchEngineWatch and SearchEngineLand become the Zeppelin of all search watch sites. Good luck Danny.

Google News in Copyright Hot Water

Google News in trouble - again "Google gets into trouble with its new Scandinavian versions of Google News.:, Pandia News (Nov 19) - Google News picks up photos as well as text - and it probably shouldn't do so without permission.

"The Norwegian association for media companies, Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, argues that Google News Norway cannot make use of photographs without a proper agreement."

Vandalism at Wikipedia

An earnest target of digital vandals by Ivor Tossell, Globe and Mail (Nov 17)

Some get their kicks out of vandalizing Wikipedia - tampering with the entries. Wikipedia editors have names for the types of vandalism that take place -- "The list includes "attention-seeking vandalism," "silly vandalism," "childish vandalism," and "sneaky vandalism," which includes the more devious ways of sneaking misinformation past vigilant Wikipedians, like changing dates, or adding plausible-sounding misinformation." Tossell says that the earnestness at Wikipedia is a magnet for these pranks.

"People accuse Wikipedia editors of being humourless; I've made the same mistake myself. But it seems clear that it's not humourlessness that makes the encyclopedia such fun to kick around. It's Wikipedia's utter earnestness, its conviction of its own importance, that makes people bristle. Indeed, the fact that Wikipedia has become important in our day-to-day lives makes it such an irresistible target for purple nurples. And, as always, the smart kids who run it are learning how to cope."

Whatever the reason, it's not the "wisdom of crowds" at work, but the "stupidity of crowds" or maybe just a natural tendence to anarchy. Wikipedia will have to impose more controls if it wants to avoid becoming a Web pariah.

State of SEM

Danny Keeps a Consistent Thread in Pubcon Keynote by Andrew Goodman, Traffick (Nov 17) -- comments on Danny Sullivan's keynote speech to PubCon, a conference by WebMasterWorld for webmasters and people working with search marketing/optimization.

"Overall, Danny's theme was one we've heard him touch on consistently: exploring what makes search such a powerful marketing tool, one that resonates with users/consumers in a way that flies in the face of traditional interruption marketing. "

Get the impression that search engine marketing isn't respected, or seen as legitimate advertising - yet. Also that there are worries that the search players (Google, Yahoo etc) are deviating from search and instead doing video and radio - and they want to pull in advertising. Will this cause a decline in search engine marketing, and if so, what would those consequences be?

Yahoo Maps

European Street Maps Release Yahoo Local Maps blog (Nov 16)

Yahoo Maps is out of beta and has street-level maps for several countries in Europe - though the geocoder and driving directions are not yet ready.

You need Macromedia Flash 7 and Broadband to view the maps.

This new version of Yahoo Maps is available to Canadians but only through maps.yahoo.com - where you can make a Canadian address your default. It will find addresses and provide directions, but it can't find local services (hotels, cafes etc), and it does not have a satellite view. I think Canadians are better with Google Maps for streets and aerial views.

5 Types of Broadband Users

Five Personalities Emerge From Broadband Users by Enid Burns, Clickz (Nov 16)

Which are you: content king; social clicker; online insider; fast tracker; and everyday pro?

"The everyday pro is characterized by personal productivity and efficiency and looks to the Internet to fulfill those needs. The group adopts complex tools to simplify life. About 84 percent use online banking, and 68 percent purchase from online retailers."

Domain Name Search

PCNames Domain Search by Phil Bradley, SEW Blog (Nov 15)

Bradley reviews the WHOIS service, PCNames Domain Search. Searchers can use these to get information about ownership about a site. There are many of these but PCNames shows results as you type. Sometimes you'll find that a Domain Name broker owns the name - such as for websearchguide.com. This service does not show .ca domains. Allwhois is better for finding domains around the world.

"All in all this is an excellent collection of niche resources focusing on domain names. While it is clearly aimed at individuals that wish to register domain names there are lots of ways in which an enterprising searcher could use the resources, both when training others and searching for themselves. This is certainly a site that I'll be adding to my own collection of well used resources."

Flowser at Amazon

Browsing for Amazon Items With Flowser, ResearchBuzz (Nov 9) -- Flowser is a visual tool for searching Amazon (it beeps too). Flash and javascript are needed to use it. Calishain likes it. I don't - takes too much effort to figure out where to click and hold.

PureVideo metasearch

Meta-Search for Video Content: PureVideo Search, ResearchBuzz (Nov 14) - PureVideo is new, searches many video sites, and has channels. Calishain finds it incomplete but the results are "decent".

The free AOL

The return of the bubble by David Pogue, New York Times via Globe and Mail (Nov 15)

AOL , (formerly American Online) is free (almost completely), does not send out CDs with software, operates through any browser, looks like Yahoo, and is part of the Web 2.0 world.

Strengths are parental controls, XM radio with 20 free channels, OpenRide software for an AOL bounded experience, online backup, antivirus software, custom email address.

"AOL still sells subscriptions, by the way, for $10 or $26 a month. Such memberships grant you dial-up access, 50 more XM radio stations, unlimited e-mail storage (versus 2 gigabytes for freeloaders), a 50-gig Xdrive, identity-theft and PC-malfunction insurance, and so on.

But even the free AOL has a lot to offer. If you're a parent or a technophobe, AOL is still one of the easiest, safest Internet on-ramps. And even if you're an experienced Netizen, you should help yourself to the free antivirus software, or at least a custom e-mail address and a few satellite radio channels to listen to as you work. AOL's video search, meanwhile, is one of the Web's best; it finds video clips from all over the Web, including YouTube."

Bates reviews Google News Archive

Google as News Archivist, Mary Ellen Bates, (Nov 2006) -- critiques the Google's News Archive - it has some weaknesses. The claim to have 200 years is a stretch. Date clusters may not include all the years; all sources may not be shown.

Bates cites an instance where she was able to view an article for free through Google News Archive and it would have cost money at the publisher's site. But the reverse can happen too where the article might be free or cheaper somewhere else.

Bottom line: "If you want truly historical information, News Archive is a fine place to start -- and often provides an interesting glimpse into what life was like 100 years ago -- but don't expect it to be comprehensive."

Sitemaps help crawlers

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft partner on open source search protocol "Rivals team on how sites are indexed, easing the game for webmasters, improving search results for users" By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (November 15, 2006)

An "open source, Sitemap Protocol based on XML (Extensible Markup Language)" could improve indexing of web sites significantly and make some of the "invisible" web visible. Webmasters would create a sitemap that will guide the Web crawlers to index areas of the site. These "site maps are particularly useful in highlighting to crawlers the dynamic Web content that is served up on the fly." In the end, crawlers will be able to do deeper indexing.

[Added Nov 19] - Search Engines Unite On Unified Sitemaps System by Danny Sullivan, SEW Blog (Nov 16) - has the complete press release and some comments.

From the press release:

"Las Vegas, November 16, 2006 - In the first joint and open initiative to improve the Web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90 (www.sitemaps.org), a free and easy way for webmasters to notify search engines about their websites and be indexed more comprehensively and efficiently, resulting in better representation in search indices. For users, Sitemaps enables higher quality, fresher search results. An initiative initially driven by Yahoo! and Google, Sitemaps builds upon the pioneering Sitemaps 0.84, released by Google in June of 2005, which is now being adopted by Yahoo! and Microsoft to offer a single protocol to enhance Web crawling efforts."

Price Protection on Flights

Farecast Selling Airline Ticket Price Guarantees, TechCrunch (Nov 13)

"Seattle based airfare prediction service Farecast is testing what the company calls its first retail product beyond basic price forecasts; the company is now offering to lock in ticket prices against an increase for one week for $1. When the testing period for the product, called Fare Guard, has ended the price will become $10."

Google Sidebar

Check out the new Sidebar, Inside Google Desktop (Nov 14) - describes new sidebar for Google Desktop 4.5

Email image spam scam

Spam Levels Up by 80 Percent "Image-based spam blamed for surge in junk e-mail over the past month." Cara Garretson, Network World via PC World (Nov 9)

Huge jump in spam and images might be the reason. "Others say a new breed of spam messages called image spam--messages with text embedded in an image file that evade spam filters, which can't recognize the words inside the image--is responsible."

Don't accept email from people you don't know.

Mool Custom Search

Mool.com Custom Search Engine Searches Over 4,500 Broadcast Media and Newspaper Websites, PR Newswire via Marketwatch (Nov 14)

Mool is cool - it's gone to town building custom search engines using the new capabilities from Google Coop.

""Mool.com can be a very useful tool if you want to look for something only in the media sites. Many librarians and authors in our sister website PublicLibraries.com wanted to know if certain books were mentioned in any other media coverage. The solution to this inquiry was to use Google's CSE function and search only the media websites. For instance, when 'publiclibraries.com' was typed in and searched in Mool.com, we found that several media sites had covered the PublicLibraries.com site. This, we would have never known if it were not for Mool.com's service," said Mool.com's founder Yoon Huh."

Mool also has custom search engines with US sources for online shopping, US government, job listings, health resources, celebrity gossip, travel and lodging, books and libraries.

Your Google Search History

Making Use of Google Search History, Google Operating System (Nov 10) -- tips for using your Google Search History

Google Custom Search

Briefs: Google Joins Rollyo, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search in Allowing Users to Create Customized, Domain Specific Search Tools, ResourceShelf (Oct 24) - comments on several "personal verticals" or "“customized” search retrieval engines"

LII.org loses Schneider

LII’s Karen Schneider Says So Long, Gone But in No Way Forgotten - Resourceshelf wishes Karen Schneider, former director of LII.org, the best on her move to Florida.

Wink.com Search

Wink, The Social Search Engine, Adds New Features, ResourceShelf (Nov 5) -- changes at Wink.com - graphics its uses, video it can save to collections, and bookmarks.

Money for Topix.net

Search Briefs: More $$$ For Topix.net; Case Sensitive Searching Too!, ResourceShelf (Nov 6)

Topix.net will be receiving $15 million funding boost. Gary Price lists the reasons this makes him happy. Topix.net is the favourite news search engine for the Resourceshelf team.

Charles Bailey

Digital Works by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. - Charles Bailey covers scholarly publishing scene. This page links to his works especially the weblog DigitalKoans with comments on scholarly publishing and digital culture issues.

Also of great interest - Google Custom Search engines that Bailey built for open access serials, weblogs, wikis.

Mentioned in Resourceshelf - Bailey's Scholarly Electronic PUblishing Weblog gets New URL (Nov 9)

Oaister and others

Milestones: OAIster Database Approaches 10,000,000 Records, ResourceShelf (Nov 11)

Google Scholar isn't the only source of scholarly material. There is OAIster, CiteSeer, Science Direct, Open Doar.

Internet Librarian 2006

Presentations from Internet Librarian 2006 are available.

Greg Notess did several sessions all of them listed on his 2006 Presentations page.

+ New Search Strategies - good walkthough use of advanced syntax for limiting search to site, url, domain etc.
+ Comparing Book Engines - Amazon (and A9), Google, Open Content, Open Web (Project Gutenberg, Online Books), publisher sites.
+ Teaching Web Search Skills

More presentations by others may appear over the next few days.

Online Video Search

Video search engines worth a peek -- Commentary: Today viewing, tomorrow finding by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Nov 14)

"As the online video world explodes with everything from amateur snippets to full-length features, new search engines are crawling, tagging and organizing the visual data."

Describes several tools and notes differences: CastTV, Dabble.com, Pixsy, Nexidia.

As well there is PureVideo (metasearch), Podzinger for audio, Yahoo Video, AOL Video (which bought Truveo), Blinkx.

These and others are also described in Video Search Made the Internet Star By Elisabeth Osmeloski, SearchDay (Nov 14)

Google and Microsoft Dabble

Google's SearchMash Gets Features & Microsoft's Sexy, Experimental Ms. Dewey Search, SEW blog (Nov

My goodness, the sexy cyber Ms Dewey comes from Microsoft.

Google is adding function to the new SearchMash engine. (Why does that remind me of the song the Monstermash?) From the screenshots it looks as if SearchMash will make suggestions, but it doesn't do so on any one word general search I do.

Groowe Toolbar

Groowe Toolbar Gets Digg & Delicious Support, SEW Blog (Nov 9)

Danny Sullivan still likes the Groowe Toolbar and now he loves the addition of Digg and Delicious on the version for Firefox 1.5. But what about Firefox 2.0?

Online Video Search

Finding Footage by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal via San Diego Union-Tribune (Nov 13)

Video search engines have mainly used text on page and file names to find videos on topics. But there are some new imaging and speech-recognition technologies. And some video search engines are teaming up with new partners for content.

+ Blinkxtv - "uses speech-recognition and visual-analysis technology to help compile results".
+ Metacafe Inc. - "search algorithms tailored to different languages and countries."
+ PureVideo Networks Inc. - "feeds from hundreds of video sites"
+ AOLVideo - has improved search through “contextual” data and can "translate a video's audio into easily searchable text".

Video is very popular - "U.S. Internet users streamed more than 7 billion videos in July, according to comScore Networks Inc. MySpace.com captured the largest share, followed by Yahoo and YouTube. But when measured by overall traffic, YouTube holds the top spot, with 46 percent of visits among the top sites tracked by market researcher Hitwise."

Yahoo's Project Panama

Yahoo Readies New Search Engine, By David Shabelman, The Deal (November 7, 2006)

Yahoo has had trouble for some time with handling paid listings. This announcement indicates that it has a new service ready for the advertisers, but will users see a difference also?

"Yahoo is preparing to roll out its second-generation search engine, dubbed "Project Panama," which will replace the platform it has used since acquiring Overture Services Inc. for $1.6 billion in 2003.

The company's new search engine will be more helpful for users and more lucrative for advertisers, said Steve Mitgang, senior vice president of advertising platforms and products at Yahoo."

Make Your Own Vertical Search

Make your own search engine with Google Custom Search, Pandia (Nov 5)

Pandia has tried most and maybe all of the make-your-own vertical search engine. See the list, try the ones Pandia has created, and see why they like Google Custom Search tool

hereUare Search

HereUAre, Gigablast, 10 Billion, and Spam by Greg Notess, SearchEngineShowdown (

Very interesting - Greg Notess has connected the new hereUare search engine that claims 10 billion pages and Gigablast. The display of results is almost identical - right down to the Gigabits.

There are some minor differences:

- hereUare has a link to an Advanced Search page from the results page - a placement Gigablast should have adopted long ago
- hereUare has a higher results count (at least on net-neutrality two-tier internet)
- possibly because of the different number of search results the Gigabits are different.
- Gigablast has a link to report a result as spam.

hereUare Communications has an Online Classifieds area for a huge number of cities in the United States and globally with four in Canada. Wireless networks is another line of busienss.

Wonder why it has taken on web search by cloning Gigablast? Will it be adding advertisements? Will it be providing mobile search?

We'll see.

Primer on social bookmarking

Get Social With Your Bookmarks by Matthew Ingram, Globe and Mail (Nov 10) -- mainly about del.icio.us and Furl. That this article is in the Globe and Mail indicates that social bookmarking is about to break into mainstream.

"A social bookmarking site is a place that makes it easy for you to store your bookmarks, and to "tag" pages with keywords to make them easier to sort and find again -- but it also makes it easy to share your bookmarks with others, and to share their bookmarks in turn. In that sense, such sites are very much "social media" in the same way that news-recommendation sites like Digg and Reddit are. Searching a particular keyword brings up your tagged pages, but also any similar pages that others have saved that happen to use the same tags."

It's all about speed

Google: How to succeed in the web 2.0 world By Elinor Mills, Silicon.com (Nov 10)

Users want to see results right away or they will leave the site - that was the message from Marissa Mayer, VP of search products at Google.

"Internet users want to see results right away or they will leave the website, she said. Speed - the ability to interact with software and content, and see immediate results - is a key aspect of web 2.0 applications, she said. The popularity of user-created and user-edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for example, illustrates that people like to have an "immediate feedback loop", Mayer said."

Follow that page

Follow That Page: 100 Free Pages Tracked, Search Engine Showdown (Nov 5) -- Describes Follow That Page, a new alert service for tracking changes to Web pages.

Ask.com is Awesome

Ask.com has a flash demo showing in what ways it is so good. Young, smart woman instructs young man who feels he knows everything. Some good tips in this: explains Ask.com's relevancy ranking, describes Smart Answers, shows off the binoculars and Zoom Related Search -- http://searchtools.ask.com/.

Thoughts on Collarity

Collarity Relevance Engine, Phil Bradley, SEW Blog (Nov 8)

Reviews the new social search engine, Collarity, that makes suggestions.

"Collarity is a great idea, and provided quick on topic results based on very limited information on my interests, but it's let down (at this stage at least) by emphasising that element of its technology at the expense of other basic search functionality that should be an integral part of any search engine."

Google OneBox

A Closer Look at Google OneBox Results by Brian Smith, SearchDay (Nov 9)

Completes the series on shortcuts and answers from Ask, Yahoo, and Live. Google calls special answers from its information sections the OneBox. It shows first on a page, above the search results, and may include bits from News, Books, Google Scholar etc. The most popular use of OneBox is for calculations and definitions. The kind of information that gets into the Onebox is listed on the page for Google Web Search Features.

Copyright and Google Video

Google's Online Video Service Sued , By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP via Topix (Nov 8)

Just as many predicted -- "Google Inc.'s online video service has been sued for copyright infringement, providing a possible preview of the legal trouble that may plague the Internet search leader after it takes over YouTube Inc. and its library of pirated clips, the company said Wednesday."

Like it's visual

Visual search and shopping collide -- Commentary: Like.com enhances buying experience , by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Nov 9)

Artificial intelligence comes to shopping. Like.com is a comparison shopping engine with a difference - it can find things that look like something else.

" For now, Like.com helps you find jewelry, watches, handbags, and shoes. The engine crawls the Web for images, and will soon crawl eBay's merchandise as well. Additionally, Riya has some merchant partner deals. All told, Riya compares 2 million products offered by 200 merchants, including Amazon.com.
The service works this way. The homepage has photos of celebrities. You can highlight their shoes or jewelry and tell the Like.com search engine to find a similar item. "

Web 2.0 Summit

Web 2.0 Replaces Music Teachers by Michael Calore, Wired (Nov 8)

In the Chair "for music students and budding guitar heroes" is one of many Web2.0 applications being shown at the Web 2.0 Summit.

"The theme of the summit is "disruption and opportunity," and it could be argued that it's also the mantra of the entire Web 2.0 movement."

"Companies of all sizes are harnessing the Web 2.0 aesthetic -- hosted applications, user-generated content, open programming interfaces and online communities -- to give their users a more personalized and fulfilling web experience and to gain an advantage."

There are more examples of new Web 2.0 plays in the article.

More at Northern Light

One Stop Business Web, KMWorld (Nov 9)

Northern Light has a new version of its Business Research Engine.

"Users of the Business Research Engine can browse the market intelligence centers (MIC), access featured reports and resources from the Web, and use the Business Web search without limitations, says the company."

Jacso on Google Books

Google Book Search reviewed by Peter Jacso - Péter's Digital Reference Shelf (Nov9)

Introduction: "Good source for getting a feel for the content, style, typography, and illustrations of books through previewing a few pages. Very good ready reference source for finding definitions, descriptions from respected dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, fact books and similar publications. Most of the fully viewable books are a worthy bonus, but many of the older ones from the past centuries are illegible for the human eye. It is frustrating that even this project has problems with elementary search and filtering operations just like Google Scholar has."

Gary Price comments on the review in Jacso Reviews Google Book Search and Discusses Amazon Search Inside the Book, ResourceShelf (Nov 7)

In Flanders Fields

Oral Histories of the First World War Veterans 1914-1918

"Library and Archives Canada (LAC), in partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), presents Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914-1918."

Listen to the accounts from CBC's radio broadcast In Flanders Fields. There are also transcripts.

YouTube and Politics

The YouTube factor CP via Globe and Mail (Nov 6)

Campaign videos for candidates in the liberal leadership race are turning up on YouTube. Some are done by amateurs who capture part of a session sometimes with a camera phone. Other videos can be from the campaign organizers.

"All four front-runners — Ignatieff, Rae, Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion — have videos trumpeting their best debate performances, public speeches, and qualifications for high office." But there are unflattering clips too.

"Political parties expect YouTube's influence to grow and are preparing to use it more extensively in the next federal election campaign. The Liberals plan to create a special full-time unit dedicated to on-line projects like fundraising, voter turnout, and YouTube advertising."

Social Software at Internet Librarian International

"Internet Librarian International: Impressions from a First-Time Attendee" By Jill Fenton, Freepint (Nov 2006) -- Internet librarians use social software to reach and serve their customers. Here's a telling sentence -- "All were there to further understand how their roles and libraries could and would evolve as collaboration, communication and community technology tools develop, for example Web 2.0, Library 2.0, RSS, blogs and wikis. As one delegate put it, you need to be as up-to-date as your younger staff."

Article has links to some of the sessions related to Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and wikis at Internet Library International 2006

About Ask.com

Ask.com becoming the search engine that could -- Search engine is gaining ground and snagging business from rivals in move to focus on technology, not ads. -- By Elinor Mills, CNet News (Nov 3)

Ask is gaining market share according to the Comshare stats for September which show Ask at 5.8% to AOL's 5.6%. Ask is getting favourable reviews in the media outside the tech sphere. James Fallows said good things in From the Tech Toolbox in the October Atlantic Monthly.

"They [James Fallows and Walt Mossberg] liked Ask.com's Smart Answers of editorially suggested links; the Zoom feature, which allows people to narrow or broaden a search; the Binoculars feature, which offers a preview of a Web page in the results; the walking directions on the map service; improved image search; and the fact that there are only three ads at the top--fewer than on other search sites."

Drawing tools for Google Earth

New Google Earth Beta Released By Nathan Weinberg, Inside Google (Nov 5) - And on the heals of Microsoft's announcement about their Virtual Earth comes Google's new Google Earth Beta with free drawing tools.

Web reaches 100 million sites

Web reaches new milestone: 100 million sites CNN (Nov 1)

""There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them," said Netcraft's Rich Miller" ... ""The Web has gone from being a very straightforward thing where you put some text and perhaps some images, to being this incredibly powerful medium in and of itself. You can engage so much more dynamically, and so many more people are doing so many more things. And who knows what will come about tomorrow?" said Grinter."

Just Society

Building a Just Society: A Retrospective of Canadian Rights and Freedoms, Collections Canada

"Building a Just Society is an eclectic Web exhibition created to mark the 25th anniversary of these constitutional milestones. LAC invites all Canadians to explore the documentary heritage collections that record the story of governance and political culture in Canada, and the achievement of rights and freedoms that have marked our national evolution as a just society."

Hockey Games on Google Video

With one shot at the Net, it's all about new fans by Richard Blackwell, Globe Technology (Nov 4)

Google Video will have NHL games, recent ones and some classics. NHL Interactive Cyber Enterprises, the digital arm of the National Hockey League, is looking for ways to make hockey more popular (in the US it would seem), and possibly make some revenue from its vast archives.

"Dozens of recent games can now be downloaded, along with a selection of classic contests ranging from the 1967 Toronto-Montreal Stanley Cup final to the Vancouver Canuck's loss to the New York Rangers in the 1994 Cup final.

The material is free, for now, until the NHL decides whether it will try to generate revenue by charging for the downloads, or by selling advertising, or a combination of the two. "

Info.com

Info.com Expands Its Search Capabilities -- Pixsy and Oodle added to best of breed search tools, PR Newswire via Marketwatch (Nov 6)

Info.com, an all-in-one plus metasearch search service, has added more search tools.

"Powered by the Pixsy Media Search Platform, Video.info.com enables Info.com users to search and discover millions of online videos in popular categories including celebrity, news, viral, entertainment, sports and travel. This flexible, private label media search engine aggregates video content from across the web from leading providers including YouTube, Revver, Blastro, BusinessWeek, Hollywood.com, AddictingClips.com, Grouper, MetaCafe, Reuters, Sharkle, USA Today and dozens more."

Collarity - Wow

Collarity is a new engine for social search. It has a "compass" to help in narrowing a query with suggested terms. This is a very neat feature. When searching "in community mode" you benefit from keywords and results that others with your searching interests have seen. This one merits some time for a closer look.

New Collarity Search Technology Harnesses the Power of Implicit Communities to Dramatically Increase Relevancy for Consumers and Web Publishers, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Nov 6)

"Collarity, Inc., a search technology provider leveraging the knowledge of Web users, today marked the official launch of the company with the unveiling of Collarity Compass(TM), the industry's first search technology that automatically ranks information based on the implicit interests of individuals and dynamically created communities of searchers to improve relevancy. The new technology gives publishers, who integrate the Compass into their site, the ability to offer their consumers unprecedented control to cut through a world of superabundant information and find the narrow slice of the Web that is personally useful and interesting to them."

Powerset for Natural Language Search

The search engine that would outdo Google -- Commentary: Powerset shows off its freedom from the ills of 'keywordese', by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Nov 7)

Powerset, a natural language search engine, might just be the one to improve search. Francisco saw a demo -- "Simply put, the technology analyzes the meaning and relationships of words in context so that it can accommodate questions asked in natural language, such as "How're the Giants doing," rather than questions asked in sketchy "keywordese" inputs, like "scores, Giants.""

Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D

Microsoft's Virtual Earth can show 3D maps for 15 cities in the US, and in time people will be able to build their own models overlaid with their photos. You must download software to enjoy this. Will Microsoft be able to draw fans over from Google Earth?

Microsoft launches 3-D maps for Web search, Reuters (Nov 6)

"Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D compiles photo images to generate photo-realistic 3-D models of buildings and landscape in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and Dallas."

Microsoft Virtual Earth in the Round by Susan Kuchinskas, Internet News (Nov 7)

"When Live Search users click on the "maps" tab, search results appear in a map context with the option of exploring the area using not only the standard aerial and bird's-eye views, but also three-dimensional models."

Of interest -- "models are made by overlaying photographic images over 3D models. Over time, ..., it should be possible to use consumer-generated content to create some of the models. "

Buddhabot vs Humans

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Beats Human Intelligence on Yahoo Answers Social Networking Site (press release) , News Target (Oct 12, 2006)

"The two year old Artificial Intelligence (AI) known as the Buddhabot began answering questions on Yahoo! Answers site last week. Yahoo Answers is a Web 2.0 site with a social content rating system reminiscent of Digg. The Buddhabot has so far answered 102 questions and eleven have been selected as the best answer. The Buddhabot is the first and only AI to compete with human beings to provide the best answers on Yahoo Answers new social networking site."

Does this mean that the Buddhabot passed the Turing Test? Does this still count as social search?

Net Neutrality in Canada

Fear of a 2-tiered Internet by Michael Geist, Toronto Star (Nov 6) -- Videotron president Robert Depatie argues for a two-tier Internet system in Canada where "a new Internet transmission tariff that would require content creators of all sizes to fork over millions of dollars for the right to transmit content to ISP subscribers."

Net neutrality is at risk and there have been several instances worldwide where delivery or access was blocked by the ISP. Canadian have to pay attention too, especially since there is so little competition in Internet services.

"In light of the current environment, a recent Canadian telecommunications policy review directly addressed the network neutrality issue. The Telecommunications Reform Panel Report, a massive 400-page government-commissioned study that detailed a new vision to reshape Canadian telecommunications regulation recommended the establishment of a new legislative provision to "confirm the right of Canadian consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice by means of all public telecommunications networks providing access to the Internet.""

Social Bookmarking Roundup

Social Bookmarking Showdown by Scott Gilbertson, Wired (Nov 6)

Good article that reviews "the best places to store and share your bookmarks while searching and discovering new sites from other users." Ratings are out of 10. Covers del.icio.us (6), Wink (5), Furl (7), Stumbleupon (6), Blink List (may become popular with MySpace users) (7), Ma.gnolia (8).

Also refers to postings about social bookmarking in the blog Monkey Bites under Communities .

Stumbleupon Serendipity

The Serendipity Of StumbleUpon - an interview with Garrett Camp, Chief Architect at Read / Write Web (Oct 17)

Stumbleupon, a social bookmarking tool, has 1.5 million users - more than del.icio.us has.

"In this post, Garrett [Garrett Camp, co-founder and chief architect] describes StumbleUpon as a "personalized content discovery" service and outlines how it has grown to the million plus users it has today. Interestingly, he says that nearly half their user base is outside the US and more than a third are over the age of 35!"

The Stumbleupon group had to move out of their "bedrooms in Canada" (city not mentioned) to San Francisco in January 2006 to pitch to investors and get the service launched.

Interesting that Garrett Camp talks about "personalized content discovery". There is something about Stumbleupon that makes bookmarking seem a little easier, a little more fun, and a little more meaningful. Save the big ones here, and contribute reviews.

Web Science Research - for a better Web

Studying the Web "The inventor of the Web is launching a new university program that aims to improve the online experience." By Brittany Sauser, Technology Review (Nov 3)

Tim Berners-Lee finds that the Web is mainly display and needs more community and more collaboration -- "The Web needs to be fundamentally changed from a place where information is displayed to one where it is interpreted, exchanged, and processed to better enable humanity to interact." He is involved with a new project - the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) - to develop new tools for understanding and interacting.

Web inventor advocates better understanding of Net's future AP via Globe and Mail (Nov 3)

"The British scientist who developed the World Wide Web said Thursday that he is concerned the Internet could be misused as it grows and he is advocating a research project to study its future."

Smart Answer for US Elections at Ask

Ask.com Launches Elections Smart Answers by Barry Schwartz, SEW Blog (Nov 2) - US citizens just have to enter elections 2006 to get information on the upcoming mid-term election.

News Aggregators

Can news sites keep the wanderers? Commentary: Inform creates new news rivals by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Nov 2)

Online news outlets have competitors everywhere. Now Answers.com is adding a news component.

"In the case of Answers, type in "Brad Pitt" and you'll see that there is a box with links to news articles about Pitt. Answers doesn't get paid for directing readers to those news outlets. But notice that there is a link to "other news, video and blogs." That link takes a reader to an Answers page with links to more news, blogs and videos related to Pitt. Essentially, that's a new page for Answers to put an ad on."

Social networks will likely become a place for people to get their news. Facebook is already testing this.

Inform , a news aggregator that will deliver news anywhere, could benefit.

Popular aggregators are Yahoo News (#1), Google News (#11), Topix.net (#22) but MSNBC dropped from #1 to #2, and CNN also slipped.

"Nearly 4% of people who visit news sites go directly to Google immediately upon leaving a news site ... Now, those consuming news may be done with their news fix and are off to search for something entirely non-related. But it could also be that they're leaving a news site to search for more information about a particular news topic."

Main message -- "While Inform can probably help news sites keep their readership by providing additional information that's easily accessible, Inform can also strengthen smaller rival publishers, like Answers, and maybe social networks in the future, or even the blogosphere. I'd imagine that a small one-to-two man publishing team can tap into Inform's aggregated news content and provide their own news source without ever hiring a writer."

Some Authoritative Resources

Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources, Online Education Database (Oct 26)

Intention was good with this article, but the execution is a little off. In general the message is right - people need to know the authoritative sources. This paper lists recommends for art, books, health, finance, government (US), general research and more. There are a few for-fee.

What I find odd is that there is dead wood - Gary Price's direct search hasn't been updated since 2002. Also some odd classifications - Internet Public Library is more like LII.org than the Britannica. Nor would I describe LII.org as a tool for scouring the Invisible Web - it's a directory, not a search engine - librarians are recommending high quality sites, much like this article, not indexing them. And not to quibble too much, Google went way past 8 billion pages at least 2 years ago.

Bottom line - use with care.

Google Book Search

Google Book Search Has Far to Go By Mick O'Leary, Information Today (Nov 2)

Finally someone has tackled the task of describing and critiquing Google Book Search and its parts.

"Book Search has three book search services: 1) a library union catalog search of WorldCat and others, 2) books scanned from library collections, and 3) in-stock books provided by publishers. It’s ironic that the first and most innovative of these is overlooked, while the second and most rudimentary and problem-ridden gets all of the attention."

But it isn't working out well for Google. O'Leary says, "So far, Book Search deserves neither its own self-promotion nor the adulation that many commentators have bestowed upon it."

But librarians are counselled to pay attention - "... librarians should be carefully studying Book Search and Search Inside!, which promise to affect the future of library book collections profoundly."

Yahoo Autos goes Green

Yahoo! Unveils New Alternative Fuel Automotive Site Business WIre (Nov 1)

"Yahoo! Autos, one of the most comprehensive automotive resources on the Internet, today announced the launch of the new Yahoo! Autos Green Center http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center. The new Green Center provides consumers with the most comprehensive, unbiased source of information, resources and community about alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), including hybrid, flex fuel/E85, bio-diesel, compressed natural gas and others. The Green Center brings together industry information from expert partners as well as consumer-generated content from Yahoo!'s leading social media properties, Yahoo! Answers, del.icio.us and Yahoo! Groups. "

Yahoo Food

Yahoo to Launch Web Site Devoted to Food by Gary Gentile, AP (Nov 2)

Gotta be a winner - just in time for American Thanksgiving comes this new food site from Yahoo - Yahoo Food

"Yahoo Inc. is launching a new site devoted to food that will feature videos and other content from celebrity chefs such as Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart."

Ms Dewey I presume

Forget the butler, I'll take the sexy librarian, by Elinor Mills, CNet Blog Search (Oct 17)

Ms Dewey is different - amusing but the novelty wears off quickly.

"Talk about an interactive search engine. A new search site called Ms. Dewey features a sultry woman who makes wisecracks related to the keywords that are typed in. The search results appear as a long, scrolling list in a window that pops up on the upper right."

Google Groups Beta

Google Groups Gets a New Look and Some New Features, ResearchBuzz (Oct 14)

Tara Calishain describes the changes at Google Groups that have made it look more like Yahoo Groups except that Google Groups may be easier to search.

SearchItAll - All-in-one

SearchItAll.com -- the ''Big Kahuna of Web Search Portals'' -- Delivers One-Click Access to 20 Top Search Engines Plus over 200 Popular Web Sites; ''Lightning Fast'' on Both Desktop PCs and Handheld Devices, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Nov 1)

It's hard not to like an all-in-one search site that calls itself the "big kahuna".

"SearchItAll.com provides rapid searches on Alexa.com, Alltheweb, AltaVista, AOL Search, Ask.com, Excite, Gigablast, Google, Hotbot, LookSmart, Lycos, Mamma, Metacrawler, Microsoft Live Search, Netscape Search, Open Directory, Search.com, Webcrawler, Wisenut, and Yahoo."

But, this has the weakness of many of these tools - there is no value in being able to search Alltheweb, Altavista and Yahoo - it's the same database; or Ask and Lycos - Lycos uses Ask. SearchItAll isn't doing a meta-search - you must select the engine you want from a pull-down list.

"The Web site won't win any awards for glitz or glamour, but its beauty resides in its remarkable functionality. SearchItAll.com is built without a single graphic, with 100% of the site's focus on the highest density of quality Web links and fast access to the Web's top search engines."

It is true that Searchitall presents a very grey, bland page of about 200 popular web sites. These sites, however, are top quality ones and are well organized on the page into sections. The page will be of most value to people in the US especially for the collections under money and finance, jobs and careers, government, shopping. However, non-US users will appreciate the collections for web and computers, super reference, entertainment and possibly humor (which is overweighted on this page).

Wwb version of Quintura

Quintura , a visual search engine that uses a tag cloud to help searchers work through results, has released a web version of its software. The idea of the tag cloud is excellent, but the interface of this beta version of web search needs some redesign. Main problem is in the display of results in a tiny frame at the bottom of the page.

This version will also guide users (at least those on Windows machines) in saving the tagcloud to a local file, or emailing it to someone.

Press release: Quintura turns Searching into Finding

November 2, 2006 - Quintura launches its visual Find Engine, giving users the control to find what they are really looking for by using advanced Neural Networking techniques. While viewing the Quintura Cloud, users can visually navigate and easily refine in order to find relevant information faster and more efficiently.

Visualization becomes the center of the user experience, replacing antiquated listings and Boolean strings.

Users can Save and Share their Find results, making Quintura the first company to effectively turn the effort of Finding into something that can be shared and used by others.

Try it out for yourself by joining us at www.quintura.com, to experience the pleasures of Finding, Saving and Sharing your most relevant results.

"Our team approached the problem of finding Internet-based information and entertainment from the standpoint of the user" said Yakov Sadchikov, co-founder and CEO of Quintura. "We strived to build something that made it as easy as possible for the user to find exactly what they are looking for as quickly as possible. We also wanted to make the user experience very visual and more enjoyable, so we built in visual navigation technologies that are more appealing to users."

In order to make their product extremely easy on the end-user, the Quintura development team created some of the most complex and sophisticated algorithms. Quintura assembled a team of Russian algorithm developers and has spent many years building the fastest and most efficient algorithms in use today. "We have been working on the core algorithms for several years," said co-founder and CTO Alexander Ershov. "Luckily, the computer power has dramatically increased over time so that our neural network-based algorithms could be deployed with lightning quick response times for the user." With Quintura's approach, the algorithms do the work so that the user does not need to.

Find, save and share your most relevant results at www.quintura.com

About Quintura
Quintura is a visual Find Engine. Quintura, Inc. is a US corporation with offices in Alexandria, Virginia, and software development operations in the Moscow region of Russia. Quintura plans to offer blog and web-site publishers the option to create and display the Quintura clouds for their web-sites and related search themes.

For more information, please visit www.quintura.com

Google Docs and Wikis

Google getting into wikis, with JotSpot Posted by: Rafe Needleman. CNet Blog (Oct 31)

What will Google do with the wiki service, Jotspot, a collaborative tool for creating content? Maybe merge it with Google Docs.

"Where does a word processor end and a wiki begin? Google Docs is already a great collaborative editing tool. It even has a revisions history function, like most wikis do. What it doesn't have are capabilities to create a web of pages, nor can it insert interactive elements (such as polls, comments, or minispreadsheets)."