Internet News

Quora - new social search, q&a

Will Quora Challenge Google? No. Is It Useful? Yes, Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Jun 22)

Here's another service where people post questions and maybe get answers. Quora - created by early Facebook engineers - is another engine for social search, answers, q&a.

It connects to Twitter and Facebook of course. No previews - must join to see if there is any action.

Google got back into this game too (remember it closed Google Answers years ago) when it bought Aardvark, another question and answer service. Racing to Fill Gaps Left by Google in the Wall Street Journal tells us Google hasn't said what it will do with Aardvark. But "spokesman Gabriel Stricker said, "We realize that sometimes you want a person not a webpage to answer your questions." .. "Mr. Stricker added that Google shares these new companies' mission of providing more authoritative answers to questions for which there may not be a lot of content online currently, citing its real-time search services and a product called Knol, which allows people to upload information about topics on which they are experts, as examples. "

Citing Knol? Does anyone use that? Does it ever come up in search results?

Nsyght for very social people

If you have a lot of friends who post to social networks, Nsyght might be the search tool you need to follow Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Vimeo, Stumbleupon, Flickr, Last.fm, and Delicious.

Follow, update and search all your social networks in one place, Pandia (Mar 31)

"Nsyght is a web application for Twitter and Facebook that lets you search information from your friends in real time, post directly to your networks as well as search and filter your own “personal fire hose” of information."

Tribe mentality

Self-selecting what we know , by Lisan Jutras, Globe and Mail (Mar 7)

"The Net is where we go to seek out our tribe – and that can shrink our world view"

Personalized news is not called the "daily me" for nothing. Even more so in the social web of networks and tweets.

"When you want to take the public’s pulse on an issue, the Web seems the logical place to go. Not only are people increasingly turning to Internet sources for their news, but a study last week from the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that, of people who do get it online, 75 per cent have links sent to them via e-mail or social media. As people continue to join online social networks, and online news sources continue to proliferate, this number will grow. "

Mentions TweetFeel which analyzes the emotional content of tweets. Politicians will love (or hate) this - they can get a sense of public opinion (though I can't believe there were only two tweets about Stephen Harper today)

Google's Aardvark

Google Buys an Aardvark and Puts it In the Lab, ResearchBuzz (Feb 16)

Explains how to get involved with Aardvark. Aardvark sits in Google Labs.

"I like this. It reminds me somewhat of Yahoo Answers but the questions are better (more serious.) It reminds me even more of Google Answers, a late, much-lamented service offered by Google (it was shut down over three years ago.) I do see three problems with it, however."

Tara Calishain hopes that it will become a new Google Anwsers.

More Buzz

On the other hand, if you are a Gmail user you might want to learn how to use Google Buzz.

Buzz features compared: Just the important stuff, by Josh Lowensohn, Web Crawler - CNet (Feb 12)

Compares Google Buzz to Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed for composing a message, setting privacy, follower management, search, and content discovery.

"Buzz is, in many ways, highly derivative of existing, and quite popular services. The three biggest ones that come to mind are Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed, with the latter two being the same company. Though to Google's credit, it has done something none of these companies has managed to do in integrating it deeply into a popular e-mail service. "

How to Use Google Buzz, by Patrick Miller, PCWorld (Feb 12)

Basics on what to do with Buzz - "... we have the tips you need to make it work for you. And if you're wishing it would buzz off, we'll show you how to remove it from your Gmail account."

Of interest: "As of this writing, you can officially link only Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, your Google Reader Shared Items, GChat status, and Twitter accounts to your Buzz feed, though WordPress blogs can connect to Google Buzz with a little more work."

Google and Aardvark

Google bought Aardvark - the social question answering service. Why? Google closed Google Answers a couple of years ago. Because this time Google wants to be doing more with networks. It must be counting on people having time to make their expertise known and to prove it by answering questions - at no charge.

Google Acquires Aardvark, Google blog (Feb 12)

Stated - "Aardvark analyzes questions to determine what they're about and then matches each question to people with relevant knowledge and interests to give you an answer quickly."

What Google Gets from Aardvark's Ask-A-Friend Service Jeff Bertolucci, PCWorld (Feb 11)

Article describes Aardvark:

"You send it a question, via email, Twitter, IM, Web, or iPhone, that Aardvark then routes to the most appropriate person(s) in your social network, based on their knowledge, hobbies, tastes, and so on."

And offers one explanation for Google's interest:

"Google can use Aardvark's friends-based Q&A technology to differentiate its social experience from the leading sites -- Facebook and Twitter come to mind -- in this space."

Aardvark on Social Search

A Search Engine That Relies on Humans, By JOSHUA BRUSTEIN, New York Times (Feb 5)

Aardvark does "social search" - its members connect with each other in communities - and answer each others questions from the whole range of internet connected tools.

The founders wrote a paper - Anatomy of a Large-Scale Social Search Engine that will be discussed at WWW2010.

What's it about?

"Aardvark uses various factors to identify who it thinks are the best people to answer a question, then poses the question to them. Among the things it tries to determine are the expertise a potential answerer has about a subject, how closely connected the two people are, and how quickly the answerer is available."

Some questions about social search that really should be considered before depending on it or investing a lot of time.

+ Is someone going to answer your question? Do people have time for this?
+ Does the person answering your question actually know anything? Can you trust them?
+ Is one answer sufficient?

Social search will not suit all types of questions. But as is quoted in this article from the paper - "We [Aardvark] demonstrate that there is a large class of subjective questions — especially longer, contextualized requests for recommendations or advice — which are better served by social search than by web search."

Bing Strengthens Connection to Facebook

Bing Ties Up Tighter with Facebook, Research Buzz (Feb 8)

Bing supplies the search function at Facebook. Run a search - get pages created by organizations or individuals, names of groups, and then web results.

"Bing’s Web search integration will be extended to outside the US, covering all of Facebook’s 400 million users, and Bing will soon be integrating additional features into its Facebook Web results".

Tara Calishain sees an immediate advantage in searching for recipes - where she hopes Bing's new "rich answers" will come through - "So I can search on Facebook for red beans and rice and get fan pages, groups, and recipes!"

I had to check what Facebook can do for muffin recipes - and sure enough there is a page from the Muffin Man, an astonishing 43 groups concerned in some way with muffins, and the familiar page of search results from Bing. Naturally, Facebook had some sponsored results as well - Betty Crocker was in the mix.

This is Bing's social move. In its posting to the Bing Community on "Enhanced Cooperation with Facebook on Search" (requires joining the group to read) it said --

"As you know, Bing has been very focused on helping customers make important decisions. We believe that counsel from family and friends can be a big part of that process. Going deeper in web search experiences with Facebook, in addition to the collaboration we announced last October about bringing public data from Facebook’s API into the search experience, will enable us to do great things together for our customers."

Expect to hear more from Bing.

Google's Social Graph

Google is searching you while you search it, by Lesley Ciarula Taylor, Toronto Star (Feb 5)

Describes Google's Social Search - "New media guru Dave Winer calls it “one of the most significant, far-reaching and basically good features” in a core Google search."

The working of this are described in a video at Google's Social Graph API.

Google's Social Search Rolled Out

Google Social Search Goes Live, Adds New Features, by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Jan 27)

Google's rollout of Social Search will surely boost the idea of searching postings and other content done by contacts. Having a GMail account would be a first step for building the circle.

Danny Sullivan described it in detail in October - Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle”

Google figures out the social circle from Google chat buddies and contacts, links listed on your Google profile, and publically known connections. The social search will also pick up posts from Google Reader subscriptions.

Results can include pictures that contacts have published publicly to the web on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.

Google has a video - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/search-is-getting-more-social.html - to show you how to do it.

Also - Google Expands Social Search Test By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service via PC World (Jan 27)

Why does it matter? "Incorporating social-networking content into its search index is both a necessary complement to its search results and a competitive move for Google, said industry analyst Greg Sterling from Sterling Market Intelligence.

Content from sites like Twitter has proven increasingly valuable for identifying trends and for following breaking news events. Google is aware that Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social networks are nabbing a bigger portion of the time people spend online."

PeopleBrowsr - social search engine

Introducing social search engine PeopleBrowsr, Altsearchengines (Dec 26)

With all the attention on Twitter these days, this is a product that was meant to be.

"PeopleBrowsr is a data mine and social search engine for real time conversations. We’ve built a set of applications sitting on the data mine to monitor your brand, identify your audience, analyze tweets sentiment, filter the buzz, manage feedback, share accounts, run campaigns, track keywords, build widgets and engage across multiple social networks simultaneously. We are an intelligent data service provider to enterprise and a powerful social network tool for individual users."

Browse the slides at PeopleBrowsr to get an idea of how social media can be mined for competitive intelligence.

Ask will find people who can answer

Ask Making A Bigger Bet On “Social Search” Or Q&A by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Nov 18)

Ask keeps fighting for market share. Now it bets on "social search".

"Ask, which has been highlighting “answers” for some time, is going to move more directly into social search or real-time Q&A."

People using Ask have almost been trained to phrase their queries as questions. Ask will see if the "community" will answer.

"In recognition of that and the more recent rise of social and “real time” search, Ask will begin to enlist its community directly in answering questions and use a number of sophisticated algorithms around question routing and identifying trustworthy and authoritative answers and people."

Pandia Picks 5 Social Search Tools

Top 5 sites for social search, Pandia (Nov 2)

Pandia offers a definition of social search that I can live with - "Social search is web search aided in some way by social networks."

But you don't have to be a member of the network to benefit, or know any of the people.

The tools selected by Pandia are all open to being searched by anyone.

+ delicious - premier social bookmarking site. Search your own bookmarks, your networks, or everyone's.

+ OneRiot - "crawls the links people share on social networks (mostly Twitter and Digg), then indexes the content on those pages. "

+ Stumbleupon - once the place for serindipitous finds, and now a place for searching what other people have liked enough to rank and review. "It searches an index comprised of pages recommended by StumbleUpon’s 8.5 Mill members. You can search the entire index or narrow the search to your own favorites or the favorites of your friends. StumbleUpon also suggests ways to narrow your search."

+ Scoppler - "indexes sites like Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and more. " - many features

+ Google Social Search - in the labs - will index the links in your social network - this could include blogs you follow through Google Reader. Has two video demos.

Zakta - Personal Social Search

What is Social Search? by Sundar Kadayam Founder & CEO, Zakta The Personal and Social Web Search Engine

Sundar Kadayam digests many defintions of social search and takes an historical view of social search. From this he developed a framework for placing the many different services that claim to be social.

"On the X-axis, I plot the Personal (focus is on the individual) versus Communal (focus is on the community as a whole) continuum. On the Y-axis, I plot the nature of information that users interact with, in terms of whether it is Disorganized (focus has been on mere collection of information) versus Organized (focus is on curation of digital information)."

He proposes that Zakta is personal and organized.

+ it has guides who put together resources on a topic - community contributions
+ a meta search capability in the search packs for web, news etc.
+ search results are grouped into sections - a bit like Bing
+ tools for personalizing - selecting and saving results

It's a grand idea, but for this to work well, Zakta will need a large critical mass of users. It does seem to bring together into one interface many of the new approaches to search. Google might get some ideas.

Google Social Search

Google Social Search to go live Monday by Tom Krazit, Webware (Oct 26)

Now live in Google Labs under Experimental - "Google Social Search links the concepts of so-called "real-time" search with Google Profiles and custom search results, allowing searchers to find content created by friends or contacts with Google Profiles."

Danny Sullivan gives a longer account and shows how it works - Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle”, Search Engine Land

Usenet at Google Groups

Google Begins Fixing Usenet Archive, by Kevin Poulsen, Wired (Oct 8)

Google took over the Usenet archive of postings in 2001 and absorbed it into Google Groups, an early community / social service. Who uses it now? Turns out search has been broken for a long time, and Google Groups is like a ghost town.

"Google has pulled its Google Groups development team out of the basement broom closet and begun patching up its long-broken Usenet library, in response to our story Wednesday highlighting the company’s neglect of the 700 million post archive."

1) I hope Google fixes more than the Usenet section of Google Groups. There are problems with Google Groups as a mailing list and discussion center - perhaps because Google is developing other collaborative tools.

2) Why is this archive not with the Internet Archive? They would seem to be a more reliable and attentive custodian.

Aardvark for social search

The Real-Time People Web, Aardvark blog via Altsearchengines (Sept 30)

Sees social search as a change in paradigm - find the people with the knowledge.

"With the Social Search paradigm, online content is used as just an index of what its author knows about; the engine uses this index to find the person you should connect with for your question."

Good in theory - must still vet the person.

Connects social search to real-time search since tweets and facebook updates tell even more about the person.

Really aimed at getting people to join and use Aadvark - it does the routing of questions through social networks including Facebook.

Search Engines trump Social Media for Search

Social Media No Threat To Search, Altsearchengines (Sep 27)

Daniel Ruby of Chitika has summarized main points from a study that company did into importance of social media vs search engines as sources for referrals. No surprise - but it's good that someone has finally measured this - that search engines are the main way for finding information.

"Online ad network Chitika Research this week broke down over 123 million impressions across their 60,000+ publisher network and determined that the overwhelming dominance of search engines is facing little, if any, threat from social networks. Despite predictions that social media will replace search engines as Internet users’ primary method of finding information online, a breakdown of the numbers shows that isn’t the case."

Adding comments with Sidewiki

Google Toolbar adds comments with Sidewiki by Tom Krazit, Webware (Sept 23)

Do you have the time or the will to comment on a website? Google will give you the wherewithal through the Google Toolbar.

"Sidewiki is a new addition to the Google Toolbar that will let users read comments on any Web site and add their own in a special interface on the left hand side of the screen enabled by the toolbar. This idea has been tried before by others, but Google is proposing to use an algorithm to rank comments by quality and to link comments to a user's Google Profile."

Also Google Sidewiki Allows Anyone To Comment About Any Site by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Sep 23)

Detailed instructions with screenshots. But will people use it? Sullivan points to several other attempts that turned into duds such as SearchWiki and Knol.

Of interest - "Sidewiki feels like another swing at something Google seems to desperately desires — a community of experts offering high quality comments. Google says that’s something that its cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted more than a system for ranking web pages. They really wanted a system to annotate pages across the web."

Postscript - Sidewiki: One Big Google Headache? by Ian Paul, PC World via Business Week (Sep 24)

There is a backlash to SideWiki - "Jeff Jarvis, Google fanatic and author of "What Would Google Do?", is leading the anti-Sidewiki charge by saying Google is trying to "take interactivity away from the source and centralize it." In other words, Google is destroying the whole point of a blog by taking comments off the Web page and placing them beyond the control of the Web site owner."

Finding Similar Sites

How to Find Similar Sites with Tags by Ann Smarty, Search Engine Journal (Sept 8)

Describes Similar Site Search, a service that claims to finds sites similar to the one you enter. The "about page" says that "Similar website search is mainly based on user annotations or tags on websites. "

Results page shows tags and confidence level. But, I think, this points to weaknesses in tags - especially the one-word kind. My site - websearchguide.ca, which is about web search, shows a 82% similiarity to Factbites - a search service - because of common tags - search, searchengine, reference. But might be worth a shot - some other sites came up done by guides.

Yahoo's Social Side

Yahoo to overhaul search despite pending Microsoft deal , Michael Liedtke, AP via Globe and Mail (Aug 25)

Yahoo says it intends to improve the user's search experience with some redesign of the search results - mainly by being more "social".

"Toward that end, Yahoo plans to devote the left column of its search results to other popular services like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and even Google's YouTube. Click on any one of the icons there, and information from that service matching the search keywords will appear instead of the regular search results at the centre of the page.

The feature will enable users to look at Facebook's personal profiles, Twitter's message updates, Yelp's restaurant reviews and YouTube's video clips without having to leave Yahoo.

By drilling deeper into destinations filled with personal information and images, Yahoo is betting its search engine will gain a reputation as the best place to research and discover things about people. "

ResearchBuzz commented on the design result - Yahoo Launches “New Search Experience” for Some Reason (Aug 25)

"Yahoo’s doing some interesting stuff here. First of all the search pad tool, which allows you to aggregate data from different result pages, has a more front-and-center presentation. Yahoo’s also giving some prime real estate to third-party data sources like Wikipedia and Loney Planet — pretty bold and not a bad idea! Related concept searches are also available on the left side bar, along with some related searches in an area underneath the query form. (This box is hidden by default.)"

Postscript Sept 3

Yahoo’s New Search Clothes — But Will It Help? (Probably Not) by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Aug 24)

Yahoo has been improving search as some services - delicious and Flickr - and most recently in web results. The new design is only for selected users. Danny Sullivan lists the changes and has screenshots.

+ Three columns
+ Site filters
+ Video on the page
+ Social media
+ Related concepts = concept drilldown
+ Cool apps

Will it make a difference? Danny Sullivan thinks not - "The problem for me remains that the “central place” idea of Yahoo isn’t new. That’s like circa 1997. It’s called being a portal. And while Yahoo’s been successful as a portal, search success has been slipping away over the past few years. There’s absolutely no reason, none, to believe giving up its own search technology will somehow translate through user interface magic into new gains in search."

Semanti Social Search

Semanti Introduces Social Search Tool , eContent (Jun 23)

"Semanti Corp., a semantic search provider, has announced its new search enhancement tool, which provides users with the ability to help internet users find, retrieve, and share information. Semanti employs a semantic-based search methodology that integrates with Facebook Connect to allow users to search at a social level, and offers new tools for personalized searches. A free browser plug-in, Semanti works with all industry-leading search engines (including Microsoft Bing), so users do not have to change their existing search behaviors."

Omgili has Novel Approach

Help to crack Google’s secret, Pandia (Apr 17)

Omgili is experimenting with its interface to show its own results of what people are saying about a topic, and what is found through Google. This combination means that you'll see discussion on particular articles. Important articles do emerge from this process.

From Omigili - "Omgili is a specialized search engine that focuses on "many to many" user generated content platforms, such as, Forums, Discussion groups, Mailing lists, answer boards and others."

Worth trying.

Connecting with Community

Find and Share Information on the Internet: Part One, by Malcolm Coles, FUMSI (April 2009)

Malcolm Coles points to the inadequacy of the directory and the web search engine to handle today's escalating volume of information. Perhaps tapping into community will point us in the right direction. He's talking about the social web.

"This month, I explore how traditional methods to find information online have failed to keep up with change on the Internet. Next month, I'll show how you can make use of these new services to find what you need - and allow others to find what you publish." ...

"‘Social' sites do this by trying to directly harness the opinions of other people. Rather than relying on signals like numbers of links to determine quality and relevance, these services ask people to rate content directly. You can then browse web pages based on the activity of people like yourself. ..."

Michael Coles will be describing use and benefits of Digg and Reddit, Stumbleupon, Delicious, and Twitter.

Yahoo Aiming for Social

Yahoo Community Will Be Mix of Isolated Sites by Reuters (Apr 9)

Yahoo is putting its eggs in the social basket.

"But if Filo and new CEO Carol Bartz have their way, the kinds of social networking features available on Facebook will become part of many Yahoo websites and allow their users to network with each other without using Facebook. The company hopes the strategy will help link its disparate properties, bringing more advertising dollars and growth."

Watch for new features and version.

"In the next several months Yahoo will begin rolling out new versions of its most popular products, from Yahoo Mail to the Yahoo home page. A thread of social media features, including a common user profile, list of friends and regular updates about friends, will tie the family of Yahoo properties together."

Social News Media

The Best Niche Social Media News Sites Right Now, 10e20 (Apr 1)

If you wonder what social media news sites are, here's a list of 35 organized as business, products and commerce, sports leisure, arts and design, programming, entertainment, women's news, environment.

Out of all those I can vouch for care2.com listed under environment. Its banner line is "socially conscious news and video shared and rated by the community". It's one way of getting involved.

Search Trends

Google Next Victim Of Creative Destruction? (GOOG) by John Northwick, Business Week (Feb 8)

John Northwick, who watched the AOL fall from innovator grace, offered this observation: " I now see search as fragmenting and Twitter search doing to Google what broadband did to AOL."

(Mind, as commenters to the article did point out, John is CEO of betaworks, a Twitter shareholder.)

Search has moved into two main streams: video (YouTube and more) and real-time (Twitter watching).

Video:

* "YouTube generates domestically close to 3BN searches per month — it’s a bigger search destination than Yahoo. "

* "44% of YouTube views happen in the embedded YouTube player (ie off YouTube.com) and late last year they added search into the embedded experience. YouTube is clearly a very different search experience to Google.com. "

* "Video search now represents 26% of Google’s total search volume."

Notificator (the electronic message board)

This really means getting the buzz of the moment whether it's about friends or events and developments.

"Yet at http://search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set."

It's the social context that is important - people you know (or know of), people you trust.

The post refers to an article by Gerry Campbell on the role of social inference in search. Search is broken – really broken. (Feb 6)

"Our daily lives are rich with social inference, and they happen in real time. Search from Google, Yahoo… you name it – they are all based on published (e.g. considered, thought-through) documents that take minutes-to-weeks to update in the search index."

Campbell wants to see "Realtime search, using social inference for discovery, ranking and prioritization."

Search 3.0

What Social Media Means for Search by Peter Hershberg, ADAge (Mar 30)

Tells the story of a young woman who needs to buy an air conditioner and gets help from her social network through Twitter and Facebook.

Message: "This is the new face of the "search" experience online. The separation between search and social media is melting away, and a new paradigm is taking hold. Finding the right content is as much about whom it comes from as where you find it. By building a network of credible sources via social media, we're able narrow our "searches" to a select group of people whom we trust."

Reviews three stages to searching where at stage 3.0 "relevance is determined not just by what's on a page and what surrounds that page but how that data relate to your personal network. As more and more people connect to each other through social networks, the resulting social graph is proving extremely powerful in helping users filter the data coming at them."

Social Media in Three Acts

"Social Media is Here to Stay... Now What?" by Danah Boyd, Microsoft Research Tech Fest, Redmond (26 February 2009)

A history of social media - it's not new - there were MUDs and MOOS 20 years ago, but now it's really out of the box . Author looks at" three different dynamics that have been reconfigured as a result of social media."-

Some Turn to Twitter

The Changing Face of Search: Is Google Losing its Grip? by Patricia Skinner, Search Engine People (

Interesting view that "Search is changing at breakneck speed due to the colossal success of certain social media phenomena like Twitter, StumbleUpon and maybe FriendFeed."

Mentions a plugin for Firefox to customize Google Search results for extra information and to block ads.

But the real message is "skillful use of social media". Seems unlikely to me that Twitter at least will be an alternative to searching for anything other than the buzz and friends. Stumbleupon must have a vast collection now but it's not indexing pages - it's a roundabout way to find an answer.

MyLife for Finding People

Reunion.com and Wink tie the knot as MyLife by Caroline McCarthy, Webware (Feb 24)

New look and name to the Wink people-search engine - it's now MyLife - claims over 750 million profiles. You have to join to find yourself or anyone else.

"Back in November, people-search sites Reunion.com and Wink announced that they would be merging, and now it's happened: the sites have rebranded as MyLife, which can search over 60 social-networking sites (over 750 million profiles, the company says) and other information resources on the Web."

Obama Inauguration Live

Mathew Ingram on Obama's inauguration online, Globe and Mail (Jan 15)

Mathew Ingram answered questions about accessing sites that are covering the inauguration of Barack Obama.

He began by explaining why people who are not in the US are often blocked from viewing streamed video from Hulu or Joost. This is generally because a distributor who has paid to broadcast the content would not want it given away on the Web - and so opts to block it.

But, everyone can tap into the Twitter lines. Ingram has many suggestions about Twitter pages / feeds to follow (such as Twitter / inauguration or Obama Inaugural ) and how to search Twitter to pick up conversation.

Another live method to use or view is Cover It Live, a Canadian service that makes it easy to host a live blog showing text, chat, live video. Globe and Mail reporters will be using it on Jan 20 for the inauguration - "We're hoping to have a live-blog/chat going on the day of the inauguration, so that we can talk about it not just with other Globe journalists who are covering the event, but with people who are there and Twittering about it or want to comment."

The Globe and Mail will also have a hub with a variety of content about US Presidential inaugurations. Link given was http://www.theglobeandmail.com/Obamainauguration

For searching for more information or events, Ingram recommends using several key words or finding specialty services (Twitter in this case) -- "include as many unique keywords as you can -- Obama and inauguration and "live stream" for example, or Obama and inauguration and video and streaming, or something like that. That's where Twitter search like search.twitter.com or Twitscoop or Tweetscan can help, because it's a smaller group of people who are already focused on what you're trying to find. "

MORE: Learn more ways to virtually participate from this article in PCWorld -- Obama Inauguration: Be There Without Being There by Mark Sullivan, (Jan 14) -- "These sites and services, used together or separately, will immerse you in the media experience of Obama's inauguration on Tuesday."

Contextual Web

Will Google Help Contextual Web Blossom With Chrome? , by Clint Boulton, EWeek (Jan 7)

So, that's what it is called - Contextual Web - "a world in which technologies sit in, bolt on or plug into the browser or Web site, monitor a Web surfer's activity and make recommendations or draw connections for a user who might otherwise be oblivious to them. "

Surf Canyon,, an add-on to Firefox, does this in adding search-result recommendations to Google, Live and Yahoo.

This article shows that there are many initiatives and new products that do even more.

Alex Iskold, founder and CEO of Adaptive Blue, described the direction he sees:

"Iskold's vision is one of a contextual Web where you as the user can mash up the Web your way and personalize it within the context of your actions. That's why he and his team have created Glue, a Mozilla Firefox add-on that sits in the browser and recognizes books, music, movies, restaurants and other items users search for around the Web."

There are others:

+ "Zemanta, a browser add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer that lets publishers add relevant content to augments their blog posts."

+ "Zentact whose Firefox add-on lets users import e-mail contacts and apply different tags that reflect their interests. Zentact co-browse the Web with users, offering in the browser to contact a person if it deems the page relevant based on the tags"

+ "Lijit, a search technology that lets Web surfers search your blog or Web site, or simply, you in your Web context. The company also makes Re-search, a widget that piggybacks on Google searches to provide additional results. "

+ "Mozilla is arguably the contextual Web king, with efforts such as Ubiquity, which lets nontechnical Web users create mashups"

Of course there is a social element. "Iskold big bet is that the social Web will be where context plays the most in 2009. Services such as Glue will enable contextual social networks within the browser."

Article also speculates on whether (or to what extent), Google will add contextual web extensions to its browser Chrome.

Will contextual web tools live together or will they clash? Interesting times.

Search Social Media

SocialMention -- "Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services."

Digs into many sources

Use the Advanced Search to limit by type of source or even a particular location. Can also use quotation marks to force words together.

Try it for someone you know is very active on the Web or view this search for Stephen Abram.

Yahoo's Open Strategy

Yahoo puts meat on Open Strategy bones by Stephen Shankland, Webware (Dec 15)

For a couple of years, analysts have talked about Yahoo's social aims and strengths. It may be that Yahoo has now truly "flipped the switch" to promote and exploit social connections and online applications.

"The company has been working mostly behind the scenes to build what it calls the Yahoo Open Strategy, but now the strategy's changes will become evident to U.S. users of some of Yahoo's main properties such as Yahoo Mail, My Yahoo, and Yahoo's music and TV sites. In addition, the company will begin previewing a new Yahoo Toolbar later this week. "

Biggest changes are to Yahoo Mail:

"Yahoo Mail, which according to ComScore has about 275 million active users each month, gets some significant changes, with more to come. First is a new welcome page that now spotlights messages from people in a person's Yahoo social network and invitations from others to join their networks. And the in-box page now includes a new "from connections" button that shows e-mail only from those social connections. "

Also,

+ Changes in customizing the home page
+ browser toolbar will show contacts
+ media properties will spotlight ratings or activities by contacts

See another short summary of the changes at Yahoo Enhances Open Strategy: Mail, My Yahoo, Toolbar & More by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec

Mahalo Answers

Mahalo expands human-powered search with paid Answers service by Rafe Needleman, Webware (Dec 15)

Make some money answering questions at Mahalo Answers - but it might not be much more than pin money.

"Jason Calacanis is adding another human-powered angle to the Mahalo curated search page service he launched in May 2007. Mahalo Answers, launching Monday, lets users ask specific questions of the Mahalo audience, and, of course, answer other users' questions as well. The twist on this standard model (see also: Yahoo answers) is financial. "

Turning off Google SearchWiki

Google SearchWiki To Get Off Button, Might Get Used As Ranking Signal by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec 10)

The power of protest --

"TechCrunch has coverage of Google’s Marissa Mayer talk at Le Web conference in Paris, France. In that talk, Mayer said SearchWiki will gain an option to let users turn it off and reiterated statements that Google’s previously made, that SearchWiki data might be used in the future to help rank ordinary search results."

Helping People Ask Questions

Socializing Search By Michelle Manafy, Econtent (Nov 2008)

Highlights about social search from speakers at the Enterprise Search Summit West, held Sept. 23–24 in San Jose, Calif.

Of interest: ""Google Suggest uses a combination of many signals, for example the overall popularity of various searches, to help rank the refinements it offers. As the user types into the search box, we then provide suggestions to the user based on these neutral algorithms to help them formulate the query.""

And, "As IDC VP Sue Feldman put it in the Day 2 keynote, "One of the problems we have with search is that people ask such lousy questions … anytime tools hand people clues, it helps.""

About Social Search

Jeff Quipp of SearchEnginePeople.com was interviewed by Garrett Pierson, Your SEO Mentor.

Jeff Quipp is President and CEO of Search Engine People, based in Toronto. He got into the search industry with Yellow Pages group and later Sympatico, and now through his company Search Engine People is engaged in "paid search, organic search, social media marketing, reputation management".

Quipp sees social search as the key trend today.

"One of the most exciting trends for me in the future of the industry is the concept of social search. That is where the search engines try to understand who your friends are and who are the people you trust, with respect to certain topics. Then, if it can understand what those people would do in that situation, or what they like and dislike, they’ve got a pretty good idea of what you, as an individual would like, just by looking at the people you respect and trust."

He uses social media sites Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon the most - and for very interesting reasons.

"Some of the people I follow StumbleUpon have really unique perspectives and find some really valuable information that maybe otherwise wouldn’t do well on Digg or Reddit. That said, I also find a lot of really interesting information about my interests, particularly science, space, and internet technology on Digg and Reddit. From my perspective, we write a lot of content for clients. A lot of the ideas for that content are spurred by what we find on Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Not only does it serve my personal needs for understanding technology better and understanding what’s going on in the world, but also, from a business perspective, it helps us do our jobs better."

Reminder about Social Search Tools

SearchTogether - a new form of Social Search in AltSearchEngines (Nov 25)

Overview of social search projects: Microsoft Search Together, Google SearchWiki (though limited and controversial), and other search engines where you can vote, rank and comment.

Views on Google SearchWiki

Google’s SearchWiki Struggling Through Its First Week by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Nov 24)

Google's SearchWiki is not going over well. People want to turn it off and there isn't an easy way. Apparently there are instructions at Google Operating System - How to Disable Google SearchWiki

Also Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide by Danny Sullivan

You Rank the Search Results

Google Launches SearchWiki for Customized Search Results by Rob Hof, Business Week (Nov 20)

Succinct account of Google's new Search Wiki with video.

"When you log into your Google account—and you need to have one for this—you can move a search result up using an up arrow button, get rid of a result with an X button, or suggest another listing with an “Add a result” link at the bottom of the search results page. You can also comment on any result, and others can see those comments. Here’s Google’s video demo:"

But user re-ranking of results doesn't affect future or related searches.

Mentions Microsoft's URank - page has examples of how you and friends / colleagues might use this.

Google's SearchWiki

Google SearchWiki brings custom search results by Stephen Shankland, Webware (Nov 20)

If you're logged into your Google account you can use Google's new SearchWiki to adjust the search results - and as you adjust, Google learns what you consider to be relevant.

"Google's SearchWiki is a feature that lets people elevate, delete, add, and annotate search results. Google remembers the changes a person made to search results, so repeat searches will show the same customizations and notes."

There is a notes feature also -- "There's also a collaborative element: people can show the collective wisdom of the masses by clicking a "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link at the bottom of each search results page. That shows notes and how people have promoted or deleted pages in aggregate."

Promising. Could be personalized and social at their best.

Google SearchWiki Preview

Google Rolling Out “SearchWiki”? Move Results Up, Hide Them Or Suggest Your Own by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Oct 29)

A subset of Google searchers will have a chance to raise or lower ranking of a search results. Seems Google is experimenting with this approach for involving users in SearchWiki.

Others are writing about it - SearchWiki: Google Experiments With Customizable Search Results by Frederic Lardinois, Read Write Web (Oct 29). It notes that searchers will be able to add annotations also.

Microsoft is experimenting with this too in URank.

It's all part of social search. It has potential - put what you think are the best result to the top, add notes, save to the searchwiki, and use later.

Headup extends search

Headup: A True Semantic Web Search Agent by Chris Sherman, Search Engine Land (Oct 16)

Headup - Browser add-on that makes recommendations based on what it sees you search and read and what your friends are doing.

"Headup monitors your web activity, and based on what you’re viewing can seamlessly and contextually “understand” how dispersed data across the Web is related to what you’re viewing. Then it provides snippets or links to that information without the need to search for it."

Limited beta.

Postscript: Also Headup finds new connections on Web pages by Bob Walsh, Webware (Oct 17)

Provides another view on what Headup does.

"Headup isn't a search engine; it's more an inference engine that looks for meaningful connections, spurred by what the people in your personal social network have talked about. As an example, I posted at my non-CNET blog yesterday about what Joe the Programmer could learn from Joe the Plumber: Headup found a similar post that was along the same lines; one that Google did not, at least not in the first 100 items found."

Pandia on Social Web

How the Social Web will impact on Web search, Pandia (Oct 7)

The Pandia team presented a paper in a conference in Seville on the social web and how it is changing web search. The paper considered user-generated content, but also mobile computing and face and speech recognition.

Scour Search

Scour interview: The making of a social search engine, Pandia (Sept 16)

Interview with Dan Yomtobian, CEO of Scour, a social search engine.

"Social search is upon us: A new brand of search engines is taking shape right now. "

Delver Reviewed

Delver launches open alpha of its social search engine By Rafe Needleman, Webware (Jul 15)

On using Delver - "a search engine that takes into consideration who your friends are and what they've said and bookmarked in its results"

Yahoo Groups Upgrade

Yahoo plans Groups improvements By Stephen Shankland, Webware (Jul 16)

Improvements planned for Yahoo Groups.

"In the "coming year," Yahoo plans to add many attributes that expand the scope of groups, according to the Yahoo Groups blog on Tuesday. Those features include tools for product reviews, service directories, wanted boards, address books, and event planners.

And upgrades to existing features include: a better system for hosting photos that permits more storage and larger pictures; better message boards; the ability to store e-mail attachments; and the ability to set the site for non-English languages. "

Scour for points

Social Search Engine Scour.com Launches EContent (Jul 15)

"Scour.com launched as a "meta" social search engine, which encourages voting and commentary on search engine query results called from Google, Yahoo! and MSN." Users can vote and comment on search results, and indicate preferred engines. Scour also lets people redeem search points for VISA gift cards.

SearchTogether

SearchTogether: A Tech Preview of Social Search Potential by Greg R. Notess, Newsbreaks (June 23)

This is a must try. Greg Notess describes how to use the social search tool from Microsoft - Search Together .

He sees it as being very useful to the information professional. "We collaborate on searches in person, on the phone, and via a variety of online communication methods. SearchTogether users have a new way to collaborate online. One of the goals described for SearchTogether is that it "also can promote search learning, in which someone with rudimentary search skills can learn how to formulate more effective search queries by working with a person with more expertise.""

Google on Social Search

Google's view: Three trends in social networking By Rafe Needleman, Webware (June 16)

Joe Kraus, Google's director of product management, taked about Google's social-computing efforts. He identified 3 trends

+ having friends help you find something
+ how we share information about ourselves is changing
+ users expect every site to be social

Live QnA

Microsoft Releases "Renaissance" Version Of Live Search QnA by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (May 2)

Imagine calling a QnA service on the Web, renaissance! Live Search has redesigned its QnA. Will people leave Yahoo Answers?

Omgili for social search

Omgili evolves, now spiders social media to answer your questions, Pandia (Apr 22)

Interesting interview with the developers of Omgili . This is now a social seach engine which searches discussion forums as well as Digg, MySpace and other social media sites. It would be good for getting product reviews, and buzz on topics. Can also pick up discussion surrounding Google results through Google@Omgili -- for example this search on Stephen Harper.

Omgili has an algorithm that analyzes the complete thread and calculates the authority of boards.

This is the first social search engine that I've seen that can help us in formulating queries, finding out what others are discussing, get views on products.

Growth in QnA

U.S. Visits to Question and Answer Websites Increased 118 Percent Year-over-Year Hitwise (March 19)

Here's something to ponder: huge growth in use of QnA sites, with Yahoo Answers getting 74 percent of all U.S. visits. This is a drop from 94% last March.

WikiAnswers which is new in the last year received 18.35% of the queries. It strikes me as being better edited and not as much of a free for all. Perhaps others think so too and have been switching from Yahoo Answers.

Regardless, none of these services is going to be able to give the definitive answer. User beware.

+ Yahoo! Answers answers.yahoo.com 74.05%
+ WikiAnswers wiki.answers.com 18.35%
+ Answerbag www.answerbag.com 4.51%
+ Ask MetaFilter ask.metafilter.com 1.80%
+ Askville www.askville.com 0.85%

Microsoft collaborative search tools

Microsoft Shows Off Collaborative Search Tools Nancy Gohring, IDG News via PCWorld (mar 4)

Microsoft is developing tools for collaboration

+ SearchTogether -- "After downloading a small program, a SearchTogether user will see a sidebar in their browser where they can sign in using their Live ID and invite any buddy to join in a collaborative search. A drop-down menu shows collaborations the user might have in progress."

+ CoSearch -- " Using a cell phone connected to the computer via Bluetooth, students can view the page displayed on the computer on their phones and click on a link to open another page on their phones. They can also send search queries from their phones to the PC, and the queries are listed in a queue in a sidebar in the browser on the computer. Then the students can choose which query they want to explore on the shared PC."

Also Microsoft Research Unveils Three New Search Projects in SearchEngineWatch.com (Mar 5)

There is a 3rd project - "Searchbar is an advanced search history tool that operates as a sidebar in a user’s web browser. Users can save searches in order to return to them later and pick up where they left off. SearchBar organizes the searches in a hierarchical tree format. Users can write notes to themselves to remind them of future searches or any other information they wish to remember about their search queries." Sounds useful.

Possibilities for Social Search

Google's Marissa Mayer On Social Search / Search 4.0 Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Jan 31)

Has highlights from an interview VentureBeat did Google's Marissa Mayer "on how the search engine is considering using social data to improve its search results" Sullivan calls this "Search 4.0". Comments also on the experience Eurekster had with social search (not entirely successful).

Delver Works on Social Search

Social Search By Erica Naone, Technology Review (Feb 1)

Delver - "A new website will offer personalized search results based on the user's social network." It connects to the social network, uses the public profile, and builds a network of associated institutions and individuals based on that information. When the user enters a search query, results related to, produced by, or tagged by members of her social network are given priority."

This is still in test - you must register to get on the trial list. This could work if the network was fairly homogenous in its interests such as in a profession, or a workplace - but for the general interest user with a variety of contacts, some of them very distant, this seems iffy to me.

Social Digital Life

The social whirl driving the development of search Jeff Jarvis, The Guardian (Jan 28)

All things social on the Web were discussed at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich. Facebook, for example, will have a new interface to accomodate other languages. Jarvis gives a short (non-evaluative) description of social search - Mahalo, Wikia, Google. Includes an amusing and telling anecdote about Martha Stewart.

Digital Sharecroppers

You say you've never considered the politics of search engines? Seth Finkelstein, Guardian (Jan 24)

Wikia Search, the supposed social search engine, has not been well received by reviewers judging from this article by Finkelstein.

Key paragraph: "Wikia's business is based around the commercial exploitation of, politely, "community", and less politely, the unpaid labour of digital sharecroppers. In the same way Wikipedia is in part built by harnessing popular envy and resentment against the status of academics, Wikia's search project is trying to draw on the fear and doubt stemming from the dominance of Google."

"Digital sharecroppers" indeed. Wikipedia has been a unexpected successful given that it is the work of largely anonymous people with time on their hands and sometimes expertise. I'm not expecting much from Wikia Search - users will have to do too much work to identify and cut through bias and tampering.

47 Social News Sites

47 Social News Websites: A List of General and Niche Social Media Communities Dosh Dosh (Jan 10)

There are over 380 social news sites. This article cuts the list to 47. Many well known services here and a few lesser, more niche or special interest. For example - Hugg.com - "strong focus on environmental issues. Also includes other categories like politics, science, fashion and technology."

"This list is not meant to be comprehensive. It doesn’t include every social news website out there but only the ones which I think has potential for providing you with relevant/fresh news while giving exposure to your ideas, brand or website."

Mahalo is more social

Mahalo Adds More Social Features Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land (Jan 6)

"Mahalo has just launched several new features that entwine the human-powered search engine even further into social networking and online community building. The Mahalo Follow toolbar now enables you to post links to Delicious, Ma.gnolia, Mahalo Social, and Twitter with the click of one button. The sidebar now displays quick tips when you're on sites like Twitter and Gmail. "

Google Reader Goes Social

Google Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Dec 17)

Google is adopting social networking features in connecting the Google Blog Reader with Google Talk (IM) and Gmail. There is a new friends' tab in the Reader where users will be able to view shared items. There is also a facility to create a Google profile - so that people can know something about you as you share things. Sullivan finds some flaws but generally likes the result.

Google Reader, to my mind, has become more complex, and the sharing, while appealing to some, will just add to the load of information to scan..

Improvements at Digg

Thoughts on Digg’s Latest Features: Thumbs Up Tamar Weinberg, techipedia (Dec 17)

Walks through the new features at Digg starting with the options to add pictures or video. Also commented on the taxonomy -- "Digg has finally acknowledged that productivity and lifehack websites deserve a section of their own, so they launched a “Lifestyle” section with its more universal taxonomy."

Yahoo Answers Poor

Yahoo! Answers Gets Slammed in Slate Andrew Albanese & Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 12/14/2007

It's about time people spoke out against Yahoo Answers. I've never understood the attraction - post a question, wait for answers from people with idle time, and take a guess at which one might be right - if any.

"Calling the free Yahoo! Answers a "librarian's worst nightmare," Slate writer Jacob Leibenluft last week raised serious questions about the Web's second-most-visited education/reference site on the Internet (after Wikipedia). "

Mahalo adds more Social Search

Mahalo Adds The Social Graph To Search Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land (Dec 13)

Mahalo moves another step into social by asking people to join and make recommendations, as well as save links and share.

"Mahalo employs 60 full-time editors, 400 paid contributors and 3,000 "Greenhouse" volunteers. This enables them to add around 1,000 new pages a week, but they need a way to find more quality links and gain more insight into what people want pages about. So, they're now handing Tom Sawyer-like paint brushes out to the rest of us and looking to crowdsourcing to help paint the search results fence. Harnessing the wisdom (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of crowds helps them overcome what they feel is currently their greatest hurdle: adding and updating pages."

See How to Use Mahalo Social.

Eluma for Managing Stuff

Eluma: Merging Personal Productivity with Social Search Enterprise Search (Nov 27)

Eluma, if this press release is correct, may make social search easier, enabling us to organizing materials from the Web and then to share with trusted others. It aims to be comprehensive taking in feeds, bookmarks, notes, videos etc. This is available to those who apply to use the private beta version.

"Eluma is an end-user desktop application that allows users to collect and share online content. Similar to del.icio.us, a tool that stores bookmarks, Eluma users can create and share collections of web content with customer communities. Unlike del.icio.us, however, Eluma users' collections go beyond bookmarks to include RSS feeds, Flash content, podcasts, and video."

Sharing Books

Top 5 social web sites for book lovers, Pandia (Nov 10)

"In choosing a site for social networking, the number of active users is of great importance. Amazon is in a league of its own, being one of the most visited sites on the net.

But traffic is not the only consideration. Use of ease, advanced functionality and networking options are also important. Read on to learn about my top 5 social web sites for book lovers."

Library Thing of course, but don't ignore Amazon, remember Book Crossing, and try Shelfari and Goodreads.

Collaborative Search

Global Collaborative Search: Watch This Space" By Judith Koren, Freepint (Nov 8)

"Truly global collaborative search - both international and universal in reach - would be a way for all information professionals world- wide, whether employed or independent, to discuss and help out with the search needs of others. For our clients, end-users world-wide, it would be a way to have access to advice, help with searches, and, if they wanted, the paid services of any information professional. It would involve a place where end-users and info-people could meet and interact; and also where sub-groups could meet, such as info-people discussing search questions between themselves. How close are we to this concept of global collaborative search?"

But we're nowhere near that. To get there Judith Koren proposes a "Web-based GCS community". Follow her Research Trail blog.

Meet Others Through Hakia

Social Networking Through Search: Hakia Helps You Meet Others by Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land (Oct 31)

Hakia , the meaning-based search engine, has added a social component with Meet Others which helps you meet people who are searching for what you are. Enter your query and view results. Then click on link to "Meet others who asked the same query". Create a new room for your query or get involved with other rooms.

"Today, with Meet Others, they hope to add a social networking component to search. The feature is entirely opt in. Once you do a search on Hakia, you'll see a Meet Others icon above the search results. Click that to access a room designed for those doing similar searches. You can post a message and then provide details about how you want to be contacted (masked email or instant messaging via MSN or Skype). You can also contact others who have posted messages to the room. The freshest and most highly rated posts stay in the room longest. Older and less popular posts fall off as searchers make new posts. Hakia says they monitor abuse and have safeguards in place for spam (for instance, your post is authenticated through email)."

StumbleUpon Does More

StumbleUpon's 'Social Search' Upgrade Catherine Holahan, Business Week (Oct 23)

"StumbleUpon, maker of a Web browser toolbar that directs users to sites recommended by others, is offering a new version that runs alongside the major search engines. The goal is to combine the speed and authority of Google, Yahoo! Search, or Microsoft (MSFT) Live Search with the opinions of a community—and of one's friends and acquaintances within that network."

This is what it looks like in a Yahoo search.

More: StumbleUpon's Toolbar Adds More Search Engines by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Oct 23)

The toolbar will enhance search results at Google, Yahoo, Windows Live search, AOL, Ask.com, Google News, Yahoo News, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube.

Facebook, MySpace, Google

Facebook Catch-Up: MySpace Confirms Developer Platform by Erik Arnold, Newsbreaks (Oct 22)

Facebook made a giant leap when it opened its platform to other developers. MySpace is now doing the same. What is Google doing? It allows developers access to its technology through APIs. It also has quite a few "social" functions - Notebook comes to mind.

The article makes an important distinction -- "It is an important distinction to recognize that Google’s APIs are a platform for developing any type of Web application to run anywhere. The Facebook and MySpace platforms allow developers to create widgets for their users to use in their networks. So, it is now possible to create Google applications that run in Facebook (and soon in MySpace)."

Meet Others at Hakia

Hakia launching new spin on social searching Rafe Needleman, News.com (Oct 18)

"Up-and-coming semantic search company Hakia is launching a new social feature next week, called "Meet Others." It will give you the option, from a search results page, to jump to a page on the service where everyone who searches for the topic can communicate."

Serendipity do dah

A Way to Find Your Corner of the Internet Sky Miguel Helft, New York Times (Oct 7)

All about Stumbleupon -- "Web discovery, or search without a query, is still a niche activity, but StumbleUpon’s growth to 3.5 million registered users from 600,000 two years ago suggests it is on a path to becoming more mainstream."

What it does: "StumbleUpon has about 12 million sites in its database ... compiled by users of the service. You can influence that collection by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to any Web site. The service uses that information — and similar data gathered from the 7.5 million “stumbles” its users perform each day — to keep refining what may be interesting to individual users, based on their shared interests and other characteristics."

Owned by EBay.

Does make money. "STUMBLEUPON makes money by charging Web sites that want to be included in its database or want to be shown to users more often." but only 1 in 25 stumbles seem to be a sponsored link and users can give it a thumbs down.

Social search at a site

Social Search: It’s Not Who You Know… by David Berkowitz, Search Insider (Posted September 25th, 2007 )

"Social search should be defined as the process by which a site's community of users influences the algorithmic search results displayed for any one of those users." Gives as examples the Swicki product from Eurekster, and Collarity.

Has a helpful list of things social search isn't: people search engines, live assisted search, human-powered search such as Mahalo (tho Mahalo would be better described as a subject guide).

Notwithstanding this article, "social search" will be a catch all term for some time.

New Ways to Search

SOCIAL SEARCH GUIDE: 40+ Social Search Engines, Mashable.com (Aug 27)

Some very interesting bits here - there is a Facebook application for sharing Google search results

Social search engines are categorized as people-powered or people-search.

There are some familiar names here for people-powered: Mahalo, PreFound, Sproose - where people select, comment, and rate (rating on Sproose).

Zudos is another type of engine. It searches content people have created in the Web 2.0 world of blogs, podcasts, photos, bookmarks, videos. It's quite impressive in what can be discovered through what other people have saved. Search for a name - eg Stephen Abram, or a topic - eg enterprise social networking. You still need to know enough about the query to pick out the relevant results, but what you can find is astonishing.

The people-search engines look for people on networks - blogs, social bookmarking, social networking sites and other popular hang-out places.

For background listen to this podcast I found though Zudos on Information Literacy in the Digital Age (Aug 29) from Educause.

All in all - this is an excellent list for seeing the results of the wide adoption of being on the Web. This is a whole new world of search.

Searchles Adds Features

Searchles Tries to Bridge the Gap Between Social Search and Social Networking by Bill Hartzer (Jun 20)

Describes new features at Searchles - a social networking / bookmarking center.

"Searchles, the scaleable “social search” platform that lets you search by expertise and allows you to collaborate with your peers, has added new features. These new features allow you to strengthen your connections With Others based on “common or conflicting interests.”"

This is probably useful to people who join as a group and want to share resources. I don't know that it is helpful for the solo person.

Implicit Personalization at work

Collarity: Anonymous Implicit Actions Speak “Truer” than Words, Collarity blog (May 8)

"We share a common philosophy with Greg Linden (founder of Findory and formerly a key developer with Amazon) regarding the advantage of implicit vs. explicit personalization and search mechanics. We both believe that a more accurate picture of a person’s interests and preferences can be developed from their implicit online behavior vs. any information they may decide to explicitly provide themselves."

Squidoo

Q&A With Seth Godin, Founder & CEO Of Social Search Service Squidoo by Chris Sherman, Search engine land (May 23)

Comparing Squidoo to other user-built sites:

"Q: You describe Squidoo as "1) thousands of people creating a handbuilt catalog of the best stuff online 2) a free and fun way to make your own page and get traffic 3) a place to find what you're looking for, fast. How does Squidoo differ from other community-built sites, like About.com, Wikipedia or others?

Wikipedia has one voice. Every contributor is anonymous. About.com has a few hundred voices, and only page on a topic. We're a cross between the two, but we add in 65,000 people building the lenses... so you can find the people who you trust, the judgment that you rely on, and getting something more focused and up to date than about.com."

Changes in mission statements: "Q: Yahoo just changed its mission statement—it's now "To connect people to their passions, communities, and the world’s knowledge." Microsoft's mission is much vaguer: "At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential." Do you think the two companies would make a good fit?"

Same old problems in social search

Social search and the same old problems, Greg Linden, Geeking with Greg (Apr 24)

Exactly so - activities of individuals in tagging will not necessarily improve search. Individuals had already been involved with web pages and links with anchor text. There is still the problem of authortity, quality, and manipulation - maybe more so.

"But the problem remains the same. What information is useful? What is the reliability of that information? And, as slide 14 [referring to a presentation by Yahoo Researcher Prabhakar Raghavan ] suggests, trying to solve these problems in social search probably looks similar to solving them in traditional search, mostly involving propagating usefulness and trust along the associations and links between the pieces of data.

Popurls.com

Tracking Web Buzz by Jonathan Dube, Poynter ONline (Apr 17)

Use popurls.com to get a good sense of what is on people's minds in a day. It collects entries from many of the social bookmarking and citizen media sites.

Would be nice if we could have country versions of this.

Encomium to social search

The Impending Social Search Inflection Point by Arnaud Fischer, Searchengineland (Apr 3)

Encomium to social search - "human judgement", "wisdom of crowds", humanity as "one giant brain".

Odd - but the human effort that was invested in directories is not considered social enough. It's now "discovery search" through other people's tags.

"Discovery browsing is entering a whole new navigation paradigm exemplified by companies like StumbleUpon. The traditional linear directory navigation model is broken."

A big part of the change is due to the growing number of "content-generating users".

"Search is the Internet OS connecting disjointed pieces of data hosted in totally different places and creating incremental knowledge value. Search is the Internet OS bridging communities and enabling content experiences."

Yikes. It's time to tone down the hype.

Yahoo Social Answers

Yahoo Tests Social Network Component for Answers by Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service via PCWorld (Mar 8)

"On Thursday, Yahoo Answers Network debuted as a beta service designed to let the 90 million users of this question-and-answer search engine create "personal networks" with each other. They can also invite acquaintances who don't use Yahoo Answers to join their network."

Details at Yahoo Blog.

Celebs on Yahoo Answers

John McCain and Hillary Clinton post on Yahoo Answers, SEW blog (Mar 1)

Really! "The presidential candidates join a list of more than 70 prominent figures that include Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Stephen Hawking, Al Gore, Bono, and Donald Trump who have posted questions around globally-pressing issues for the collective knowledge of the Yahoo Answers community to help solve. They see Yahoo's audience as a great way to build awareness for the causes that matter to them most."

Sproose up Experts

Sproose to show 'subject expert' information in search results, SEW Blog (Feb 21)

Sproose will encourage subject experts to set up wiki pages for their speciality and then present these in search results.

""The subject expert will be able to have a Wiki-style page of information based on the topic or keyword." explains Bob. "That person will become a subject expert for that keyword or topic. Others will be able to join, write and edit about that keyword or topic. That information will be tied into web keyword search.""

Answers through Jyve

New Search Engine Provides Live Expert Answers - Jyve today launched a new search site that links users directly with people who can answer their questions. - Heather Havenstein, Computerworld via PCWorld (Feb 20)

Jyve has been around for a while. It started a plug-in for Skype (Internet phone). TechCrunch had an article with screen shot in Aug 2005 - Jyve .

Now it's a answer service using IM and Internet phone (the Skype connection) where live "experts" help out. Browse the list of experts and topics to pick the one who might be best able to help - and ask away. You gain points as you use and participate.

Swicki customized learning search

New Eurekster Features Dramatically Enhance Search Results Through User Collaboration and Participation, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Feb 13)

"Collaborative "Social" search is taking a giant leap forward as Eurekster, Inc., a pioneer and leader in community-driven, social search and monetization, taps further into the collective intelligence of millions of online users. Eurekster is releasing a set of enhancements to their Swicki customized learning search engine that increase the ease and number of ways users can participate in online search, generating added value for publishers as well as for their audience communities."

Eurekster Swicki shows you how to add a swicki, and has a Swicki Directory for finding sites with swickis that match your interests.

Sproose for News

Sproose - A Social Search Engine, Search Engine Land (Feb 12)

Oh groan - Sproose - another social search engine - means you have to register and build a network. Phil Bradley says it is "...well laid out, there's thought behind it and it's certainly deserving of the 'social search engine' tag." OK

From the press release: "Sproose, Inc., a recently launched social search engine today announced that it has added more than 25,000 news sources to it’s [sic] index database and is now delivering real-time current news for users. “We have the ability to deliver over 250 thousand article per day, says Bob Pack, CEO of Sproose.” The news database is updated every 15 minutes to ensure that users receive timely news."

But it also searches news and video and keeps track of popular tags.

Seriously, how many social search, social networking services, social bookmarking services can a person subscribe to and stay sane?

Searchles for Social Search

Social Search Platform Searchles(R) Launches Site Enhancements and Secures Additional Angel Funding to Accelerate Growth, PR Newswire via Marketwatch (Feb 8)

"Searchles(R) ( http://www.searchles.com) -- the intelligent social search platform that gets smarter every time you use it -- today unveiled a series of group management and collaboration features that give users even more control over discovery and interactions. "

Searchles is interesting. As the about page says - "The platform is a hybrid, combining aspects of "social bookmarking" and "social networking" technology with analytical "social search" capability." It grew out of Dumbfind, an engine that will "tag" pages with terms to make it easier for you to find them.

Anyone can search; but members can post items, form networks, and share.

A search on emissions united nations shows a mix of items posted by members and news stories, both types with tags. Can make more connections through the tag cloud, related people, and related groups.

It's very attractive and could challenge del.icio.us.

Trends in Search

A Look at the Next Generation of Search? by Kevin Newcomb, Searchday (Feb 1)

Always On Media Conference had a session on "next generation search" featuring Collarity, Eurekster, Mercora, Nexidia, and ZoomInfo. Dominant theme seems to have been social - Eurekster has collaborative elements and Collarity and Mercora are social. As well there is the continuing challenge to index text in audio and video (Nexidia), and organizing and mining unstructured text (Zoominfo).

+ "Eurekster's platform is based on the idea of Swickis, which combine the power of a search algorithm with the collaboration of a wiki. "

+ "Mercora is a "social radio" network which enables users to become DJs and create their own user-programmed radio channel."

+ "Nexidia offers a tool to index spoken-word content, using technology developed at Georgia Tech University. It analyzes an audio or video track to create a "phonetic audio track"."

+ "ZoomInfo is a business people search engine that this week added "Powersearch 2007," which uses semantic technology to build a database of information about businesses and business professionals."

+ "Collarity offers a social search tool for communities, called the Collarity Compass. It uses collective searcher behavior on a given publisher's site to customize search results made from that site, both site search and Web search."

Social Media

Forget ABCs - The Social Media Alphabet Is DNRS, Neil Patel, Searchengineland - Let's Get Social (Jan 23)

Get to know the better tools for social media - "But how many know the important letters of the social media alphabet, D for Digg; N for Netscape; R for Reddit and S for StumbleUpon?"

Where's Newsvine?

Diigo Social Annotation

Diigo Unveils Innovative 'Social Annotation' Service for the Web, BetaNews - press release (Aug 3, 2006)

"Diigo's Social Annotation service seamlessly integrates Web Highlighter, Sticky-Note, Clipping, Social Bookmarking, and Advance Search, into a powerful personal tool and a rich social platform, and in the process, turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media. The service is free and is available at http://www.diigo.com ."

Question Answering Services

Google Shutters Its Answers Service by Tara Calishain, Newsbreaks (Dec 4)

Comprehensive review of the ask-and-answer-question scene of the many that have failed, of the current successes - specifically Yahoo, of the position of "ask the librarian", and "ask the expert". All in all, why did Google close its answers service? Might it be because people really don't want to pay for answers?

Calishain speculates - "On the other hand, the rise of blogging and person-to-person communication might mean that niche ask-an-expert sites set up by individuals or small groups might be the next generation of answer services, with the person-based services offered by librarians taking the credibility vanguard."

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."

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.

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?

Answer Centres

Dropping knowledge: question-and-answer sites By Elsa Wenzel, CNet (September 1, 2006)

"Online social search services Yahoo Answers, Answerbag, and Windows Live QnA connect you with a community of knowledge seekers and experts on all kinds of matters."

Has a chart that compares the three.

Another Set of Answers

InsiderPages' 'Answers', SEW Blog (Aug 29)

"InsiderPages, one of the top "social directory" sites, has launched its equivalent of Yahoo!'s Answers: "Insider Advice." It's only available to members but allows people to ask open-ended questions of the community."

Limited to insiders in the United States.

A Swicki at Forbes

Forbes.com Goes Swicki with Eurekster, Online Marketing Blog (Aug 23)

"Eurekster has announced today that their social search product, SwickiPublisher, will be used to create a new vertical search engine feature on the Forbes.com home page via a tab called “Web” and on the search results pages."

Popular Science has one of the better known swickis - a search engine customized to a subject or interest, where the focus can be further refined through the searches done by the user community.

See the Eurekster swicki faq.

LIbrary-Based Virtual Reference

ABCNews.com On Yahoo Answers BUT No Mention of Library-Based Virtual Reference Services - Gary Price reminds us that there are library virtual reference services that will be much better than Yahoo Answers. But he doesn't mention that those services may seem stuffy and restrictive compared to the romper room freeforall style of Yahoo Answers.

Ask-A-Person Search

Web Searches Go Low-Tech: You Ask, a Person Answers by Yuri Noguchi, Washington Post (Aug 16)

Yahoo's vice president for search products. Eckart Walther, sees Yahoo Answers - people getting answers from volunteers - "as the next generation of search" and considers it "a kind of collective brain -- a searchable database of everything everyone knows".

Yahoo Answers, Prefound, Google Co-op and Google Answers, Prefound - all are examples of a new model of community and social networks. "The new model depends more on the availability of people offering tailored recommendations -- an approach that will make searching for information online a more interactive, personalized and opinionated process, proponents say."

But how reliable and authoritative are they? How often would Walthern turn to Yahoo Answers for important questions? If social search is ever going to be something professionals turn to, there will have to be more screening, and more vetting. I'd like to see public libraries create web centres for asking and answering - and build a social network assisted by information professionals.

Social Search Primer

Chris Sherman has written two more articles about social search (Aug 15 and 16) --

+ What's the Big Deal With Social Search? - quick review of the "history of human mediated search efforts" and then turns to the flaws in the current form of social search - tagging.

+ Who's Who in Social Search - shared online bookmark services, collaborative directories (including Prefound), tag engines, personalized verticals (like Rollyo), social question and answer sites, and "collaborative harvesters" (people tag the sites and others vote).

Searching with Strangers

Finding your search buddies by John Battelle (Aug 3) -- OthersOnline is a new social search service to help connect you with others online who appear interested in the same search or site. Hmmm - wonder what this will lead to?

Social Search Overview

Social Search Overview: Yahoo!, Windows Live & Eurekster, Search Engine Roundtable (Aug 7) - report from a session at the Search Engines Strategies 2006 conference moderated by Chris Sherman on social search. It's quite an overview of the growth, the types, and the limitations. Speakers from Eurekster, Windows Live and Yahoo weighed in on what they are doing.

Yahoo announced Yahoo Search Builder which individuals can use to add a personal search engine to a web site to search that site, the Web (through site searches at Yahoo), or Yahoo news. There is some resemblance to Rollyo without the social aspect of a directory to user-created combinations.