Author
[email protected] [email protected]
Date published
June 28, 2006
Categories
Today’s search podcast covers Digg’s relaunch taking it beyond technology
news, FeedBurner’s ad plans; Google’s challenge in enterprise search; Google
Earth and real-time tracking, funny Yahoo videos, Google water and more!
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Below are links to items discussed:
- Social
News Site Digg Adds New Categories, Features
Sites that rely on user generated content are all the rage these days, from
online encyclopedia Wikipedia to social bookmark sites like Del.ico.us. Digg
relies on its 300,000 users to suggest important news stories from sites all
over the web, and promotes those that get the most “diggs” (votes) to its
front pages, providing a collective view of what web users think are the most
important stories of the moment. Earlier this week the site rolled out new
subject areas and tools that make it easier to drill down on the types of news
that interests you personally and ignore…
FeedBurner CEO, Dick Costolo, Interviewed By Business 2.0 Magazine
CNN Money has an Business 2.0 interview with Dick Costolo, FeedBurner’s CEO.
The article discusses the challenge FeedBurner had raising capital for such a
new technology, RSS. It also discusses their recent success and future
challenges (RSS ads, Google, etc.). Read the article named Redefining the RSS
feed….
- ‘Point
and Search’ on Japanese Cellphones
The NY Times covers “Point and Click” mobile local search in Japan on
GPS-enabled mobile phones using technology from American firm GeoVector. I
wrote about GeoVector’s technology and the very different user paradigm it
represents earlier this year. Beyond the intriguing possibilities of tying
together the mobile and physical worlds, there are two things that are quite
interesting about the technology and use case: 1) it accommodates the current
limitations of cellphones and 2) it’s more “passive” than other forms of
mobile local search. In other words, the input mechanism is more like taking a
picture than “triple tapping.”…
- Google
Not The Leader In Enterprise Search
Google is synonymous with “search,” everyone knows that, some people hate it
and some people love it. An Investors Business Daily article reviews
enterprise search and Google’s role in that niche. The article explains
“enterprise search is a different animal from Web search,” that linkage data
is not “aren’t ideal for helping people find specific data on large private
networks.” So who are the other players the article mentions? Autonomy, Fast
Search & Transfer, IBM’s OmniFind, Endeca, and upcoming rival Oracle’s Secure
Enterprise Search 10g….
- Dell To
Use Google Earth To Provide Enhanced Tech Support
The Detroit News reports that Dell is going to use Google Earth as a tool to
enhanced their technical support services. The new tech support service, to be
released today, is named “Platinum Plus.” Platinum Plus subscribers will be
given access to “Google Earth Pro to see in real-time how the Round Rock
company is responding to technical support issues around the globe.” Dell and
Google have some recent past positive relationships this just adds to that
list….
- Switching To The
Nintendo DS Lite For Me & The Kids
- David
Beach Leaves Yahoo For Start Up Wink
Brian Smith notes that the senior product manager of Yahoo Shopping Search,
David Beach, has decided to leave Yahoo after five years. Beach confirmed his
departure from Yahoo on his blog, stating that Yahoo could not provide “the
kind of opportunity that Wink is providing.” Wink, a social search engine,
“analyzes tags and submissions from Digg, Furl, Slashdot, Yahoo MyWeb, and
other services, plus user-imported tags from del.icio.us, and favorites marked
at Wink, and figure out which pages are most relevant through our TagRank ™
algorithms.” Should be a fun move for Beach….
- New
Search Patent Applications: June 27, 2006 – Searching Amongst Malicious Web
Sites
Microsoft’s patent applications from the end of last week include ways for
search engines to scan malicious web sites, clustering queries for more
relevant searches, and extracting feature and formatting information from
pages. IBM introduces a new query dependent page ranking algorithm, and a way
to preload the URLs of a site into your history file before you’ve ever
visited. Xerox searches for more meaningful snippets, Alcatel takes the PC out
of search, and replaces it with TV, and British Telecommunications describes a
way to make user profiles more helpful in returning search results….
Microsoft Demographics Prediction Tool Interactive Review
We posted about Microsoft Center Labs once again, but this time I wanted to
show you, my eight-minute review of the demographics prediction tool at the
lab. I created a movie of my running through the tool and uploaded it to
YouTube. Now, before you watch the video, keep in mind that the percentages I
discussed in the video may be determined as a “confidence” ratio and not a
simple flat percentage — you will see what I mean. In any case, there is no
way that google.com has predominantly a female audience, with a confidence
ratio of 1.00 and…
- Some
Funny & Crazy Yahoo Videos On YouTube
Loren Baker posted some of the funniest and craziest videos he found on
YouTube related to Yahoo. If you have time to only watch one video, I
recommend watching the first one. Pretty funny stuff. Other videos include,
Tom Cruise’s Yahoo visit, David Filo and Jerry Yang commercial, “Yahoo Cubicle
Craziness,” and some others. Check them out at Search Engine Journal….
- Marine
Selling “Google Water” For Military Families Charity
Boing Boing links to a Marine who just got back from Iraq. The Marine posted
on his blog that he began selling “Google Water” on auction to raise money for
The Fisher House, an organization that helps military families in need. Google
and eBay shut down his auction, “due to copyright violations,” but he still
has some left over Google Water. He is looking to sell them for a bottle for
$500 and give that money to the Fisher House….