June 28, 2007

Testing the Kid-Friendly Search Engines

Are kid-friendly search engines worth using, or are they better served by the major engines? Debby Richman put them to the test, comparing them in categories like visual appeal to a child; relevance to a child; commercial vs. educational results; and ease of navigation for 7-10 year olds.

See how the kid-friendly engines stacked up against the majors in today's SearchDay, Savvy Little Searchers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:15 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2007

It's Elementary, My Dear Watson™

Earlier today, Intellext™ and AOL announced the launch of the AOL@SCHOOL desktop sidebar, designed to help K-12 elementary school students with their homework, but without having to search the open Web for the answers. Instead, this smart application proactively returns relevant content from hand selected educational resources related to the topic the student is working on - whether it be online, in a word processing or other desktop application. Students can also actively use the sidebar for deeper research into their homework topic.

The desktop sidebar was created using Intellext's next-generation Watson™ contextual search technology in conjunction with AOL@SCHOOL's search engine. Students can have the sidebar installed for free at school or home, and the tool can interpret the topic the student is working on and automatically find safe, age-appropriate and relevant search results from AOL@SCHOOL's collection of the best K-12 education content on the Web.

In a conversation with Dr. Jay Budzik, co-creator of Watson™, he noted the partnership has been a terrific opportunity to private label the contextually relevant search technology. By using a content publisher of high-quality educational resources such as AOL@SCHOOL, they have created an engaging learning environment while ensuring safe search for kids, presenting results without commercialization.

“This software will transform the way that students do their homework,” added Mark Stevens, AOL's Education Director and General Manager, added “At AOL@SCHOOL, we are dedicated to making learning fun and engaging while keeping kids safe as they surf the Web.”

While librarians may argue that students need the process of research to learn, today's educators are growing increasingly frustrated that traditional online search tools are not able to return the most relevant or safest results, and see this tool as a more efficient research tool for students. Since the tool proactively returns matching topics as the students get deeper into their work, they are exposed to related concepts they may not have discovered by researching on their own. The student then can dig deeper into the new materials and learn more actively. Product research showed the relevant content returned in the sidebar gets used in a different manner by students, and more frequently, added Budzik.

You can learn more about the tool and download the AOL@SCHOOL sidebar here.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 5:12 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2006

InfoSpace Launches Kid-Friendly Search Engine Zoo.com

InfoSpace has launched kid-friendly search engine Zoo.com, which provides web and news search. Intentionally there is no image search at launch. The content comes from Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia with news content from ABC News, Fox News and Yahoo News. Zoo.com uses several methods to screen out adult sites and phrases and doesn't generate results for some queries. For example, a search for "sex" yields zero results.

InfoSpace said it developed the Safari-themed site after conducting considerable research and user testing. Zoo.com is aimed at "tweens" (8 to 13 year olds) who, according to the company, who use the Internet extensively for homework. In research with kids, InfoSpace found that almost half of tweens rely on the Internet as their top information source vs. 29% who use libraries as their number one source.

Ironically, if you do a search for "Kid Friendly Search" on Google, the top sponsored link is for "Adult Friend Finder." Similarly if you conduct a search for pop-singer "Madonna" on Windows Live image search, you'll find what many parents might consider inappropriate content, including nudity and images from her "Sex" book. That's equally true on Yahoo image search. Accordingly, it's very easy for kids to stumble upon adult content without looking for it. And many parents either don't or don't know how to change the porn filters on search engines.

Zoo.com doesn't have any banner advertising but there are commercial links interwoven among the general, organic results. Rod Diefendorf, vice president of local and online search for InfoSpace, explained this approach by saying that paid search results are often equally if not more relevant than organic results, depending on the query.

Zoo.com "competitors" include Yahoo's Yahooligans, AOL's Studdy Buddy and Ask's Ask for Kids. There's also KidsClick!, which is by librarians.

Here's Danny's previous roundup of kid-oriented search engines and porn filtering. There are many more sites is his piece than I've covered above.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:33 AM | Permalink

January 22, 2006

Full Text Reports from the Congressional Research Service on Internet Privacy, Net Technology, and Protecting Children from "Unsuitable Material"

If you're interested in researching and learning more about U.S. Federal legislation (and related issues) dealing with Internet privacy, Internet technology, and the protection of children from "unsuitable material on the web," here are a few research reports from the non-partisan and highly respected Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress.

I've done my best to offer links to the most current versions of these reports. However, please realize that many of these reports are updated frequently. So, it's best to check sources like Open CRS (and aggregator of web accessible CRS content), IPMall, and a collection from the University of North Texas Library, to make sure you're accessing the most current version of each report.

+ Internet: An Overview of Key Technology Policy Issues Affecting Its Use and Growth Updated: December 20, 2005 PDF; 51 pages The report includes a couple of pages on Internet privacy issues and protecting children.

+ Internet: Status Report on Legislative Attempts to Protect Children from Unsuitable Material on the Web Updated: December 16, 2005 PDF; 6 pages

+ Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation Updated: October 19, 2005 PDF; 6 pages

+ Constitutionality of Requiring Sexually Explicit Material on the Internet to be Under a Separate Domain Name PDF; 11 pages Updated: January 6, 2006

+ Personal Data Security Breaches: Context and Incident Summaries PDF; 32 pages Updated: December 16, 2005

Our coverage of the "subpeona" story includes the post: Bush Administration Demands Search Data; Google Says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo Said Yes, where Danny offers a complete and detailed review of what's been happening. Another blog post: Court Documents & Summary Of United States Versus Google Over Search Data, includes links to the actual court filings, a detailed synopsis of what they contain, and a link to the current court docket.

More Reports?

In the first blog post listed above, Danny points to this post where we link to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in June. From our blog post, "...it measured how often children might encounter porn through image search. To do the assessment, no subpoenas were required."

Posted by Gary Price at 1:53 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2005

Don't Overlook Human Edited Directories

Using a search engine to find information on the web is virtually reflexive for most of us these days. We tend to forget that search engines aren't always the best information finding tool. Indeed, some of the oldest human-edited directories are still around today, and often help turn up information we might not easily surface otherwise. Guest writer Mary Ellen Bates revisits two of the best web directories in today's SearchDay article, A Pair of Web Pathfinding Gems.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:43 PM | Permalink

September 9, 2005

How To Get "Unsafe" Results At Google & Yahoo

Google UnSafeSearch and Yahoo UnSafeSearch are ways billed to find content that both search engines DO NOT consider safe for family-friendly viewing. They work by doing a search with filtering options at both search engines switched on and off. It then compares the results and shows you whatever was being filtered out. The result is to give you only stuff deemed "unsafe." Unsafe Search Results is a similar service.

Why might you use these other than to find unsafe content? I came across them via Tara over at ResearchBuzz, who notes in Unsafe Searching on Google that this can be a way to see if the filters are slipping, censoring content that might not really be unsafe.

She suggests trying a site search for your own site, to see all your pages that might be accidentally filtered, such as some of these pages in a check on Amnesty International. The only problem is, you won't be shown all your pages. You'll only be shown all the pages from the first 100 results that are checked. You could have more pages being filtered, if you were able to drill deeper.

Need to know more about enabling such filters if you want them, bearing in mind that they aren't perfect? Our Kids Search Engines page has tips and information.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 PM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Dig A Hole Through Earth Via Google Maps

Awesome! The next time one of my kids asks what would happen if they dug down through the earth -- at least where would they come up at -- I've got the answer. Spotted via Google Blogoscoped, If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop? lets you click anywhere on a world map via Google. A little note will pop-up saying "Dig Here." Click on the link, and you'll see where you come up.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:22 AM | Permalink

March 29, 2005

LookSmart Launches Five New Verticals

Search verticals are hot so LookSmart launched five new vertical sites today aimed at different user groups. Each offers access to FindArticles material along with a interface to search the LookSmart web index.

+ Teenja (For Teens) + GradeWinner (For Tweens) + 24Hourscholar (For the College Student) + ParentSurf (For Parents) + GoBelle.com (For Moms on the Go) I guess if you're a mom (who's on the go) and is also a college student, you could use three of these sites. (-:

Each vertical lists a human editor who selects articles from the FindArticles. However, I was unable to find what criteria these editors use to determine what is and isn't material worthy of inclusion into each vertical.

I wondered if results from the LookSmart web index would be targeted for each user group. I ran the same web search at 24hrscholar and Teenja and got the same results. Finally, I found adult material at Teenja and GradeWinner but was unable to find any type of filter to remove (or try to remove) adult content. This could make use of these sites in the K-12 community an issue.

More about the new LookSmart verticals in this news release. Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.

I've said many times before that it's really sad when students and the general public for that matter don't know that thousands of public libraries offer full text and free access to thousands of sources (newspapers, magazines, full text reference books that are accessible with a library card WITHOUT having to visit the library.

Here's an idea of what I'm talking about from a library in my area. Wow! Again, every library offers different services but overall, this is high quality material including many tools aimed at students. Of course, all universities also provide access to many full text databases and reference tools accessible from dorm, home, office, etc.

For more on free library databases, take a look at this SearchDay article.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:30 PM | Permalink

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