SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

December 20, 2007

IBM introduces free smart email search software

While search engines still can't help you find your missing car keys, prescription glasses or remote control, IBM Research has invented a “smart” email search solution that can figure out what you are trying to find, even when you aren't so sure yourself.

And now, IBM is letting the rest of us get our hands on their secret decoder ring by making IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search (IOPES) for Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook available at no charge on alphaWorks.

IOPES is powered by advanced algorithms that can interpret incomplete queries and find information such as phone numbers, people, meetings, presentations, documents, images and more. The “smart” search software can help people find information buried in the vast personal database that e-mail has become by identifying the most relevant information in a search query and extrapolating what the user is trying to find.

Common concepts built into the system enable users to quickly locate, for example, a person's telephone number, even if the words “telephone” and “number” aren't in the text of the email. And it's also easy to define more complex concepts – such as meeting requests and specific locations – on the fly because the technology returns more relevant results than simple keyword search can.

Okay, so the name IOPES doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as iPhone. And I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how IBM OmniFind Personal Email Search compares to Google Desktop Search or Desktop Search from Yahoo! and X1.

But I have to admit that it's nice to see Lotus Notes mentioned in an announcement. I guess that I should disclose that I was the director of corporate communications for Lotus when we first publicly discussed Notes at the 1988 PC Forum. But I haven't had a business or financial relationship with Lotus in close to 20 years.

I think I still have an old satin jacket with Lotus Week on the back. I wonder if IOPES can help me find it.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 1:01 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2007

ChaCha Gets Big Boost in Funding in 2006

Lee Odden reported at Online Marketing Blog today that "Assisted-Search" provider ChaCha was funded with $6 Million in private funding organized by Bezos Expeditions in 2006. This story was also covered by Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land.

ChaCha has been the subject of an ongoing spirited discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums. This has raised some interesting questions about the differences in search sophistication levels, and the availability of useful systems that can provide novice searchers with real-time human assistance not driven by marketing dollars and possible spyware incentives.

When ChaCha was first introduced to the forum, the initial response from Moderator David Wallace was something the majority of experienced searchers probably first felt when they learned of the system: why would someone want to wait while someone else searches for them when search engines can deliver results in nano seconds?

In fact, I also made a comment suggesting that maybe the product would be good for an older demographic, and that I would probably never use it. The idea that search engines could be better if someone was there to help find the answers may seem foreign to many that read online publications such as this one and the two mentioned in the introduction. We are all well beyond needing help searching, right?

Others have spoken of the disparity between expert and casual searchers. It exists within users of advanced Business Intelligence systems, as Google's BI expert Matt Glotzbach points out: BI systems contain much valuable information about a company's process, workflow, etc., but that information is untapped by the average employee. If you look at the traditional BI implementation, a very small number of users actually access the BI system and use its data, so the question becomes how to make this extremely valuable information accessible to the broader user base. (Source: Software Magazine )

Does this translate to Internet search? Many would think so. Perhaps familiarizing oneself with searching by using human help could lead to future ability to dig deeper and find the information that is behind the long tail keyword varieties that many advanced searchers perform within the first or second query.

Back to the SEW Forums thread, one of the next entrants into the discussion was a (somewhat self-painted) naïve evangelist who had recently begun performing the duties of being a guide for ChaCha, who claimed to get nervous while awaiting queries from unknown users of the system. This person provided a good glimpse at the supposed average profile of a ChaCha guide: someone who is interested in a topic and has gained some experience using the system in order to be able to help searchers find results for particular topics. It is a community in a way similar to DMOZ editorship, based on category familiarization, it would seem.

The rest of the thread is worth a read (although a warning that it is long and sometimes argumentative), as it delves into the overall usefulness of the search results provided by the guides. It also possibly helped to shape some of the ways that ChaCha could present itself in future forums, since the discussion got a little heated thanks to consistent pushing by one member in regards to its usefulness.

One thing that should probably worry ChaCha a little, however, is page 8 of the thread , which has been revived; partially it seems due to new affiliate arrangements for guides enticing them to receive compensation for Toolbar downloads. Understandably, this is a way to further monetize the system and help support it, but one Moderator makes some serious claims about the system's download and possible attachments.

Hopefully ChaCha will stay committed to providing a useful and safe community for inexperienced searchers to learn how to make queries. Additionally, it would be nice if they disclosed clearly that some/many of the results presented are sponsored. Lastly, please get rid of any potentially malicious spyware in the download packet if that allegation is true!

(added 1/9: ChaChaInsider at SEW Forums denies that any sort of Spy/Malware is attached to the toolbar download - great news.) Hopefully anyone wishing to comment on this will do so in the referenced forum discussion.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 4:29 PM | Permalink

November 15, 2006

PCNames Domain Search

The PCNames domain search engine does exactly what might be expected of it - it searches for domain names and returns results with details on their availability. It does this virtually instantaneously as well - when you being typing the engine offers details on .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us. Ideally I would prefer to see a wider variety and from a British/European perspective the addition of .uk and .eu would be enormously helpful, but even without that, it's very useful.

Once a search has been run it is then possible to get WHOIS information to research the site, or if a site is available for registration the search engine provides a list of companies that can be used to register it. This is how the site makes money - not by direct reselling but from donations and commission from affiliates.

The benefits of the search engine are clear for those people who wish to register domain names. As a searcher the resource is also useful to quickly check not only to see if a domain is available or not, but to check on the ownership of the site - useful for authority checking, and as a quick way to locate a domain if you can't remember if a recently visited site was a .com or a .org for example.

The most impressive thing about this search engine is its speed; it really is lightening fast and will save you time immediately. There are also a variety of other tools available on the site as well, which are equally useful for web authors and searchers alike.

The Domain Suggestion function allows users to type in words, phrases or domains to get suggestions. I was impressed with some of the ideas that it came up with - based on the input of 'search engine watch' I got a number of interesting possible domain names to register, such as 'googlewatch.us' for example. In some instances I could also get more indepth suggestions, and pagerankwatch.net could be broken down to include .org, .info, .biz and .us.

The Word Search function allowed me to quickly see which domains were available, deleted or expired. I was astonished at the number of available domains that mentioned 'google' that hadn't been registered. Googlesite.org anyone?

Of less interest as a searcher, but still fascinating was the opportunity to see which 3 character and 4 letter domains were available; a surprisingly large number in fact.

The Dictionary tool showed available domains using names that could be found within a standard dictionary and Search and Replace allows searchers to replace one word with another to check availability of domain names.

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

Posted by Phil Bradley at 11:29 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2006

Yahoo Launches Yahoo Food

What is for breakfast this morning? Well, you can now go to Yahoo Food and find out. Yahoo launched food.yahoo.com that contains "recipes, advice from regional celebrity chefs, video cooking guides and easy-to-use Web tools." Reuters reports that in early 2007, Yahoo Food will expand to Australia, Britain and Canada, then expand into other global markets later.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:31 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2006

Zotspot Wants To Share The Search Wealth

One could plausibly argue that it's crazy to do anything in the general ("horizontal") search marketplace. But new engines continue to launch. The latest, having been in semi-stealth mode for the past several weeks, is Zotspot. Zotspot is a general-purpose engine that officially launched yesterday. Here's the press release.

Like a number of others before it, the idea here is to "reward" users for searching. It claims to be the first engine to "pay users in cash for their normal search behavior." If you don't want the cash you can donate it to one of numerous partner charities.

You essentially get paid for referrals in a "multi-level" fashion. Here's how Zotspot explains how users get paid. Search engine ChaCha doesn't reward its users, but has a comparable payment structure for its "guides."

The theme here is "share the wealth." The question is will that be incentive enough to get people off their G-Y-M habit? One wants to root for companies that have their eye on the larger social good, but Zotspot's results at a minimum have to be as good as Google's or no one will be swayed.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Live Search Box Allows You To Add Live Search To Your Site

Microsoft's Live Search Blog informed us of a new feature where you can add the Windows Live Search box to your site. I have implemented the "Basic Search Box" on the Search Engine Roundtable, which means the box will display results on the Windows Live Search page. Below I will implement the "Advanced Search Box," which means the box displays results on this site. More details at http://search.live.com/siteowner.

var WLSearchBoxConfiguration= { "global":{ "serverDNS":"search.live.com" }, "appearance":{ "autoHideTopControl":false, "width":600, "height":400 }, "scopes":[ { "type":"web", "caption":"SEW & SER Test", "searchParam":"site:searchenginewatch.com OR site:seroundtable.com" } , { "type":"web", "caption":"Web", "searchParam":"" } ] }

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

How To Make Custom Search Engine With Live Search

The Live Search blog posted today tips on how to build a custom search engine that pulls pages back from sites you select. It seems very similar to when MSN Search added "Search Macros" at the end of March of this year. Yahoo Search Builder and Eureskter have similar offerings.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

October 2, 2006

Need A Costume For Halloween? Try The CostumeZee Costume Search Engine!

This is an entirely commercial operation, but with Halloween looming on the horizon, one that may prove useful. CostumeZee is a search engine that enables searchers to locate costumes for particular events, such as Halloween, or themes such as Pirates. Costumes for both children and adults are available, as well as appropriate accessories. The links do all seem to take searchers to American based sites however, so if you're outside the US, order early and cross your fingers.

Posted by Phil Bradley at 10:11 AM | Permalink

September 4, 2006

Bringo Click To Call Service Attempts To Help Consumers Foil Voice Response Systems

If you're a credit card issuer, a cell phone carrier or an airline you use IVR (interactive voice response) phone trees to resolve calls and avoid sending what you deem to be unnecessary calls to your call center. Live agents are expensive. But almost every consumer hates dealing with IVR systems. They're often frustrating, don't resolve issues and delay what consumers ultimately want, which is to talk to a live customer service agent.

Now comes a deliciously subversive "click to call" service called Bringo. You select the category and then the company you're trying to contact, enter your phone number and they'll connect the call when the service has bypassed the phone tree and reached a live agent.

I tried two calls: one to Sprint and a second to Chase (credit cards). Each took about 35 seconds to connect and I was connected to a live agent. One thing I didn't test is whether the agent was the right one for any particular issue since I was just testing the system and not actually calling with a problem. (Corporate reps would tell you IVR helps them route calls properly.)

This service would be especially valuable in a mobile context, when there's even less tolerance for waiting and phone trees. Regardless it seems to be effective in connecting calls to live agents.

And now to the inevitable: "what's the business model?" I didn't speak to company representatives so I don't know their plan. One could imagine (beyond AdSense) that advertisers might want to be in front of consumers with alternative offers (e.g., Verizon seeking to get Sprint users to switch, etc.). If there was enough traffic to the site there might be some monetization potential here.

Accordingly, I wanted to find out what the annual volumes were of customer service calls in the US but could not find it on Google, Yahoo or MSN and so I went to ask ChaCha's human guides but the site appears to be having technical problems and I couldn't get through to anyone . . .

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:21 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2006

Yahoo Adds Coupon Shortcut, Making Finding Coupons Easy

Adam Viener of ReveNews.com discovered a Yahoo! Shortcut which gives searchers quick and easy access to coupon codes.

Adam highlighted a search for kodak gallery coupon codes. Here are some other examples: circuit city coupon, vistaprint coupon, netflix coupon code, and dell coupon code.

This is a great service for consumers who are spared the trouble of weeding through creatively written sponsored listings and pages of organic listings claiming to have the best coupons and then returning out of date deals. This is also a potential win for Yahoo! as affiliate revenue can add up pretty quickly.

The comments on Adam's post seem to indicate that the coupons are sourced through a third party called Coupon Cabin, but there's no confirmation of that. Last year Yahoo! tested out a different partner for coupons on Yahoo! Shopping.

Posted by Brian Smith at 2:44 AM | Permalink

August 7, 2006

Yahoo Launches Search Builder

During the Social Search Overview session, Tim Mayer of Yahoo announced the launch of Yahoo Search Builder. I haven't had much time to play with it yet, and probably won't until next week. But the Yahoo Search blog has a nice overview of the new product. Keep in mind, this seems very similar to Eurekster, based on my quick quick quick read of it. More on this later.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:02 PM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

More 3D Maps, an iTunes Video Podcast Directory, .CA Goes Mobile & Wildfires Database: Specialty Search Wrap Up

This weeks specialty search wrap up from Resource Shelf includes more 3D mapping tools, a iTunes video podcast directory, the Canadian government mobile edition, a resource for locating primary sources with international news and a wildfires and forest fire real time database.

  1. Loving 3D satellite mapping tools? Want to spot more North Korean Missiles & Chinese Helicopters? Gary posted a roundup of free open source 3D satellite and aerial imagery. You can even check out images of places outside of this world, seriously! More details at Resource Shelf.

  2. Like to watch videos on your iPod or on iTunes? Well, Gary has the details on Search For Video adding a method of searching for videos that can be downloaded directly to your iPod and iTunes. To view the directory listing of these videos go to Podcast Video portion of the directory. More details here.

  3. Oh Canada on your mobile phone! Do you have a love for the Canadian government? Are you on the road a lot? If so, you can now get your fix at the Mobile Canada Site. You can learn more at http://canada.gc.ca/mobile/wireless_e.html or at Resource Shelf.

  4. Do you hate getting your international news via second hand sources? Gary writes about Diplomacy Monitor, a site that gives you access to "primary documents and news releases from various governments and government agencies."

  5. Is your house burning down? I hope not! This is the season for wildfires and forest fire and Gary has compiled a listings of database that offer real time information and reports. Check them out at Resource Shelf.

That is our specialty search roundup for this week.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:12 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Google Labs Launches Accessible Web Search

Google has launched Google Accessible Search, a stripped down version of the Google search results page that also serves up results to sites deemed more accessible to those who are visually impaired.

The design was created to make it easier and more effective for the blind and visually impaired. The results are a bit different, tailored to the visually impaired, to show more accessible pages in the results. Google told me how this actually works:

Google Accessible Search looks at a number of signals by examining the HTML markup found on a web page. It tends to favor pages that degrade gracefully?pages with few visual distractions and pages that are likely to render well with images turned off. Google Accessible Search is built on Google Co-op's technology, which improves search results based on specialized interests.

It is also important to note that Google Accessible Search is currently ad free, conduct a search for ipod and you'll see no ads.

Matt Bailey has his take on this new Google product at his Accessibility Blog. Postscript From Danny: While I love the new offering, it's still disappointing that Google didn't provide an easy way to increase font sizes in the way that Big.com does.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:09 PM | Permalink

July 14, 2006

Specialty Search Roundup #7

Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so.

  • Art Museums: A Collection of Searchable Databases This is the first in a series (more soon) of posts that review databases from some of the great art museums around the world. In all cases these databases offer searchable access to part or all of these museums collections while offering you the chance to search using a variety of criteria.
  • UKís Resource Discovery Network Now Known as Intute Yesterday, I posted about the new NOODP tag from Google. While DMOZ/ODP doesn't have the same stature that it once did. However, researchers shouldn't forget the value of non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directories where quality of the underlying resources trumps overall size. Intute is an excellent example of this. Be ready to spend some time here. Also, make sure to look at the Virtual Training Suite and Internet Detective, two of Intute's many parts.
  • New Look for The Gateway to Educational Materials Database Primarily cosmetic changes but it's a good excuse to make a mention of it. If you're looking for high quality materials for educational purposes this database is a "must" bookmark. It's also worth pointing out that "The Gateway" is powered by faceted search technology from Siderean. Bow, this same technology will soon be available from the Librarians' Internet Index, another essential non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directory.
  • Database: A Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory "While not comprehensive, this inventory gives the public the best available look at the 200+ nanotechnology-based consumer products currently on the market. Prior to this inventory, the figure most often cited by the U.S. government was that approximately 80 consumer products containing nanomaterials were being sold. Please feel free to explore the inventory by browsing the products, or perform an advanced search."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:07 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

Specialty Search Roundup #6

Another week and another set of specialty databases and "research" news for your review. These items have been posted to ResourceShelf during the past week or so. They have also tossed in non-searchable but useful (and fun) reference newsletter and a link to a new mobile version of Reuters for the U.S. Finally, don't forget that The World eBook Fair is now underway offering free, full text and downloadable access (PDF files) to more than 300,000 titles. Why now? This summer Project Gutenberg celebrates its 35th anniversary. The World eBook Fair lasts through August 4th.

  • Foreign Language Test Database "The Foreign Language Test Database is a searchable database of secondary and college level tests in languages other than English."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:17 PM | Permalink

June 30, 2006

Specialty Search Roundup #5

Another week has passed which means it's time for a look at a few new or updated specialty search tools that they have posted about on ResourceShelf. Btw, ResourceShelf has a new RSS feed URL. They are now at: http://www.resourceshelf.com/feed

  • In a post about Vivisimo clustering technology now being made available for mobile searchers in Japan, we include links to a few other tools (all free) powered by Vivisimo including: + BiometaCluster (Life Sciences Meta Search and Clustering) + ClusterMed (Dynamic Clustering of PubMed) and a few others.
  • Although these presentations and materials are aimed at librarians, these presentations about metadata might be of interest to some of you. We also include a link to the book (full text) Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information (Version 2.1) from Getty.
  • A new exhibit looking at the last 100 years of UK newspapers is now open at the British Library in London. The web version of the exhibit includes access to a database with a complete digitised archive of the Penny Illustrated Paper from 1861 to 1913.

  • Our ResourceShelf post builds on the News.com profile of Brewster Kahle of The Internet Archive with links to several other archives of web content that often get overlooked. Here are a few examples.

    In January, NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), with the help of the IA, released the ì2004 Presidential Term Web Harvestî containing over 75 million archived pages. In March 2006, this archive became keyword searchable using Nutch technology.

    + New Archive: National Government Statistical Websites + Latin American Governments Document Archive + Archive of Venezuelan Political Discourse + North Carolina State Government Web Site Archive + Canadian Political Parties And Political Interest Groups + Canadian Labour Unions

    • Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:16 AM | Permalink

    June 22, 2006

    Specialty Search Roundup #4

    Another week has gone by and the world of databases of special interest to the web researcher have appeared on ResourceShelf. Here's a look at a few of them along with a couple of database news items via ResourceShelf. By the way, the ResourceShelf site itself has also been updated and enhanced with a new look this week.

    Past specialty search roundups:

    + Specialty Search Roundup #3 + Specialty Search Roundup #2 + Specialty Search Roundup #1

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:56 PM | Permalink

    What the Critics Said

    The web has made it easy to seek out criticism to help us decide what to watch, listen to or read. But as with web search in general, finding the best sources of criticism can sometimes be a frustrating experience. In today's SearchDay article, Searching for Critical Acclaim, I take an in-depth look at a service that aggregates reviews of movies, books, music and more and assigns a unique score that represents the collective critical opinion on the quality of each reviewed title.

    Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:36 AM | Permalink

    June 15, 2006

    Big.com Gets Ask Results, Toolbar

    I mentioned how useful Big.com was back in October, making it easy for those with low vision to see things more clearly thanks to its big fonts. Brad Haugaard, the project manager over there, dropped a note to say there's been some changes to improve the service. What's new? Results now come from Ask, rather than LookSmart. There's been a general facelift all around. And there's a new Big Toolbar for Internet Explorer to let you make any page look bigger -- perhaps even those from the major search engines. When I looked at Big last time, I found none of the major search engines made it easy to increase font sizes, something I believe is still the case. I know, I know -- you can do it with stylesheets or using features within both Firefox or IE. But it's nice for people if the search engines themselves make it easier.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:14 PM | Permalink

    Specialty Search Roundup #3

    From Traffic Cams to Digitizing to the Kennedy Library to Archival Records: A Selection of Specialty Database via ResourceShelf

    Yes it's time once again for a Gary Price, specialty search database and portal roundup. Here's a look at a few recent postings that he published on ResourceShelf.

    Real Time Data: TrafficLand Continues to Expand, Aggregating Traffic Cams Around the Nation

    Cool! ResourceShelf real time compilation continues.

    Future Projects: Plans to Digitize Entire Contents of John F. Kennedy Library Announced

    Business: Entrepreneurship Research Portal from the E.W. Kauffman Foundation

    U.S. Congress: Congressional Documents Online ?The Rutgers - Camden School of Law offers a full text archive of more than 2,700 (as of 6/9/2006) documents of the U.S. Congress. Hearings included in this online collection date from the 1970s to 1998. Search or browse."

    Archives: Have You Tried ArchiveGrid Yet? "RLG's ArchiveGrid database containing nearly a million collection descriptions thousands of archives, museums and libraries remains free for a few more weeks (June 30, 2006). Have a look and a search or two. It's one powerful resource."

    Environment: Federated Search Database Focuses on Enviro Health and Toxicology

    Peace: Database on Multilateral Peace Operations "The SIPRI database [free] on peace operations uniquely provides transparent and reliable data on all multilateral peace operations (both UN and non-UN) conducted around the world."

    Newspapers: National Library of New Zealand?s Digitized Collection of Newspapers Passes 1 Million Page Mark

    Past specialty search roundups: + Specialty Search Roundup #2 + Specialty Search Roundup #1

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:53 PM | Permalink

    June 9, 2006

    World Cup: Google Does The Logo Thing; Yahoo & Ask Have Smart Shortcuts

    Google's sporting a special World Cup-version of its logo in honor of the start of the World Cup today, while Yahoo and Ask are offering special results that come up after World Cup-related searches. A round-up of what's going on, below.

    Over at Google, there's new World Cup module that you can add to your personalized home page to keep up on matches and standings. The company is also promoting the new module on its regular home page to encourage take-up. ZDNet has a screenshot of that. Here's what I see from the UK:

    The Official Google Blog is also pushing other ways to tap into World Cup info via Google, though most of these things are pretty generic.

    Gary Price has done a recap of other things in the search world touching on the World Cup, focusing on ways to get mobile alerts in the US and in Europe and the fast facts that FIFA is offering.

    Gary also spots a World Cup Yahoo Shortcut you can see here (but no Yahoo logo change, not even on Yahoo Germany). Ask is offering a similar Smart Answer service as you'll see here. Ask also didn't change its logo, but the home page shows flags for each team in the World Cup:

    Click on the flag, and you'll get a Smart Answer with related info like you'll see for the US here.

    Over at MSN Search, no custom answers and no logo changes that I can see (nor at Windows Live Search, either). But back to Google, they are doing some OneBox answers, like you'll see here or here.

    Over at Technorati, there's nothing on the home page indicating anything special for the World Cup for those who want to track it in the blogosphere. Clearly if Niall Kennedy hadn't left, the World Cup would be all over Technorati. Niall declares his love of soccer here today (so Niall, get on your MSN Windows Live colleagues to do something).

    OK, OK, the MSN portal home page is at least pointing to a two minute guide to the World Cup done in conjunction with Fox Sports. Of course, this is the same partnership whose official store can't send US football kit for kids when promise, so phooey on them. More on that, plus my own thoughts on the World Cup madness that's starting on my personal blog in In The Middle Of World Cup Mad England, I Root For The US.

    Don't forget, yesterday's post US, UK Searchers & The World Cup covered some of the top searches involving footballers in the UK and the US.

    Am I missing something? Comment!!! It's easy -- just head to World Cup, Search & Stuff at our Search Engine Watch Forums.

    Postscript: Google Blogoscoped notes there are different country-specific logos at Google using the team colors of those countries

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:23 AM | Permalink

    June 7, 2006

    Avvo Ain't About Guacamole: It's New Legal Search In Development

    Avvo is a new legal, vertical search startup that promises to "better navigate the highly confusing legal industry." Started by former executives from IAC, Expedia and Microsoft, the company is based in Seattle and was formed earlier this year as "LegalRev" before changing its name. It just secured $3 million in funding from Benchmark Capital.

    If you visit the site you'll just see a placeholder, so you can't yet determine what they're actually doing that is different or potentially better than competitive sites like FindLaw or Lawyers.com. But there is considerable room for improvement in terms of how consumers find lawyers online.

    For more detail see a longer post on my blog.

    Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:33 AM | Permalink

    June 6, 2006

    Specialty Search Roundup #2

    Here's another collection of new or "just discovered" specialty search tools, mobile tools, and more via Gary over at ResourceShelf.

    New: Amtrak Mobile Get real time train info on your SmartPhone or web accessible PDA

    New Beta: SEC Web Site Adds Beta: Full Text Search To Two Years of EDGAR Filings We also list a couple of other tools for full text EDGAR searching.

    Esquire Magazine's Drink Database Tasty! Just don't drink and drive.

    Imagery: Curator's Choices Selections from the NY Public Library Digital Image Gallery Amazing! We also include a link to the PictureAustralia project.

    More real time databases in our real time database compilation. This week: + Real Time Access to the California Highway Patrol Incident Database + Keynote Internet Health Report + NextBus

    Digitized Newspapers Database: NewspaperArchive.com Blasts Off With SpaceProgramArchive.com Over 50,000 pages full searchable and free. Full image, too! We link to many similar collections of digitized full text newspapers.

    Sheet Music Consortium Digitized sheet music from several libraries. Search or browse.

    More Cross-Database Searching: Say Hello to TechExtra!!! "TechXtra facilitates immediate access to the freely available full-text content of hundreds of thousands of eprints, technical reports, theses, articles, news items, job announcements and more. In cases where the full-text is not freely available, TechXtra provides links to vendors for pay-per-view options."

    If you missed the first specialty search roundup, you can read it here.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:59 PM | Permalink

    May 23, 2006

    New Tool Scandoo Scans for Scumware in Search Results

    The reports of hackers poisoning search results by optimizing landing pages that included links to viruses, spyware and other malware alarmed many people. Now a free new service called Scandoo serves as a front-end to Ask, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo, scanning results for potential nasties. It identifies potential threats in real-time without requiring a plug-in or download. "Clean" results are labeled with a green checkmark; those with potential threats are labeled with a red "X" (see it in action with this search for "warez"). More about Scandoo and how it works here.

    Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:39 PM | Permalink

    May 18, 2006

    Specialty Search Roundup #1

    Even though Gary Price left SEW Blog a few months ago and is now working at Ask.com, ResourceShelf, the site he compiles and edits with a team of librarians is going strong as an independent resource.

    As I'm sure you remember, Gary has a strong interest in specialty search tools. One thing (there are many others) that stood out, since Gary's departure, was that we were missing coverage of some specialty search topics. So, here's a quick rundown of some of the databases he's posted about recently on ResourceShelf.

    * Two New Newspaper Archives (Tens of Thousands of Articles, Free) Now Available One contains articles about global warming, the other on immigration. Links to other archives are also available.

    * Yes.com and More Real-Time Databases Near real-time access to music played on most commercial radio stations in the U.S. Search for stations and then review the list.

    * Terrorism Knowledge Base Quick Reference Guide and More

    * College Opportunities Online Locator "A consumer information tool for students, parents, high school counselors, and others interested in postsecondary education in the United States. The site allows users to see and compare profiles of nearly 7,000 colleges and universities throughout the nation."

    * New Database: So, what's it worth? "In 1680, employing a craftsman for 13 days would cost you the equivalent of just one hour with a modern plumber. In 1270, for the same amount, you could add five extra days of craftsman work, 14 lbs of wool and a bale of wheat. These are just some of the many interesting facts you can look up on The National Archives new currency conversion program.

    If you like these recaps, let me know, and i'll try to do these specialty search roundups more often. I personally enjoy getting my Gary Price fix weekly, what about you?

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:00 PM | Permalink

    May 10, 2006

    Google Co-op: Add Your Own Vertical Search To Google

    Google said it would have a health-related announcement at today's Google Press Day -- but no, it's not Google Health. Instead, it's Google Co-op, a way for people to create specialized search engines by tapping into the main Google index or the option for searchers to pick preferred vertical search providers to show up in Google OneBox results. Yes, health information is one of the new features -- but this is more than Google Health. This is Google making a giant and somewhat perplexing leap into mass tagging.

    Subscribed Links

    Let's start in with the specialty or vertical search providers, what Google calls subscribed links. Many are probably familiar with how for some queries, Google will show what it calls a OneBox result at the top of the "regular" results. For example, a search on san francisco hotels brings up a section like this at the top of the page

    Local results for hotels near San Francisco, CA San Francisco Marriott - 1.0 miles NE - 55 4th St, San Francisco, 94103 - (415) 896-1600 Hyatt Hotels & Resorts: Park Hyatt San Francisco - 1.7 miles NE - 333 Battery St, San Francisco, 94111 - (415) 392-1234 Hyatt Hotels & Resorts: Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf - 2.2 miles N - 555 N Point St, San Francisco, 94133 - (415) 563-1234

    Those results are powered by one of Google's own vertical search engine, Google Maps (formerly Google Local). The new subscribed links service lets people choose other non-Google vertical search engines to show at the top of the page, if they want to.

    It's a very cool idea. For example, say you are regularly searching for information about search engines and would like to know if Search Engine Watch specifically has any matching info along with searching the entire web for that topic. If we get our act together (and we'll try soon), you could make us one of your subscribed links. Then the next time you search for something where we have content, you might see our matches right at the top of Google.

    Where do you find providers? Google's got a currently very small directory of them here to choose from. Preferred partners are already listed, partners that Google thinks people will be especially interested in, not those who have paid. No money is exchanging hands in either direction to be a subscribed link provider, Google says.

    Digg is the only news provider listed at the moment. I subscribed to see how it works. Not too well. Perhaps not at all. Searches for Google, Playstation, Nintendo -- all topics on Digg right now -- brought nothing up. Hmm. I tried subscribing to People. Searches on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gave me nothing.

    Frankly, I don't think the system is working right just yet, as I'll get to further below. I also have a note out to Google about this. In the meantime, let's just pretend it's working. How do we at Search Engine Watch or anyone else get to be in that directory or a subscribed link partner in general.

    Here's the guide that allows anyone to get started. I had to laugh at the intro:

    The API was designed to be as easy to use as possible, and requires only basic XML skills. This guide will show you how to create subscribed links, with plenty of examples along the way.

    I laughed because in short order, I was lost! Barry Schwartz, who is a programmer, still felt lost himself and said he'd through it at "one of his XML guys" tomorrow. In contrast, making a Google Toolbar Button is a heck of a lot easier. I sure wish making subscribed links were, because they are potentially going to be an important new way for people to ensure they are getting traffic from Google.

    Anyone can make a subscribed link to offer on via their own site (though the developer guide doesn't go into details about this, such as how to place it). Naturally, what you really want is to be in the directory that Google itself offers. Again, the developer guide doesn't cover this. But this appears to be the submission page.

    As for who gets in, Google told me that those included and featured in the directory will be based on user uptake. Get a lot of people subscribing to your results, and you'll more likely be featured to users.

    Two last things on Subscribed Links:

    First, another OneBox! Just how much can Google shove above the "regular" results. Google tells me that they are currently trying not to show more than two of their own -- so potentially, you might be looking at three in all on the page. You'll never see more than on Subscribed Links OneBoxes, and these will come before Google's own.

    Second, if the entire idea feels familiar, you might be recalling Yahoo Subscriptions. That launched last June and is explained more in our Yahoo Search Subscriptions Brings Premium Content Into Web Search article.

    I've no idea how popular the service is, but I'm guessing not much, given that most people seem never to have heard of it. Unlike the Google system, the number of partners is very small and there's no API allowing anyone to jump in. Instead, you've got to go the contact form route. I suspect Google's system will be far more popular, since it should have a much wider range of providers.

    Labels, Google Health & Vertical Search

    A second part of Google Co-op is the ability to allow people to label URLs into different topic areas. You mean tagging! Google still prefers the term label, while I'm still a hold out for saying categories. But whatever the name, it's not like the idea of tagging you might be used to at other places. This is industrial-strength tagging.

    For example, with Yahoo My Web 2.0, I can tag any page with any words I prefer. The system is really designed for me to tag on a one-by-one basis. If I do a search, see something I like, I can click the Save button, add a tag, some notes and have that individual page stored for easy recall.

    Yes, I can import many pages and assign them all tags en masse. But that doesn't seem to be the case for most people. The system currently has only 1.1 million pages tagged, hardly double the amount I recall it having not long after launching last year. If there were massive tagging imports, I'd expect the number to be higher.

    In contrast, Google's label system is initially designed as a more mass tagging system for those who want to create vertical search engines. Google's now rolled out a number of these:

    Let's dive into the health area. Sure, call it Google Health if you want -- though Google says a more full-fledged Google Health is coming and definitely doesn't call this Google Health itself. Whatever you all it, this health thing lets you search against pages that have been labeled with the help of contributors such as the Mayo Clinic or the Harvard Medical School as being health-specific.

    Ideally, it means that I should be able to do a search and get back only stuff related to health issues. Here's an example. Say I search for cold on regular Google. The first link is for the musical band Cold, and the third link is for Cold Stone Creamery. That's great place for ice cream, but the only health connection is that it might make you fat! Midway down, Macromedia shows up because of its ColdFusion product, then there are two links on the Cold War followed by two links on Cold Mountain.

    For regular Google, this variety is fine. Who knows what you want when you search for the word cold? It could be any number of things. But for a health search, you want to get rid of all that junk. Google Health's labels ideally should do this. But go there, then search and what happens? Pretty much nothing. The off-topic stuff I mentioned is still there!

    I suspect there's a bug in the system right now. Google Co-op didn't go live when announced, and then it slowly came up. I'll check on this, and the better test will be in a day or so, especially when some of these new topical areas are pitted against existing verticals in various areas. But conceptually, hopefully you'll understand what's happening. In each of the topic areas above, either contributors have helped label content or Google's worked behind-the-scenes to get some of these going.

    Keep in mind that for any top level label/topic/category, there are also sublabels/subtopics/subcategories. So for health, you'll see further narrowing options such as:

    • Symptoms
    • Treatment
    • Drug Uses
    • Support Groups

    What about for the more individual user that wants to label? Good luck. Here are a bunch of instructions. They make my head spin. Maybe it will spin less when I read it many more times. But compared to tagging elsewhere, it's a nightmare.

    Heck, it's a nightmare compared to trying to make a vertical search engine period versus a place like Rollyo. Want to make a health vertical search engine there? Give it up to 25 web sites and you're done.

    Google told me it does want to make the process easier for anyone to take part, so hang in there, if the programming stuff makes you feel excluded as it does me.

    The downside to Rollyo, compared to what Google's doing, is that you won't have all the refinement and subcategories. But I find it difficult to understand how well these will work, anyway. There's no controlled vocabulary for new people coming in. Moreover, it seems like some of these refinements could be done through clustering. My Yahoo My Web Tagging & Why (So Far) It Sucks article goes into some depth about these types of issues from when Yahoo rolled out My Web 2.0. They seem just as applicable to the new Google label system.

    When Yahoo launched My Web 2.0, my gut felt like we were making a big step backwards, using humans to do stuff where technology actually could work. I wrote similar things when Google Base went up, pushing people into tagging content when it might not be necessary.

    Don't get me wrong. I want humans involved in the search process. If anything, I've also written about how the growth of crawlers and automation has pushed human help sadly -- and perhaps harmfully to relevance -- to the side.

    Certainly it's a big positive that Google's letting humans more in the door this way -- a huge jump for the service that has pretty much looked to technology to solve everything, as it acknowledges.

    "We've never given our users this much control and access into our system," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products & user experience. "We have an advantage with machines and how we crawl, but if we can turn our users into a network, that will yield better results."

    Still, I think the idea of humans sharing and swapping what they like such as with Yahoo My Web or via the recent change with Google Reader might be the better way to go rather than manually tagging up millions of pages of content. But we'll see how it goes. As for the idea of subscribed links -- I've got a big thumbs-up for that part of Google Co-op.

    Postscript: Google Blogoscoped has a nice guide to how Google Co-op also works for publishers, though most of the examples shown are more static than dynamic data draws.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:12 PM | Permalink

    May 9, 2006

    ResourceShelf Offers Real-Time Resource Engines Feature

    Gary Price has launched a new feature at ResourceShelf named "ResourceShelf Real-Time." ResourceShelf Real-Time will provide links to resources, including Web resources and desktop/palm/client applications, that "offer real-time or near real-time" data and information. In Gary's first Real-Time post, he links to FlightAware, Amtrak Real-Time Train Status, What's Playing on Sirius Satellite Radio Right Now, City of Seattle Real-Time 911 Dispatch and more. So if you are a specialty search 'freak', I highly recommend you get your fix from ResourceShelf Real-Time.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:41 AM | Permalink

    April 12, 2006

    Simply Google Places Most Of Google Services In One Place

    So Google has dozens and dozens of services and search features out there. Heck, I forget how to locate some of these services when I need them. Phil Bradley found a new site that places many of Google services all in one spot. The site is named Simply Google. It contains links to Google Sites, "Google Fun", Google Downloads, Google Blogs, other search blogs, and quick access to Google Searches. Danny has this listed as #5 on his 25 Things I Hate About Google, since Google didn't make it easy to find all of their services, this site has taken the initiative.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:48 AM | Permalink

    April 11, 2006

    Whois.sc Changes Name To DomainTools.com

    Popular domain name registration name look up, Whois.sc, has changed their name to DomainTools.com, Gary Price reports. The name change was because the company wanted to broaden their focus, the name allows them to be a "little more tool focused and a lot more domain focused." The new name comes with a new design and nicer interface.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:40 AM | Permalink

    April 4, 2006

    Ballbug Tracks Baseball Buzz; Introduced By Memeorandum.com

    Gabe Rivera from memeorandum.com announces Ballbug.com. The same way http://tech.memeorandum.com/ works, Ballbug does the same;

    Ballbug spotlights the most buzzed-about baseball news from thousands of web sites. It auto-generates a summary page every 5 minutes, drawing on local news sites, national sports media, and baseball bloggers of various stripes.

    So if you are a baseball fan and want to find the best buzz out there, Ballbug.com may be the place for you.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

    March 15, 2006

    College Basketball & Pro Baseball Historical Newspaper Articles Search

    If you are a basketball or baseball fan, you will love two new searchable archives. The first is at www.collegebasketballarchive.com and the second is at www.probaseballarchive.com. They both provide a searchable archive of historical newspapers related to College Basketball and Pro Baseball, respectively. Both archives have an advanced search feature as well as a cool historical timeline of events. For other similar resources or more information on these resources, visit ResourceShelf.com.

    Posted by Barry Schwartz at 12:08 PM | Permalink

    How Much is that Real Estate Worth?

    Real estate is one of the hottest areas of vertical search these days, with new sites popping up seemingly every day. One of the coolest is Zillow, a database with information on more than 60 million U.S. residences, that free and easy to use. I've got more details on the service in today's SearchDay article, Finding the Values of U.S. Homes.

    Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:37 AM | Permalink

    January 23, 2006

    BusinessWeek on Yahoo and Social Search

    BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin takes a look at social search, focusing on Yahoo, in his article: Yahoo's Social Circle.

    Ben's article offers a review of recent "social search" purchases from Yahoo including WebJay, del.icio.us, and Flickr.

    Elgin writes: These deals are key building blocks in one of Yahoo's biggest bets. By cultivating online communities -- and encouraging people to tap into the collective knowledge of these groups -- Yahoo is hoping to change the way people find information online.

    Let's also not forget the introduction of homegrown services like Yahoo 360 (beta), MyWeb, and Yahoo Answers.

    He goes on to say: Social search aims to shift power from Web publishers, who create these links, to everyday Internet users by examining their bookmarks or giving them tools to express their opinions.

    The article also focuses on those who are skeptics to the whole social search "thing." They include that, at least to this point, "most Internet users haven't even heard of Flickr or del.icio.us, let alone spent time sharing photos online or posting bookmarks of their favorite sites." He also correctly (IMHO) that it takes effort and time (something many people don't have enough off) to make social search work well for both the individual and group as a whole.

    Vivisimo/Clusty CEO, Raul Valdes-Perez is quoted saying that the wisdom of crowds might not trump what "raw" computing power can offer.

    YubNub For "Command Line" Searching & Search Commands For the Majors

    Honestly, I didn't miss leaving behind the DOS command line and getting all GUI. But there are times when I'll still dig out the command prompt window on Windows XP to do something quickly. New service YubNub harkens to give you a command line interface for search. Come up with your own command (it wasn't working when I tried), and then anyone can make use of that on YubNub. For example:

    who google.com

    That brings back whois data on Google.com. Use who before any domain you want to check within YubNub to get results. Get the Firefox plug-in, and then any commands you find useful can easily be run from within your search bar.

    There are a ton of different commands, some of which work, some of which don't. A full list is here; YubNub Golden Eggs is a list of what's considered the best or most interesting. By the way, if a command isn't recognized, you get Google search results back.

    When adding commands works again, I'm going to grab the idea from this example and make a command to search all of Search Engine Watch via Google. It's easy to do the same for your own site. Just use:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=site:YOURDOMAINHERE+%s

    John Battelle has comments on the service here; Threadwatch here; and background from YubNub itself here.

    Finally, remember that all search engines have command line-like interfaces of their own. Here are links with more info:

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:33 AM | Permalink

    June 7, 2005

    MeeVee: A New Search Vertical for TV Listings

    Yes, another new search vertical to blog about today.

    It's called MeeVee and allows the user to search a database of U.S. television listings and offers several other features. This AdWeek article offers details.

    The service lets users comb through program schedules and includes a recommendation tool. The site supports searches via show titles, cast member names and various keywords. Burlingame, Calif.-based MeeVee relies on advertising for revenue.

    An article in the San Francisco Business Journal has a bit more including details about a new deal with NBC that will provide preview clips to listings for NBC programs. The article also mentions that MeeVee was originally launched in 2000 as MyDTV.

    I'm away at a conference this week so I haven't much time to use the service. However, I plan to do a full review of MeeVee and look at how it compares to similar search services from the likes of Yahoo, TV Guide, and Zap2It, others.

    Postscript: Choicesteam's MyBestBets also provides a television program (U.S. only) recommendation tools.

    Posted by Gary Price at 11:50 AM | Permalink

    June 6, 2005

    Easy Multi-searching with Firefox

    Firefox provides a lot of built-in search tools, but using them requires a two-step process of typing search terms and then selecting a specific engine to use. There is a built-in contextual search that lets you highlight words on a page and right click to search, but you're limited to Google results using this feature.

    Enter ConQuery, a nifty Firefox plugin that gives you access to all of your installed search plugins via the right-click context menu. This makes it easy to launch a search from any page on the web with any of your favorite engines with just a few quick gestures. See today's SearchDay article, Contextual Search with Firefox for a closer look at this powerful search tool.

    Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:15 AM | Permalink

    May 23, 2005

    BitTorrent Plans to Launch Search Engine & Carry Ask Jeeves Ads

    While several earch tools exist to find BitTorrent material (movies, music, software and other files), the service itself has not offered its own search tool. That's about to change as BitTorrent launches its own advertising-supported search engine in the next two weeks.

    Sponsored links will come from Ask Jeeves (apparently the Premier Listings that Ask sells directly, rather than the paid listing that it carries from Google).

    BitTorrent speeds internet file transfers by shifting the bandwidth burden off the publisher, and distributing it among users downloading the file: Everyone downloading a file over BitTorrent is unobtrusively uploading it to other users at the same time so that large, popular files actually move at a faster rate than obscure ones.

    The new search engine takes that dynamic into account. It resembles Google in operation, with a simple interface and results ranked by an automated process. But unlike a general web search, the BitTorrent web crawler interacts with each torrent behind the scenes to determine the number of nodes downloading and uploading through it. That lets the search engine order its results by the throughput of each torrent.

    More in the Wired News article: Next for BitTorrent: Search. It also discusses the many copyright issues that BitTorrent might face as the service becomes more well-known and material becomes even easier to access.

    "I think the search engine itself shouldn't be illegal, but I think [founder Bram](Cohen) will find himself inundated with notices of infringing material," says [Stanford Law School Professor Mark] Lemley. "He may find over time that his full-time job is turning off links." Moreover, being right might not be enough to keep Cohen and BitTorrent clear of the working end of a lawsuit. "I would be very surprised if he didn't get sued, because they've gone after a number of people who have much less connection to infringement," says Lemley.

    Postscript: Prospect of Search Ads on P2P Site Rattle SEMs from ClickZ has a few more details from Ask and comments from search marketers on source exclusion.

    Posted by Gary Price at 11:34 AM | Permalink

    May 12, 2005

    AutoBaron For Visual Car Shopping

    Buying a car? AutoBaron is an interesting new site that lets you find the best deal using a chart format. It's one of those "got to see to fully understand" type of services, but I'll try to explain briefly.

    Say you were shopping for a Mini Cooper. Visit the home page, select the make, model and year. In response, a graph will appear. A line chart shows the average value of the car, value dropping as mileage increases. Any listings are also shown on the chart, scattered around the line as car icons. You can easily spot potential bargains that appear below the value line. Hover over one of the icons, and a picture of the car and some brief details appear. Click, and you'll go right to the online listing.

    Downside? It covers only the US -- and all of the US initially, by default. So if you're in California, finding a bargain in Florida isn't that helpful. But you can narrow by zip code, as this chart for the Newport Beach, California area and a radius of 50 miles shows.

    Not into graphs? You can also browse listings, as this example shows.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:38 AM | Permalink

    March 22, 2005

    More Press For the Vertical Search Biz

    Olga Kharif's Business Week article: Search, the Next Generation, takes a look at the increase in specialized tools (aka verticals) that haven been coming fast and furious lately and several of which have been mentioned on the SEW Blog or in SearchDay before. You'll read about: + Become.com ||| SEW Blog Post

    + Nextaris ||| SEW Blog/SearchDay Posts

    + BlogStreet

    + FactBites

    + Snap.Com ||| SEW Post

    Posted by Gary Price at 10:49 AM | Permalink

    March 15, 2005

    OpenSearch: Add Your Own Search Engine To A9 (Or Potentially, Anywhere)

    A9's new OpenSearch program out today allows anyone with search results to create their own "button" that can be added to the A9 search engine, allowing users there to get custom specialty or vertical search results.

    A number of new buttons A9 users can add have already been posted on the site, in conjunction with the announcement that was made at the Etech conference today from Amazon chief Jeff Bezos. You can add things like a NASA search, a Flickr Photo Search or even a search for chess games. It's pretty slick.

    Just because you create a button doesn't mean that users will automatically get them, of course. They'll have to use the page above to find options, then choose to add them. And that may happen only if you've created the search and submitted it. How to create and submit is covered in the help documents for OpenSearch.

    From what I can tell, OpenSearch is built around adding some minimal extensions to RSS, which seems to be Amazon's way of escaping criticism that it's trying to do something proprietary and gain acceptance. Indeed, while A9 will tap into these search RSS feeds, potentially anyone else could, as well, as it explains:

    OpenSearch offers an alternative: an open format that will enable those search results to be displayed anywhere, anytime. Rather than introduce yet another proprietary or closed protocol, OpenSearch is a straightforward and backward-compatible extension of RSS 2.0, the widely adopted XML-based format for content syndication.

    For a bit more, see John Battelle's post that covers the announcement and has some comments for A9 head Udi Manber: A9 Launches "Open Search" - Vertical Search, Syndicated.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:16 PM | Permalink

    March 3, 2005

    Take This Content and Use It!

    Copyright laws are getting ever more restrictive, and many content owners are pursuing increasingly Draconian enforcement actions against alleged information thieves. In response, a group called the Creative Commons has developed a less restrictive set of copyright principles that keep "some rights reserved" while allowing users to download, share and even modify online content.

    Today's SearchDay article, Finding Free Content in the Creative Commons, focuses on a specialized search engine that's designed to find the millions of music, photo, video and text files on the web that have been published under the Creative Commons license. It's a great resource, and a unique way to find content that's difficult if not impossible to surface with a general purpose search engine.

    Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:07 PM | Permalink

    February 23, 2005

    Lycos Offers Dating Meta Search

    Looking for that perfect partner? Lycos Dating Search now up in beta lets you meta search for across popular dating and matchmaking sites for matches. See also this ClickZ article, Lycos to Launch Dating Search.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:10 AM | Permalink

    February 17, 2005

    The New York Times Buys About.com

    The bidding is over and the winner has been named. Word this afternoon that The NY Times will become the new owner of About.com. The Times will pay Primedia $410 million in cash. About.com was purchased by Primedia in 2000 for $610 million in stock. Earlier this month we linked to an article that said Yahoo, Google, and AOL were also bidding for About.com. More in the Marketwatch.com article: New York Times to buy About.com.

    Posted by Gary Price at 5:50 PM | Permalink

    February 8, 2005

    Searching for iPod Info

    Since I was given an iPod as a birthday present last year I've joined the ranks of addicted users. I came across a news release today about a new vertical search engine for iPod info called FINDiPod.com. The site offers searches of iPod content drawn from large databases (Teoma, Lycos, AllTheWeb). FINDiPod.com also allows you to open live versions of the pages you find directly into the results list by clicking the "Quick View" link. Clusty also offers this option. Unfortunately, the site offers little documentation. Bottom Line: Worth a look for iPod users and enthusiasts.

    Posted by Gary Price at 2:33 PM | Permalink

    February 2, 2005

    IBM's WebFountain Takes A Blow

    IBM's WebFountain search engine has gotten some attention in the past as a potential Google killer, though it was never released to the public in that way. Instead, the company positioned it as a high-level tool for web data mining. That use just took a blow, given that Factiva has dropped its partnership to use WebFountain for reputation monitoring. Indexing refresh was said to be too slow.

    More here from Information World Review: Factiva to drop IBM's WebFountain. Also see IBM and Search for some links to more information on WebFountain, Monitoring Super Bowl Ad "Buzz" for mentions of some competing reputation tracking tools and IBM's WebFountain Launched–The Next Big Thing? for a past write-up on the IBM-Factiva partnership.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:47 PM | Permalink

    January 26, 2005

    Search Company Will Offer Secure Instant Messenging Service

    News from the IDG News Service that a search company (no, not the one that we've heard rumors about (-:) will make a secured IM (instant message) service available next month.

    According to IDG News, metasearch engine Blowsearch plans to launch a fee-based IM service in February called BlowSearch Secured Messenger. BSM's quarterly fee will be based on the amount of encryption desired.

    $9.95/quarter, 4096-bit encryption $7.95/quarter, 256-bit encryption $2.95/quaeter, 56-bit encryption 56-bit encryption will also be available for free, ad-supported service. All fee-based versions will include support.

    Users will also be able to access AIM (AOL), YIM (Yahoo), ICQ, and MSN Messenger with the Blowsearch client but for encrypted conversations to take place, both parties will need to be BlowSearch Secured Messenger users.

    The company initially will target individual users who want to protect the privacy of their IM communications, and, after doing some further development to the product, the company will also pitch BlowSearch Secured Messenger to government agencies and corporations, said Richard Kahn, the company's chief operating officer. "We provide enterprise-level IM security" over the public IM networks, Kahn said.

    More in the article: BlowSearch to launch IM service featuring encryption

    Posted by Gary Price at 10:45 AM | Permalink

    January 10, 2005

    Montoring Super Bowl Ad "Buzz"

    We're seeing more and more interest in mining the web, blogosphere, and other publications to track buzz about companies, products, people, etc. Most of the major weblog search tools (Waypath, Feedster, Technorati) as well as others like Blabble.com offer these types of services. Factiva even has plans to offer a corporate reputation monitor by using IBM's WebFountain technology.

    A new article in the Cincinnati Business Courier: Intelliseek to watch superbowl 'buzz', you'll read about the Intelliseek's plans to offer (for paying customers) real-time analysis of what people have to say about Super Bowl commercials on blogs, chat rooms, and other sites. What gives an ad buzz? Volume, emotion, appeal factors, and penetration among influential consumers are some of the variables.

    Intelliseek will also put together a panel of "consumer" bloggers to critque ads during the game.

    BlogPulse, a free service from Intelliseek, uses their technology to track buzz and trends in the blogosphere.

    Posted by Gary Price at 7:25 PM | Permalink

    October 23, 2004

    Search Through US Presidental Debate Transcripts

    Want to search the transcripts of the US presidential and vice presidential debates? A new service from askSam makes it possible. Thanks for the tip via ResearchBuzz!

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    October 14, 2004

    Roll Your Own Yahoo Specialty Search Engine

    Nice from Tara Calishain: Searchroller For Yahoo. Want to make a subject-specific search engine that brings back results from only certain web sites? This workaround she's created makes it easy via Yahoo.

    Now if the search engines themselves would just directly offer such features! Ask Jeeves told me this may come later this year as an expansion to the personal search features it's recently launched. Yahoo's also told me this is something it's considering as when its own new search memory features get expanded.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    October 7, 2004

    myGoogle Search Aims To Refine Google Results

    myGoogle Search is NOT from Google, and somehow I suspect the letter asking for a name change will be coming from the lawyers at the Googleplex. But the idea is in the right spirit. Do a Google search, then tick the results you DON'T like to automatically bring back more that match what you DO want. The site's How To Use page has more explaining the concept, with examples.

    The concept isn't new. We've had stuff like this in the past on major search engines, especially at both AltaVista and Excite, if I recall correctly. And the Similar Pages link at Google is even supposed to do something like this, though I've never found Google's implementation very useful.

    Tara spotted the new site and provides here write-up here: User-Guided Search Refining in Google. Be aware that when I tested it today, the site didn't seem to be working properly. Want to comment? Visit our forum thread: myGoogle Search.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    October 4, 2004

    Redball Launches Discussion Search Engine

    Not much to say on this one (they don't have an English language interface yet) but Redball.info from Austria has launched a new engine that claims to provide searchable access to 100,000 newsgroups, and 90,000 mailing lists. Lycos recently launched a "discussion search engine" that Chris reviews here.

    A bit more about Redball.info in this news release.

    Posted by Gary Price at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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