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January 19, 2009

Forget Behavioral Targeting, Body Targeting Could Soon Be 'The Thing"

We soon may be able to give a search engine information on our body size and outstanding features and get true tailored search results for clothing and other dress accessories, if a new Yahoo patent gets integrated into search.

Bill Slawski explains the patent that Yahoo has registered. "A patent filing from Yahoo describes a Fashion Search Engine that can use a 3-dimensional model to present clothing, a way for others to provide clothing recommendations, and a matching algorithm that can help you find clothes that match."

This could be a feature Yahoo could work with some serious retailers to help revive their paid search sales. Create it, sign retailers and white label it - store the world's statistics. Hey prompt them to update when they have lost or out on weight and you could have an audience for weight loss and exercise information as well.

Keep moving in this niched direction, work your own fashion portals where you can gather the people's inofrmation and you move away from the search for generalized information and stride into the social search arena.

Now get Twitter to create a fashion category specifically for you and you are off to the races. You could use it to make sure the right ads are shown when inventory for certain sizes become unavailable - send them to an alternative where their sizes are still available!

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 7, 2007

What Personalization Means to SEOs

In his ClickZ column today, Intrapromote's Eric Dafforn takes a look at the effects of Google's roll-out of personalized search results. We discussed the move on the SEW Blog on Friday.

Dafforn admits that as an SEO professional, he shares concerns of no longer having universal control over the Google results page. But he also thinks the reliance on rankings has held back search marketers and their clients from doing some more advanced marketing. He lists off several events that were predicted to change the face of search, and became the norm.

He predicts that the change will force marketers to think more about end users: "Corny as it might sound, designing sites for users has never been more important for search marketers than it is today, if for no other reason than the single algorithm you're chasing now will soon be 500 million little ones."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:20 AM | Permalink

February 6, 2007

Eurekster Adds Community Features

Personalized/social search provider Eurekster has launched several new community-based features to its swicki platform. The new tools enable users to ask and answer questions within their communities, and those results will be added into search results conducted by other users through the swicki. More details at ClickZ.

A Eurekster swicki uses index data from Yahoo, Ask, Feedster, and other specialized search engines. It adds value with behavioral re-ranking and collaborative filtering, to create results that are more relevant to a given community. It previously did this through implicit factors, using click stream analysis to analyze user behavior, which is reflected in search results and the "buzz cloud," a display of recently searched keywords weighted by popularity.

The new features add explicit factors to the mix, engaging users to come in and contribute their expertise in a Yahoo Answers-type of way. Users can also write their own answer into the search results, which will be displayed once they are approved by the swicki owner.

Eurekster has also launched a swicki Ads service, which allows advertisers to buy ads on multiple swickis individually. Later this year, Eurekster will add a channel-based capability for advertisers to make category-based buys across similar groups of swickis.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:56 AM | Permalink

January 24, 2007

Search Is The Ticket, For Movie Distributors

We thought that superior search would be a high priority for online movie distributors. They are feeling the competitive heat, right?

In reality, there seems to be a correlation between search expertise and how movies are delivered, sold, and a few other attributes. Let's review this entertainment landscape.

When buying or downloading a movie, you typically search title, actor and director. Sometimes you also refine the search by genre, year, MPAA rating or studio. Search results vary tremendously, due mostly to available movie inventory.

The Movie Retailers:

Larger e-commerce sites have set the bar, moving beyond basic search to recommendation engines. Amazon uses its own suggestion paths based on the movies themselves and your current session. When personalized, Amazon makes suggestions related to what you have browsed or purchased earlier. See more in this recent ReadWriteWeb summary.

Netflix and Blockbuster also take pride in their recommendation engines for movie customers. They both offer subscription plans for their large lending libraries. Netflix operates its Cinematch (tm) engine and seeks to improve through its $1 million search contest. Likewise, Blockbuster enables its own engine based on your interests.

The Movie Downloaders:

All the downloaders revert to basic search again. Distributors like Apple's iPod, AOL and MovieLink require customers to pay for each movie download. iPod and AOL offer movies from specific studios, while MovieLink appears to sell or rent more library selections. Regardless of the user interface and sizzle, all provide searches by title/actor and not much more.

When the business model changes, search practices become less consistent. Vongo and Netflix require customers to sign up for subscriptions. Vongo provides basic search, while Netflix uses its recommendation engine. Perhaps these practices reflect industry roots:

* Vongo comes from the TV world, and offers unlimited viewing on your TV or computer. Through a Microsoft deal, they are the exclusive movie provider for Windows Vista this year. Vongo promotes its first run and current movies from Starz.

* Netflix has roots in the e-commerce world, and now delivers online viewing through your browser. Engadget reports on how viewing time is pegged to monthly payments. Netflix plans to roll out thousands of library titles.

The Search Divide:

At this point, there's a dividing line between the searchers and recommenders. At least one stalwart, Lycos, believes entertainment and suggestion-based search matters. They even filed a patent lawsuit this month against Netflix, Blockbuster and Tivo. We don't think this literally places recommendation engines at risk, but goes after how these engines work. It will be important to monitor the outcome.

There's no question that you need differentiators when the movies are all the same, everywhere. If recommendation engines keep customers engaged and involved, there's a good chance that search will be a key factor in movie distributor success for now. With such a competitive field, we'll likely see some parity over time -- and maybe another search leap forward we haven't envisioned yet.

Posted by at 2:05 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

Customizing Your Own Search Engine, Continued

In in today's SearchDay article, Your Search, Your Way, Part Two, SEW correspondent Phil Bradley continues his look at a new generation of search services that let you build sophisticated customized search engines with little or no work—and best of all, at no cost.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:34 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2006

Customizing Your Own Search Engine

Want to build your own search engine that skews toward your favorite sites or topic, but don't have a few billion to start up your own company? No problem: A number of companies are now offering services that let you tweak their technology to create a highly personalized search experience for you and your blog or web site users. More on these services by SEW correspondent Phil Bradley in today's SearchDay article, Your Search, Your Way.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:22 AM | Permalink

August 3, 2006

Rollyo Adds More Functionality

The roll your own search resource Rollyo adds more functionality to its services. If Rollyo has slipped under your radar it's a resource that allows you to create your own personalized search engine (hence 'roll your own') that will search up to 25 sites that you specify. They've improved layout, added blog search, added the ability to take an existing Searchroll and edit it to your own taste and added a 'Rollbar'. The latter allows searchers to incorporate Rollyo into the browser to search any site, add sites to existing Searchrolls on the fly and create new ones based on the site you're on at that point.

Lots of improvements - particularly with the Rollbar, since my use of Rollyo was always limited in inverse proportion to my laziness - I simply couldn't get around to editing my Searchrolls often enough to make them useful. This looks like it should overcome that particular problem. Looking good!

Posted by Phil Bradley at 10:40 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

Google Rankings Depend On Data Center, Geographic Location & Personalization

Aaron Wall has a nice write up on the different ways one searcher can see one set up results, compared to a different search seeing a different set up results, all for the same search query. Aaron explains that three primary things may determine the results sets you see for any particular query. They include the search engine data center you hit, the location of your computer and if you have personalization preference turned on.

Data Centers: Depending on the search engine, especially Google, you may hit a data center that has a different set of indexed pages or a slightly different algorithm. Both have an effect on the search results you see. Google has multiple data centers in order to help return you a quicker response and because it enables them to roll out different indexes and algorithms slowly and to select users. As you can imagine, it will affect the result sets you see.

Geographic Location: Some times, Google tailors the results to your location. So if you are in London, Google may show you results that are more relevant to a person in London. How? They may show more results from .co.uk domains, or from servers hosted in the area or sites that have the language.

Personalization: With most search engines now, you can now sign in, and enable personalization. That means the search engines look at your search history and other preferences and tailor the results specifically for you. As you can imagine, this will have an impact on the results you see for a particular query.

I did not really read Aaron's post, but I suspect it says the same thing I said above. If not, you can blast me in our forums. Read Aaron's post here, it is a nice topic.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:32 AM | Permalink

May 4, 2006

Microsoft's Short Hand Search "Wild Thing" & IM Link Sharing "Nocturnal"

TMCnet.com has an interesting article explaining two new projects Microsoft is working on in relation to MSN Search. The first is something named "Wild Thing" that enables short hand searching. It was first designed for mobile Web searching, to allow users to type short hand, but now if you don't know how to spell "Schwarzenegger" you can type "ar* sc*w mo*" into the engine and it will try to figure it out. The second is something named "Nocturnal" and this shares bookmarks and Web browsing activity with your MSN Messenger buddies. Nocturnal can also be used to learn your Web behavior and tailor search results specifically for you.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:16 PM | Permalink

April 14, 2006

MSN Windows Live Search Getting Answers Service; May Partner Or Acquire Eurekster

Via Threadwatch, Microsoft Gets Social from BusinessWeek has news that Microsoft may be buying or partnering with Eurekster to bring social search features to its MSN Window Live Search service. An question answering service is also coming.

What's MSN Windows Live Search, by the way? Since Microsoft doesn't seem to know if we're supposed to use Windows Live Search (launched last month) or MSN Search (launched in 1998), MSN Windows Live Search is my name for covering both bases at once. Personally, I like how it preserves the MSN brand while adding yet another word to the search service's name. It rolls off the tongue. I'm going to go MSNWindowsLiveSearch someone or something right now.

BusinessWeek confuses the forthcoming Q&A tool with social search. Those are two completely different types of search features/services, of which Q&A is the least important. In fact, it just reeks of another "me too" move that's not going to budge MSN Windows Live Search's usage among searchers.

I mean, LookSmart Live never took off after being launched in 1999. Neither did Ask's Answer Point, which came out in 2000. Google Answers, which was kicked off in 2002 the same week Answer Point closed only generated 0.01 percent of Google visits in November. Yahoo Answers was launched only in December, so perhaps it will grow. But it probably won't. Wondir is still going, but it's hardly had the growth and notice of some social sites like YouTube.

Real social/personalized search coming to MSNWLS is much more important, because it really is something I expect will take us into that next generational jump. Eurekster certainly has plenty of experience in the space, having ushered in the current round of social search attention since it launched back in 2004.

Here are some key stories from me on social and personalized search, if you really want to come up to speed on changes:

FYI, this will be MSN's second time around with a social search feature. In 1999, they carried Direct Hit results, which was a rudimentary form of social search based on tracking aggregate clicks. Direct Hit results were dropped sometime before 2002.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:10 AM | Permalink

April 5, 2006

Yahoo Enhances My Web with "People Centric" Tools

Yahoo's My Web offers both personal and social search features, but until now you've had to go through Yahoo 360 to invite others to share information. Later tonight, Yahoo will be dropping that requirement, allowing you to add anyone as a contact if they have saved public information in their My Web accounts.

"This is a launch to simplify the addition of contacts," said Tim Mayer, Director of Product Management Yahoo! Search. "It's about lowering the barriers to entry to mainstream users so they can experience social search."

The idea is to allow people to quickly build up contacts that have saved and tagged useful information without having to make explicit, personal contact with them.

Yahoo will also be introducing a new feature called "contact labels" that allow you to create small groups and only share material with people within those groups—for example, friends, family, co-workers and so on. The feature is similar to one offered in Yahoo's photo-sharing service, Flickr. Labeling your contacts in theory increases the amount of control you have over what is shared with whom.

Yahoo has begun the process of rolling out the changes to My Web 2.0, and the new features should be fully enabled by midnight pacific time tonight.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:00 PM | Permalink

March 22, 2006

A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines

Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 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.

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